So I’ve been having a difficult time lately with my depression or as I like to call it, my weltschmerz. The word weltschmerz is a German word that translates literally to world weariness. This describes the feeling that I get when the weight of the world bears down on me. Luckily, I have music to help get me past that feeling. In today’s episode of Cara’s Music Corner, I am going to talk about music that sounds as equally depressed as I am at times. This kind of music stimulates the part of my brain that allows me to therapeutically channel my emotion or sadness into something creative like writing a poem or playing my acoustic guitar. Before getting to the music though I first want to discuss the things that are depressing me. I am having a really difficult time with all the masks coverings, social distancing, and everything shutdown. And now that I have learned that if Joe Biden becomes president his plan is to make face coverings mandatory on a national level. So there is no foreseeable end to a reality without masks. Here are a few questions that depressed me that I will now ask you the reader:
1. What was the last live show at your favorite venue that you ever saw? (I added the word ever because as I alluded to in my previous post, “When The Music’s Over” there is a very real possibility that your favorite venue will no longer exist if these mask coverings and social distancing laws aren’t lifted soon.)
2. When was the last time you ever received a smile from another human that you didn’t know while out in public?
3. When was the last time that you have ever been hugged by somebody that wasn’t a significant other or family member?
I really need touch and smiles and hugs. I also need to read lips to understand what people are saying to me due to years of unchecked hearing damage. I love facial expressions just like baby’s do. I can’t imagine being a baby in this day and age where all the humans it meets are faceless, expressionless little robots that are to be feared for their humanness. The mask and social distancing mandates are teaching us to be afraid of others and their mouths. Not having feedback by way of laughs, smiles, frowns and sighs has literally made my life hell.I feel like I am catching autism in slow motion and the inability to read other’s facial expressions. I can’t check out books at the library, I can’t enjoy going to my favorite coffee shop anymore (it still hasn’t reopened), Even most of the hiking trails I go to require me to wear a mask. I need oxygen. I need to breathe. I need touch, and hugs, and smiles, and laughs. I think that the masks and social distancing rules put in place have contributed to skyrocketing suicidal rates,violent crime, thievery, and vandalism. The mandatory shutdowns have helped drive up homelessness and just plain craziness. I ride my bike everyday to work and have observed a real change in driver’s habits during this “pandemic.” Drivers have been speeding and weaving more and more. With less traffic on the roads it would seem people think it is ok to drive like an inebriated Nascar driver at every instance. I understand the frustration.
Is the world death rate from the coronavirus a big enough threat to the existence of our species that we should sluice off our fundamental abilities to breathe adequate amounts of O2, give and take hugs, and stop us from learning from physical books? You have a .01003846% chance of dying from the coronavirus. Guess what the death rate of being born is..?
So let’s look at preventive practices we are having rammed down our throats. What are the long term effects of not breathing enough oxygen everyday? I already have experienced a greater number of headaches and little bouts of dizziness at work from wearing a mask all day. I should also say I work in a unconditioned room lifting up to 25kg bags of herb. I work almost exclusively by myself and am isolated for 99% of the time. Does wearing a mask make any sense for me? I dunno, I’m told over and over again that I am being selfish by not wanting to wear my mask. I am told this by the same news sources that said there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Do I believe the virus exists? Of course. Do I think it is anywhere near the existential threat to me or my species that the news manufacturers? To that I offer a resounding no. I just see so many things being set up for a new set of controls to be installed. Think dystopian novels. Huxley’s, Brave New World comes to mind. As does, Ira Levin’s dystopina novel This Perfect Day. Advances in surveillance and facial recognition and a digital dollar are the perfect storm to create a Bigger Brother.
Most of ya’ll don’t care. You have your phones, and video games, and chat rooms, Pornhub, memes, facebooks, and twitters. A lot of you will be extremely happy to lose any sense of connection with Ma. All too happy to join the machine. Think of all the computing power you will have once you plug into Musk’s neuralink! How about Google straight to the brain? Imagine how cool the spam will be when it pops up in your thoughts over and over? Or how after a really amazing dream suddenly you will need to go buy your dog a sweater or get a triple burger cheese baconator with extra guac, sour creams, ass scorching hot sauce and the loaded fries with extra helpings of pork brisket and nacho cheese on top??? 
