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Underground > Radio & Music >

"If it wasn't for music I'd be dead."

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19:14 / 25.02.02

I've said it before. Have you? I've heard this quote sicerely spoken by at least 50 different people. Maybe it's just the people I hang with, I don't know, but it seems to be quite the popular quote.

If it wasn't for music, how would your life be different from how it is today? Would you be dead? Depressed? Lacking a giant part of yourself? Unable to realte to any of humanity? Did music literally save your life?

Is it a good thing that so many people (especially our youth) feel that they'd be dead if it wasn't for music? Does this provide us with stronger support for how great music is, or for how alienated youth wouldn't be here if it wasn't for their favorite band and that this is a Problem?

Discuss.

19:27 / 25.02.02

listening to my favorite bands and playing my guitar has gotten me out of a few emotional dark spots..

but i wouldnt go as far saying it has saved my life (not without a few pints in me anyway).

humm.. without music.. i'd be different.

much much different...

..

now if someone could reply to this thread properly..

Matthew Fluxington

19:43 / 25.02.02

C'mon, you two. Yr emo-ing up the place... could you at least crack a window open while you have this sort of discussion?

Anyway - last night, a DJ saved my life. Really!

20:57 / 25.02.02

Flux, while I admire your usage of "emo-ing" as an adjective, I find your sarcasm to be feeble. Or maybe I just wanted to use the word "feeble" because it sounds funny to me at the moment. Regardless, you're ignoring the serious issues that I brought up for discussion in my third paragraph. It is true that many of our youth feel they'd be dead without music. Is this reflective of a larger problem? What does it mean? What does it say about our society? etc. etc. etc.

20:59 / 25.02.02

quote:now if someone could reply to this thread properly

autopilot disengaged

09:44 / 26.02.02

art is a subjective experience.

people exaggerate.

end thread.

09:44 / 26.02.02

rock and roll can save your mortal soul, huh?

music has empathised, sympathised and energised me over the years. last night i was supposed to go to an indie/riot grrl gig, but i passed it over to listen to coil - the atmosphere of their music is certainly help guide my new direction in life.

09:44 / 26.02.02

Sounds evoke emotion. Song lyrics, even crappy ones, seem much more profound when attached to music. Look at the Lyrics of Yer Life thread. It reads like pages and pages of bad poetry because the music isn't there. But when coupled with music those crappy little poems become something more. Sometimes, especially when you're young, a song can capture a mood or feeling that you've been unable to deal with or express on your own and it makes it easier, knowing that someone else has felt that way too.

09:44 / 26.02.02

On a side note, Rage, the way you posed the questions at the start of this thread make it feel like a homework assignment. I think that, and the fact* that you never seem to stick around and contribute to your own discussions, may have a little something to do with the lack of serious responses this thread has recieved.

*Maybe not a fact but a it seems to me.

09:44 / 26.02.02

i should add here, in response to one of the original questions, that putting too much trust in a band can be, to say the least, unwise. musicians are only human, and you're likely to be disappointed or devastated when you eventually find that out. a person can write a brilliant, emotional song that sums up everything you feel and still be an utter tosser.

and some bands milk the 'alienation' market for all they can get....

The Return Of Rothkoid

09:44 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by shortfatdyke:
you're likely to be disappointed or devastated when you eventually find that out. a person can write a brilliant, emotional song that sums up everything you feel and still be an utter tosser.You betcha. Happened when I met a guy I'd thought was a total champ, musically: he turned out to be the biggest "where's my people?" kind of rock wanker. Bad.

I wouldn't say music's saved my life. I'd miss it, yes, but it's not something that's stopped me from offing myself. It's made me feel sadder on occasion - I'm more likely to use music as a tool to enhance feeling shithouse, as are most indiekids who've ever had a "feeling sad" tape (admittedly, consisting of most of the Cure's Pornography, but I digress) - though I've occasionally used it to make me happy. In some way, it's a tool, like a shirt that you think makes you look hot, or a nifty haircut.

Put it this way: am I going to entrust my life to Morrissey? Fuck no. For all the "yes! I feel that too!" I'm aware that it's a product, as is most music. The whole "selling out/corporate versus DIY" argument aside, I think that, as SFD says, to hang so heavily on someone who's most likely as flawed as yourself, and is also most likely putting a very edited version of themselves on display, is a really dangerous thing. If I put my future in the hands of Will Oldham or the like, I shudder to think what'd happen...

