This is Elizabeth Zharnoff, aka The Charismatic Voice. She's an opera singer and vocal analyst whose videos I have been watching recently. And this analysis of, "All Apologies," by Nirvana, has been lingering in my mind since I watched it a few days ago for a couple reasons.
It speaks to the emotional cost to artists of delivering performances of music, especially singing, if you're giving an honest, full, and deeply emotional rendition.
It's obviously not the only art form that takes an emotional toll, but I think it's one we can all understand very clearly, because we listen to and love music so much. We know the emotion a song evokes for us, but I rarely think about what it's like for a singer to have to get in that mood - whatever it is - and conjure those feelings and take that emotional journey, whether they want to or not, in order to sing that song.
I transcribed a portion of the video where she speaks to this. It starts at about 10:40:
"I think we have to have so much respect and kindness for musicians, especially for singers, because they're dwelling in these deep, sad feelings, often wells of anger, just wells of very strong emotion, quite frequently, to find the message to communicate to you (and to me) and dwelling in that, I think, it can mess with you.
"It's very important at the same time, I think, for a singer to get into that and analyze those feelings, to sit with them so that they are able to come from a place of honesty and introspection. I think it's extremely important as well that singers have support so that they can get out of that area and have a more balanced life. Hopefully have friends, family, maybe even counseling, that helps to continue to uphold them because it can be so easy to be dragged down by that thing that they are expressing over and over.
"Imagine if it at one point in your life, you had the most sad experience and you wrote a song about it and then you had to perform that song for the next 30 years. Imagine having to relive that moment in all truth for 30 years on stage on tour in front of an audience and every single night, that would mess with you."
This is something I have largely taken for granted in the music I love. These immense gifts that singers and musicians give the world, I've just been like, "Thanks! Here's $.02 and now I will use your song to evoke emotions whenever *I* need them."
It's almost never occurred to me to think about how difficult that must be to manifest over and over, although I have thought about it when listening to Adele, specifically on, "Someone Like You" and "Hello" - because, oh my god, how does she perform those songs and not break down sobbing?? I can barely listen to them without crying. If I try to sing along, it's sobtown USA.
Well, she's a professional. :) Hell yeah, Adele.
The other thing Elizabeth mentions in this same video is about being mindful of the stories we're telling ourselves in our minds.
And while being appreciative of artists' sacrifices and contributions is basically a nice-to-have, I think this one is more of an existential skill.
At about 16:15, she says:
"I saw this in the lyrics sheet before I did this analysis, it's, 'All in all is all we are,' and it's repeated over and over. I wasn't sure how it would be set and I love this part. It reflects so much to me. I'm sure it means something different to everyone but for me, there's this sort of cyclical pattern that's been happening in the instruments throughout and then his voice has joined that pattern, and it feels like those stories that we tell ourselves.
"I think it's really important to recognize what story you're telling yourself inside of your head because there are stories you'll tell yourself about what other people think of you that are just completely not true. Or they might be true. But often we don't know if they're true or not, and we'll continue down stories that cause us a lot of pain.
"We will be telling ourselves, 'Oh so and so doesn't like me or so and so did something to purposefully hurt me,' and those stories, I think they can take a person down a toilet bowl loop that is really hard to come back from. It's so hard to stop the story though."
"Stopping the story" - one that is causing distress and is based on cognitive distortions - is a critical skill and involves many of the techniques taught in Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) for coping with emotion dysregulation.
The idea is to be aware when you are in distress, identify the story you're telling yourself, and then interrogate that story to ascertain what is true or not true, what is unknown or cannot be known, and bring your thinking back to reality.
Of course, then you have to cope with reality, which is probably why your brain decided it would be preferable to exist in a situation you made up and could control rather than whatever upsetting circumstances you're actually dealing with.
I recently read the wikipedia page on coping, which I highly recommend for anyone interested in their or others' coping mechanisms.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coping
I was genuinely surprised by the information available. I have paid therapists a LOT of money, and yet, I don't know, maybe it's the format, but there is a lot of insight that I did not have and am already benefiting from, such as being able to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy coping mechanisms, and why and how unhealthy coping mechanisms work and don't work.
To bring it back around and conclude this, (because I could go on for a very long time on the topic of mental health,) this is why I am so interested in music, and specifically singing, beyond the casual listening experience. I have used it in my coping toolbox for most of my life. I have used it to feel the feelings I need when I need them, to change my feelings and mood, to vent anger or sadness, to celebrate, to motivate.
Singing is a tremendous grace and gift to the world, and I feel richer for better understanding where it comes from and the many ways it can affect and manifest in our lives.
I want to finish with one of my favorite quotes of all time.When asked why she sings, Janis Joplin replied:
"Well, because I get to experience a lot of feelings. It's really a lot of fun. You get to feel all kinds of things that you could hardly find if you went to parties all year round and made it with everyone you ever wanted to. Because you get to feel things that are in your imagination and another end of truth. That's why I like music because it's created from and - as it's happening - creates feelings."