I knew I was in trouble as soon as the short drum intro to "Changing Colours" by the Great Lake Swimmers started playing through the car stereo. It was August 2022, and I had just been to see my grandmother for what turned out to be the last time. I had held her hand and tearfully talked to her for over an hour. She was not conscious and I was unsure whether she could hear me, but hopeful that she felt the love and reverence in my touch. She was surrounded by love, with her children and grandchildren holding a rotating vigil by her bedside. She died peacefully that night. As I left early that afternoon, I did my best to pull myself together as I got into the minivan to pick up my twin daughters. As usual, I put my phone music player on shuffle. A couple of blocks away from their school, "Changing Colours" came on.
I didn't stand a chance. The tears started before the end of the first verse. That song had spoken to something deep in my heart since I first heard it on the radio 15 years earlier. I thought it was one of the most beautiful love songs I'd ever heard. When I heard the Great Lake Swimmers play it live, it was introduced as "a song about dying." After wondering what it said about me that I thought a song about death was a love song, I later realized that death - and the mourning and celebration of life that go with it - is very much about love. I cried because I missed my grandmother as the lovely person she was, but also what she had represented as a focal point of extended family togetherness throughout my life. "Changing Colours" reminded me that life changes even as powerful memories hang on.
Although I managed to regain composure when I picked up my girls, I realized there were other songs that had the same effect. Rather than avoiding them, I decided that listening to them was a healthy exercise in feeling my grief and coming to terms with the loss. Additional car-based crying sessions took place to "New Horizons" by the Moody Blues and "Sweetness Follows" by R.E.M. A playlist with these and a few other tracks ensued shortly thereafter.
Thinking about music as a vehicle for a catharsis of mourning has stuck with me since that time. As I thought more about it, I realized that the last several years of my life have involved a fair amount of grief. I don't mean to say that they have been joyless or that I am suffering from debilitating depression. My marriage to my favorite person in the world is stronger than ever and I love my delightful, silly, and brilliant children. But I have been working through many challenges and feelings of loss that come with major changes and missing how certain things used to be.
I'm sure part of it is the normal existential changes that come with being a parent. Some of it is probably my version of a mid-life crisis (I'm 41), worrying about what I have or have not accomplished as I approach what is (hopefully) the halfway point of my life. Some of it is notable changes to my perspective after the lock-down period of Covid and the state of public life in the United States (especially after the 2024 presidential election). Some of it is the destruction of positive illusions I still had of my home country, despite my study and understanding of history. Some of it is missing people who are gone, or relationships that have faded over time, people to whom I used to be closer.
Working through these feelings has been aided by music. There are certain songs to which I keep returning over and over because I feel the melodies and lyrics deeply. While they stir things up emotionally, they also offer solace. What I'm feeling is very human and I'm not alone in it. They also remind me of the tenderness and sensitivity that people are capable of, which I try to hold to as a bulwark against pessimism.
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