It means different things to different people, as autopilot disengaged says. And it changes with perspective: the people who believe that music saved their life may not say the same thing tomorrow, or next week, or next year.

Unless, of course, Sting is playing for your organ-replacement surgery. In which case it'd be true, I guess.

13:07 / 26.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Ragel Hinewater and The Magic Ring:
If it wasn't for music, how would your life be different from how it is today? Would you be dead? Depressed? Lacking a giant part of yourself? Unable to realte to any of humanity? Did music literally save your life?

<Murder City Devils>

Cryin' over my homework,
When I was 12 years old,
woulda slit my wrists if it wasn't for..
ROCK N ROLL!!!

LEMURIA RISING!
LEMURIA RISING!

</Murder City Devils>

Ahem.

Well, maybe I wouldn't be *dead* as such, but I'd be a totally far-gone depressed geek with absolutely no sense of cool and no social life.

(insert 'so, not much change then' gag at your leisure)

Music, far more than any other medium, has the ability to inject attitude, energy, independence, emotion and ideas into people's heads in a matter of seconds, and is thus an essential part of all worthwhile youthful experience. Or something.

17:41 / 26.02.02

The reason I sometimes fail to contriubte to my own discussions is because I often get slammed for the things that I say. I'm just not as smart, experienced, cultured, logical, old, whatever, as most of you are. The thing is, when you guys slam my shit, you're usually right. I learn from it. I see many of my posts as learning experiences. Experiments, even. They help me.

I meant for this post to be serious though. When I posted it, it seemed like a good discussion. Rather then trying to make it sound like a homework assignment, I was trying trying to make it sound like a discussion on music.

Rather than making fun of 12 year olds who slit their wrists while listening to Trent Reznor because only He understands, I was considering issues like this one as serious problems that needed to be looked at. Sure, some people exaggerate, some would seriously be dead if it wasn't for music.

Deconstruct.

18:16 / 26.02.02

Please don't put your life in the hands of a rock 'n' roll band. Seriously. It's a bad idea.

18:53 / 26.02.02

Well, for sure --in the 20th century at least-- music seems to have been the medium wherein youth works out its identity crises. And fighting for an identity either is or can feel like a life-or-death situation. Is that what you're talking about?

I know that when I was young i.e., a teenager, not the young and attractive mid-thirties person I am now, I had a lot of my identity invested in my music; and now looking back that definitely seems like a function of my youth, because music is not anything like fundamental to me now. And by the way I'm not saying that growing out of music is a sign of maturity, I'm saying that even for a basically non-musical person like me, music was hugely important to me at that time of my life.

But if you are talking about music saving people from actual death, I think that depends on the people and not the music. Some people, for whatever reason, come closer to death than others... if you're not really in the shadow thereof, then music doesn't need to save you. I mean, I was never even close to death as a teen and a good thing because I had abysmally cheesy taste in music.

04:31 / 27.02.02

Music is probably the biggest thing in my life, outside of family and friends it is absolutely the most important thing to me. My records are my only posessions that I care about (except for my cat, but I don't consider her a posession so much). The Stooges are more important to me than Kerouc; the Makers are more important to me than Faulkner, the Cramps are more important to me than Socrates, Wu-Tang Clan is more important to me than Richard Ellis; Billie Holiday conveys more emotion with one note than Maya Angelou does with a whole fucking book. Rock'n'roll is more important to me than my job. I've broken up with a girl before because she didn't want me to be any sort of musician in any sort of a band, and I loved her, or at least thought I did. I've been through a lot with my childhood and shit and the only thing that has ever done any good with me coping with anything was my music. As long as I got a good song in my head that I can sing or whistle all day I'm doing alright. I don't know if I'd be dead or alive if it weren't for music, but I sure as hell wouldn't be the Kent I know and love.

The Natural Way

06:37 / 27.02.02

I suspect that any adult who seriously expresses the sentiment that informs this thread is a bit of a huge anus.

Yes?

08:37 / 27.02.02

yes music keeps me alive. yes i can say that and i don't even like emo, so there. and i can feel stronger when i hear le tigre singing 'fyr' really fuckin loud and it keeps me strong. i couldn't live without my music. what would i do without pavement? see i don't even know because i can't even imagine it.
now i'm gonna be all pretentious and quote mogwai : "cause this music can put a human being in a trance like state and deprive it for the sneaking feeling of existing. cause music is bigger than words and wider than pictures."

12:51 / 27.02.02

yeah.

13:35 / 27.02.02

As Sting said at the Brits: "Music is its own reward."