These are just some of my depressive thoughts. And to that end I want to talk about music. When it comes to depressive music I love the band the Cure. I also love Tori Amos and most any artists that touch a nerve. Artists that can routinely make my hairs stand straight up on end. Often times they sound depressed themselves and yet somehow that cheers me up. Just listen to the best all time best break up song ever recorded. The Cure’s song, “Disintegration,” off the album Disintegration . I love this song so much!!!!!!! Robert Smith’s voice kills it. The sheer power of his voice forces one to believe every word he says. Here are the lyrics to “Disintegration:”
Oh, I miss the kiss of treachery
The shameless kiss of vanity
The soft and the black and the velvety
Up tight against the side of me
And mouth and eyes and heart all bleed
And run in thickening streams of greed
As bit by bit it starts the need
To just let go my party piece
I miss the kiss of treachery
The aching kiss before I feed
The stench of a love for a younger meat
And the sound that it makes when it cuts in deep
The holding up on bended knees
The addiction of duplicities
As bit by bit it starts the need
To just let go my party piece
But I never said I would stay to the end
So I leave you with babies and hoping for frequency
Screaming like this in the hope of the secrecy
Screaming me over and over and over
I leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery
Stains on the carpet and stains on the scenery
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the ending would be
So it’s all come back round to breaking apart again
Breaking apart like I’m made up of glass again
Making it up behind my back again
Holding my breath for the fear of sleep again
Holding it up behind my head again
Cut in deep to the heart of the bone again
Round and round and round and it’s coming apart again
Over and over and over
And now that I know that I’m breaking to pieces
I’ll pull out my heart and I’ll feed it to anyone
I’m crying for sympathy, crocodiles cry
For the love of the crowd
And the three cheers from everyone
Dropping through sky
Through the glass of the roof
Through the roof of your mouth
Through the mouth of your eye
Through the eye of the needle
It’s easier for me to get closer to Heaven
Than ever feel whole again
But I never said I would stay to the end
I knew I would leave you and fame isn’t everything
Screaming like this in the hope of sincerity
Screaming it’s over and over and over
I leave you with photographs, pictures of trickery
Stains on the carpet and stains on the memory
Songs about happiness murmured in dreams
When we both of us knew how the end always is
How the end always is
How the end always is
How the end always is
How the end always is
How the end always is
I love how at 5:16 in the song, he raises his voice in pitch and intensity. Every word he sings sounds like a punch in the stomach. This album is just so intense for me. One of their biggest hits, “Fascination Street” was the first song I ever learned the bass line to on my own. You know, back when live music existed and their was a reason to learn kick ass bass lines. Oh and how could I forget the song, “Lovesong?” Damn if any song takes me right back to 1989 and the early 90’s it’s this this one. Turns out that “Love Song” was only intended for Robert Smith’s wife and not for anybody else to hear. But after a year and a half of coaxing from Smith’s wife here is one of the most articulated “Love Songs” ever written. I am currently reading a book called, A Sense of the Mysterious by Alan Lightman. In the book, Lightman discusses the idiosyncrasies and unique personality of Dr Richard Feynman. My favorite thing he wrote about Feynman was when he wrote his deceased wife of two years. The letter he wrote wasn’t discovered until his biographer found it long after his death. Here is a part of it:
D’Arline,
I adore you, sweetheart.
It is such a terribly long time since I last wrote to you-almost two years, But I
know you’ll excuse me because you understand how much I am, stubborn and
realistic; & I thought there was no sense in writing.
But now I know my darling wife that it is right to do what I have delayed in doing…I want to tell you I love you. I want to love you. I always will love you.
I find it hard to understand in my my mind what it means to love you after you are dead-but I still want to comfort and take care of you-and I want to love me and care for me. I want to have problems to discuss with you…
P.S. Please excuse me for not mailing this-but I don’t know your new address.
I love this letter, for some reason when I read it It make me feel the same way I do when I listen to the album, “Disintegration.” Other songs by the Cure that I love are “Lullaby”and “The Forest.”
Another one of my all time depressive faves is Elliot Smith. 
Listen to one of my faves by him, “Angeles.” I love his finger picking style on the acoustic guitar. I have been kinda leaning how to play this one. It is more difficult than it probably sounds especially while singing. I have an admiration for the simplicity of a solo guitar and your voice and nothing more. A lot of his songs have a tenable Beatles chord progression quality to them which I normally disdain but somehow Smith makes it work for me. Also maybe I have some “homerism” because he was a part of the local Portland music scene. The first time I heard his music that i can remember was his song “Needle In The Hay” playing during the gruesome suicide part of the movie, “The Royal Tenenbaums.” Ironically Elliott Smith, killed himself at the age of 36 by stabbing himself in the chest twice. However the coroner report left open the possibility of his wounds to be the result of a homicide. Who knows?
I conclude this week column of Cara’s Music Corner by leaving you with one of my all time favorite moody existential songs, “Coma,” by Buckethead featuring Azam Ali and Serj Tankian. Until next time be safe out there kiddos!.
The Tigress Awakens 