day 17 - a song when you're sad

I don't often feel sad. I can't remember the last time I cried.

Wait. I cry often, but at the silliest things. Case in point: I was watching Chopped on The Food Network the other day, and the freaky looking chef with the huge red plugs in his ears really, realllllllly wanted to win, and when he did, I had to wipe away a tear I was so happy for him. Seriously, the whole show had been grossing me out (they had to use eel and duck hearts and other narsty ingredients), and the chef himself made me curl my lip (those long, hanging earlobes kept flapping in the breeze as he chopped and stirred and whipped and sauteed), but that dude needed the $10,000 for his poor stay-at-home-wife and kid. I don't know, it got to me.

So this challenge is to write about a song that I listen to when I'm sad. I happened to be listening to Coldplay when I looked up the challenge. Every now and then, there'll be a nuance or a lyric or even a drumbeat that reminds me of U2. And when that happens, I at once feel disdain for Coldplay (who can never be U2) and affection for Chris Martin, whose musicianship really is astounding. I love his falsetto voice. It's haunting, yet can be playful, too. It's hard to tell when he switches registers - it just seems so effortless. Coldplay is easy to listen to. There's not a song of theirs that I dislike, but at the same time, none of their songs really stand out to me as all-time favorites, either. Their sound is just pleasant. Pleasant isn't bad - the world needs more pleasant, in my opinion.

Recently, I became obsessed with the song Fix You. It's an oldie, but was resurrected on NBC's latest singing show "The Voice". I was mesmerized. A few days later, Dani showed me a dance interpretation of the song, and I cried. Seriously, it was so beautifully interpreted that I had to wipe fat, hot tears from my face. Clicky to watch it for yourself. I'm not a dancer, but I would imagine that this is pretty close to technical perfection - and WOW, what a beautiful, beautiful love song. Coldplay's sound on this song is like velvet around my shoulders, or warm sand on my toes, or a shaft of sunlight caressing my face on a cold, winter day.

But that's not the Coldplay song that I'm highlighting for this challenge. A song that makes me sad when I hear it is The Scientist. I've never understood why it's called that, but what a sad song. Still pleasant enough to the ears, but... gollygeewhiz sad. It's a song of regret, and what-could-have-been, and deep yearning to go "back to the start". How many of us have felt that at one point or another? And yet, as sad and broken as the lyrics are on their own, they're given new meaning when you watch the video, which I had never seen until tonight. Watch it. You'll keep wondering what the heck it all means, but at the end, you'll be left with your mouth gaping open and with big, fat tears dripping off your chin.