But then, he can say that, because he's got £38 squillion in the bank.

When I was 19 my stereo bust. I was devastated, and raced round all my friends and family begging them to lend me even the tiniest tape deck because I couldn't bear to be without music.

Even then I wouldn't have really felt anything like "if it wasn't for music I'd be dead." I might have said it and thought I meant it, but I didn't really.

Now? Music is very important to me. But it's only a small facet of what kicks out my jams. Without music I might not have done a lot of things, or met certain people, or behaved in some ways. But dead? No. Not even spiritually. I'd have found something else.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:07 / 28.02.02

It's not very socially acceptable these days to admit that you place that kind of emotional store in music, is it?

But fuck it. I do. I do I do I do. I don't care what Runce thinks. I think, while as an adult you're unlikely to ever feel that music has literally saved your life, and while you tend to over-dramatise and exaggerate your life experiences while (and after) you're an adolescent - I think in spite of all that, music changes lives, and in doing so, I like to think that it saves them. I can't know for sure, but I know that at various times I have *felt as if* music was close to the only thing keeping me going. I don't really care if it's immature or ill-advised or hopelessly goofy - it just feels real. You can feel the realness.

In fact, now I want a t-shirt or at least a badge or sticker that says Music Saves Lives...

[ 28-02-2002: Message edited by: Flyboy ]

The Natural Way

08:18 / 28.02.02

Actually, in hindsight, I was being a miserable bastard.

Y'see, I was sitting at work, feeling real crap about friends resigning, redundancies, not getting paid and evil company mergers...

And then I listened to a song....

08:41 / 28.02.02

I certainly don't think Rage deserved a bashing for starting this thread (Bio K9, you judgmental jigga, I'm looking at you).

Well, thats nice.

I don't think I was bashing Rage at all. The point of my second post was that the way the questions were posed, followed by "discuss", made it feel a bit like some highschool brainstorming assignment. Also, I seem to recall a couple of her threads drying up and dying because

A) the only answers they recieved were flippant (ala Flux, above) and

B) she doesn't always stick around to guide the thread in the direction she origionaly intended.

I think its interesting that you chose to pick me for "bashing" this thread when I gave an honest answer to at least some of the questions she asked in the origional post. Ignore the guy thats pimping music from audiogalaxy and starting 10 page threads about his favorite song lyrics when he says "Yr emo-ing up the place" and autopilot when he adds "people exaggerate. end thread". But, you know, whatever. Its cool.

[ 28-02-2002: Message edited by: Bio K9 ]

08:41 / 28.02.02

quote:Originally posted by Rizla Year Zero:

<Murder City Devils>

Cryin' over my homework,
When I was 12 years old,
woulda slit my wrists if it wasn't for..
ROCK N ROLL!!!

LEMURIA RISING!
LEMURIA RISING!

</Murder City Devils>

A couple years ago Lois Maffeo (acoustic singer girl of K records fame) wrote an article in The Stranger (seattles biggest free weekly paper) about how the MCD were all show, no soul. She slammed them for all their rock show trappings (tattoos and sideburns, mostly) and basically said they dont mean it, man. Spencer responded in the letter colum a week later, telling her to take her ass back to Olympia and leave them the hell alone (if you don't like it, don't come, basically). It was pretty funny at the time. I wish I'd saved the article and his response. Anyway, thats where the line about "another boring girl/ with an acoustic guitar" comes from, FYI.

Regrettable Juvenilia

08:41 / 28.02.02

Ah - Bio, re-reading the whole of the thread, I take your point. It should have been more general, but the "you never stick around to guide your threads" bit jumped out at me, and I somehow missed that you'd already given oen answer. Message edited, with my apologies - if you want to do the same, feel free.

autopilot disengaged

08:41 / 28.02.02

yeah, well...

my initial post was a little... pre-emptive. but the way rage phrased the question bugged me. plus, i didn't actually think she was being serious - with the comedy response to flux etc, the 'tood.

cop killer's response was a bit of a turnaround; did make me think, maybe re-evalute what i'd previously seen as a thread that would surley collapse under the weight of its own banality any moment.

now, what i'd say is that art, amongst its other functions, can soothe us when we're hurt, and even help us heal. but that doesn't mean it works alone - and this is what i had the problem with - i can see that if the title of the thread had been 'if it wasn't for music i'd be suicidal...' - i wouldn't have had the same knee-jerk response.

