What is it About the Blues?

Which came first--the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?
Nick Hornby - "High Fidelity"

What's the deal with sad songs? More to the point, why do I like them so much? Why do they seem to be so much more compelling, appealing, and relatable to me than happy songs?

My intensely critical, heartless-bastard side says that I like sad songs because I like the convenience of taking a dip into the wellspring of human pain and suffering, and hopping out whenever the temperature gets too cold. This, in fact, has always been the classic irony of the white man's relationship with the blues. Sure, I'll sing along at the top of my lungs to Robert Johnson's "Come On In My Kitchen", but do I really know the first thing about paying dues in a 2-room shotgun shack, working my fingers to the bone through 12-hour days in the fields, living through appalling racial oppression and abusive conditions? Absolutely not. Frankly, my ancestors helped cause a lot of the pain that Robert Johnson was singing about.

But my wiser side says that I like sad songs because I really do empathize with what the artist is expressing. My life has never come close to resembling Robert Johnson's, but I've known painful heartbreak, like him. I've been cheated and lied to, like him. And I've had a drink or two to feel better, like him. These are visceral, practically universal themes.

It seems to me that art (and especially in music) is all about provocation: a concept or an idea creates an emotional response within. This response can give you a unique window into the human condition. Listen to a song, and you cross borders and cultures, races and heritages, time and space. And so, I don't need to live through every hardship Robert Johnson did in order to feel his blues. I feel them, and maybe I've got some of my own to sing, too.

That's why I like sad songs.