Periods of Bright Enlightenment

 Song 772: This week the playlist applauds Seasons in the Sun by Terry Jacks, written by Jacques Brel and Rod McKuen, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Back in the middle of the Windy City frigid months of early 1974, my wife and I waved farewell to Evanston, IL, and moved down to a moderate and comfortable neighborhood in Atlanta, GA. A couple of months later, this Jacks fellow started reminding us all that spring was in the air, and it didn't take long to learn, and then sing along with, his rhymes about having joy and having fun during the seasons in the sun. Living in that area, we did get to hear all the birds more clearly when they were singing in the sky, and five decades later, now residing in a semi-rural area, I also have the pleasure of hearing those flyers crooning in the nearby airspace. In fact, my Western Dreams CD project for this year will include a tune in which I ask a blackbird to Sing on the Window (the song’s title).

Repetitive Neurotic Crash

 Song 771: This week the playlist recognizes 19th Nervous Breakdown by The Rolling Stones, written by Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. At first, when the Fab Four rocked my world in February of 1964, I mostly paid attention to them and a few other similar British Invaders, but then, in the summer of 1965, I tuned into a rougher English quintet that became their top competitors by expressing a lack of Satisfaction (Song 256). When those moving rockers released this single nine months later, during the winter of 1966, I soon could sing along with it too. Having a mother who had had numerous nervous breakdowns, the chorus lines had some depth for me, though I did not truly understand the term at the time. Back then, a lot of people saw mental problems as an indication that someone was never brought up right, but, in reality, the ones who were always spoiled did not inevitably slide over the mental edge. I got to a much clearer understanding of nervous breakdowns a couple of decades ago, and I try to pass that understanding along to others with my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups. You can get a copy of the latest edition of that book from Amazon by clicking on the title.

Mood Stabilizer

 Song 770: This week the playlist puts the spotlight on Lithium by Nirvana, written by Kurt Cobain, and you can find a cool YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. When this single arrived in the summer of 1992, I thought it sounded good, but it didn't grab my attention the way a couple of other Nirvana ones did - one before, called Come as You Are (Song 513), and one after, called Heart-Shaped Box (Song 200). When the Cobain suicide story unfolded two years after it came along, I still had no understanding of the pain that people on the low end of bipolar disorder suffer, and at the time, I disparaged Kurt as another cry-baby junkie. I suspected that the tune's title actually slyly admitted Mr. KC's prescription, and his later actions might have indicated the drug's inadequacy at helping the problems in his head. Understanding these mental dynamics now way more than I did then, I get how a guy could be so happy, so ugly, so lonely, so excited and so horny. On a side note, if you'd like to know more about these mental conditions, I share my own experience of learning about them in my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups, and you can get a copy from Amazon of the latest edition of it by clicking on the title.

Bipolar Disorder

 Song 769: This week the playlist comes around to Manic Depression by the Jimi Hendrix Experience, written by Jimi, and you can find a YouTube video of it by clicking on the title. Jimi included this gem in his first released album, which arrived in the U.S. in the late summer of 1967, but I would not get to hear the tune until I bought the record in the fall of 1970. I first encountered the term in the song's title two years earlier, soon after the beginning of my senior HS year, and what I read at the time was that those with the condition tended to make mountains out of molehills. My first thought in reaction to that phrase was that everyone does that to some extent, and I saw no reason to give any further attention to the ailment. When I got Jimi's album, I gave it lots of spins on the turntable, and I liked all of what I heard, including this diagnosis, but I wondered if Mr. Hendrix was playing a word game with the term. I knew that we songwriters sometimes do that, so I didn't necessarily connect him with the condition in the piece. When, three decades later, I got to the point of having to understand the nature of that problem, I thought it quite likely that he did have bipolar disorder. Then, about another decade later, as I figured out the connection between the manic phase and a charismatic quality that manic types sometimes exude, seeing video footage of JH performing made it clear to me that Manic Depression had indeed captured his soul. If you'd like to know more about manic depression/bipolar disorder, I share my own experience of learning about it in my book Expecting the Broken Brain to Do Mental Pushups, and you can get a copy from Amazon of the latest edition of it by clicking on the title.