because, yeah - art can be incredible fuel, that can make a real important input into a person's life - granted. but as for death... well, ok - when you're blue and there's no one to turn to (or no one you want to talk to) - sure, it can go some way recharging yr soul, remind you there's still beauty in the world, people who've suffered too, whatever...

but: even if art brings you back from the very brink of terminal depression - i have a real problem with any philosophy that doesn't give full credit to the individual for their actions. you went thru hard times, and art got you thru it? no. don't give all the credit away to the artists. you did something for yrself here, too. they helped. but turning away from self-destruction and fighting on is a brilliant, noble thing to do. and people should be proud of that.

if art is medicine, it is not a cure-all, quick fix, magic solution, but a course of supportive treatment to enable a person to better go onward and upward with their lives.

not to devalue the importance of art - after all, i am a struggling artist - but to safeguard against everybody else being typecast as a passive audience.

anyway, that's my take on cassavetes...

10:09 / 28.02.02

Emo did nothing to stop Rod Hull falling off that roof...

The Return Of Rothkoid

12:47 / 28.02.02

But maybe it's why he went off?

06:17 / 02.03.02

you silly fucks. is anyone else as interested in this thread as i am- the ways in which communication gets botched on the computer- some people seem to have more credibility thatn others. sorry wrong topic.

i think some have more connection with their music than others. i can see them proclaiming that music saved their lives. (it's just such an extreme sentiment) being a naturally solitary person, my music has been my best friend more than once. and i think that life would not be as livable with out it. but props to those who pointed out that it's more about strength of character.

06:17 / 02.03.02

Music has always been part of my life, and will always be a part of my life. My Dad used to be a DJ and he has really instilled the love of music in all of us kids at a very young age - I got my first record player and rock n roll records the Christmas I turned 5. I used to sit in this big chair my parents had down in our basement back then, with my Dad's huge headphones on and listen to the American Top 40 every weekend.

I remember whizzing along the Florida panhandle in the car with my parents and older brother late one night when I was a little girl. "Barracuda" by Heart was playing and I remember even then thinking how I really liked that song, and the guitar, and I liked that girls had made the song (I still fucking love that song).

I used to dance around the living room and sing at the top of my lungs every weekend, when my Dad would play his records. When I got older I just went upstairs to my room and did the exact thing. And, truth be told, just yesterday I went home to my flat in Praha and did the same thing.

I cannot imagine my life without music. I know I would rather be blind. I have thought about this. Music has made me cry, it's cheered me up, it's pumped me up, it's gotten me all googly - eyed and romantic, it can suit the mood, I can jump up and dance, I can sing my little heart out to it, and it's just just wonderful. I am 28 now and I love music just as much, if not more than I did when I was a teenager, or a little girl.

It is not just a phase. Music is very necessary, and I will stand by it, because I love it quite dearly.

06:17 / 02.03.02

'without music life would be a mistake'

nietzche(pardon spelling if wrong)

06:17 / 02.03.02

Music is obviously very, very important - but it's never actually saved my life. I don't think so, anyway.

One of the reasons people are perhaps having trouble taking the 'life-saving' concept seriously is the general tendency, when discussing music and musical preferences, to slip into exaggerated tribal hyperbole. Y'know, the whole 'god, Britney's sooo shit, she deserves to die horribly' or 'Travis, they're the worst thing in the world ever' stuff? We don't really mean it (at least I assume we don't); it's just a slightly histrionic way of expressing how passionately we feel about X or Y music.

So... when someone says they'd be 'dead' if it weren't for music, one tends to take it in the same vein ie. not literally.

autopilot disengaged

10:08 / 02.03.02

especially when it's essentially, even at its most life-saving, a palliative - ie. it might make an individual less prone to hurt themselves, or give them extra NRG to escape depression, be inspired or whatever.

i don't know... we live in relative wealth and comfort... and statements like "without music i'd be dead" make me uncomfortable when looking at the poverty elsewhere - both geographically and historically.

05:55 / 03.03.02

quote:Originally posted by autopilot disengaged:
i don't know... we live in relative wealth and comfort... and statements like "without music i'd be dead" make me uncomfortable when looking at the poverty elsewhere - both geographically and historically.
I bet kids in fourth world countries* say things like "If I couldn't bang these clay pots together and sing, I'd kill myself." Its all relative to your situation.

*No, not the ones on Apokalypse, you jackass.

05:55 / 03.03.02

Thinking about this, I just realised that I have very few quotes from poetry or philosophy lodged in my memory, but can spew out the lyrics to about a million different songs. What does that say regarding inspiration/life-saving?

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