The Most Beautiful Song About Being Depressed Ever

Go ahead, push you luck, find out how much love the world can hold,
Once upon a time I had control, and reigned my soul in tight.
Well the whole truth, it's like the story of a wave unfurled,
But I held the evil of the world,
So I stopped the tide,
froze it up from inside,
And it felt like a winter machine that you go through and then,
You catch your breath and winter starts again,
And everyone else is spring bound.

And when I chose to live, there was no joy,
it's just a line I crossed,
It wasn't worth the pain my death would cost,
So I was not lost or found.
And if I was to sleep, I knew my family had more truth to tell.
And so I traveled down a whispering well,
To know myself through them.

Growing up, my mom had a room full of books, and hid away in there,
Her father raging down a spiral stair,
Till he found someone, most days his son,
And sometimes I think my father, too, was a refugee,
I know they tried to keep their pain form me,
They could not see what it was for.
But now I'm sleeping fine,
Sometimes the truth is like a second chance,
I am the daughter of a great romance,
And they are the children of the war.

Well the sun rose with so many colors,
it nearly broke my heart,
It worked me over like a work of art,
And I was a part off all that.
So go ahead, push your luck, say what it is you gotta say to me,
We will push on into that mystery,
And it'll push right back, and there are worse things than that,
Cause for every price, and every penance that I
could think of,
It's better to have fallen in love,
Than never to have fallen at all,
Cause when you live in a world,
well it gets into who you thought you'd be,
And now I laugh at how the world changed me,
I think life chose me
after all.

Dar Williams, songstress extraordinaire. From her The Green World cd, 2000. I couldn't listen to this song then, without weeping, and many days I couldn't listen to it at all. My husband was furious, but it wasn't about not loving the music. I think it's a measure of how much 'better' I am that I can listen to this song so happily, even eagerly now.

I'm not sure about the line breaks, but that's kind of the way it is in a Dar song.

Not Some Iridescent Grateful Butterfly

Change is hard and scary. Even if we know it's good for us, it still stings. Even "good change" can wreck havoc with mind, body, spirit, sense of self, sense of humor. I love Dar's song about change -- I love how she pokes fun at the "mystic" nature of change, how we can try to make ourselves feel better by trying to make ourselves and our experiences more important. I also love how her song isn't called "It Will Be Alright" -- as in, things will get better, you're going to be okay -- in the future. Her song is about now. You are alright now. You are safe, okay, alive, breathing, with the program, part of the universe, part of the flow of time, right now. Even if you feel like crap, even though it hurts (and some days it just does) you are okay the way you are. Feel bad, feel good, it's alright. Thanks Dar. 'Marching on with this target on my chest. Oh, yes!'

It's Alright

(Dar Williams, from Promised Land)

I know change is a bad thing,
Breaks me down into a sorry sad thing
Not some iridescent grateful butterfly.
I'll resist with defiance,
Not the valor of a mystic silence,
I will fight the dizzy spiral of goodbye.

And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright

Please don't say you don't love me,
Never dangle any sword above me,
With the kind of change that severs me in two.
Give me amberizing glasses.
Could you slow it down like molasses,
As I salvage my old self away from you.

And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.

Because I have seen insane things,
All those grand, historic paintings.
Morning light on polished swords and burnished pride.
Anxious smiles encased in whalebone,
Spines of steel from head to tailbone,
Cannons poised to blast the turning of the tide.

It's a sad and a strange thing.
But it's time and I am changing.
Into something good or bad, well that's your guess.
I'm my own sovereign nation,
Dedicated to a transformation,
Marching on with this target on my chest, oh yes,
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.
And it's alright, it's alright, it's alright.


Listen to this track on Rhapsody Music.

Change for me today looks like exercising, resting, being gentle with myself, letting go of control, all things that should be good for me, but are still scary because they are unknown. I dare you to look.

Turn and Face the Strange

(David Bowie, born David Robert Jones, 8 January 1947)

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell t hem to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

I know it's 'strain' not 'change' -- but it works my way, too. Maybe he wouldn't mind.

Sunshine Almost Always Makes Me High

John Denver, you wrote a beautiful song. Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry. Thanks for thinking of all of us challenged by darkness, and writing about sunshine for us.

This is the view from my study window this morning. On a day like today, I don't even see the telephone wires.

I'm reading a fantastic book, Agnes's Jacket, by Gail Hornstein, and getting ideas for putting this blog together.

Hornstein writes people who have been mental health patients, "...when patients try to talk about what they've experienced, people turn away and don't want to be witnesses." Maybe I'll try to do something about that, with this blog.