KT EMMERSON: Cry time with Kt (soundtracked by Sufjan Stevens, David Shire, DayGlow)
Cry Times with Kt soundtracked by Sufjan Stevens, David Shire, DayGlow
by Kt Emmerson
I’m not a crier. You could say my INTJ personality kicks in when I start to feel overcome by my emotions. I simply rise above them and examine them from the outside. Stoic to a fault in emotional situations. But, I recently needed a big fat, baby girl cry my eyes out all day event. I’m not ashamed, it was purposeful, and I cleared it with the tower before I went for loopty-loops.
There’s nothing like a sad song to grind home the self-pity we all need to flop around in for a bit, right? We all gotta do it sometimes, even robots like me. I present for your listening pain and agony a few tunes that really hit the spot. There’s probably a million songs that could put you in mind for the waterworks, what for is music than to transcend and place us in the realm of feelings? But, I’ve got a choice selection to go deep fast and reveal your lighter self at the end.
Sufjan Stevens, I have to confess has not been on my radar. He’s in that very specialized and elevated class of musician with all the academic and fine arts chops a guy could have. I’m happy with my low-brow status in listening practice, but, I’ll use the good china on occasion. This piano version All Delighted People, Side D is very fine china, and delightfully able to reach into your heart and twist those tender spots. It’s a full ten minutes long, so have a new box of tissues by the bedside; the soft, lotion kind.
I’m gonna make a long story long here, for some background. I confess as a stay at home mom, I have some mental free space to binge on thinky-type Amazon Prime programs. I do not feel bad having stayed up til 4-am to finish a psychological thriller. That is until I have to get up for school carpool. I started on Homecoming with Julia Roberts a while back. After a few very confused hours, I finally decided as much as I adored the cinematic referencing of 60’s style thrillers and the lovely framing of themes and dialogue, I was fully lost in the story. I put it away for a while, as we bingers are want to do. But on a bored, avoiding housework, humdrum day,
I started with number 4. The reviews all said if you can make it past episode 4, you’re gonna be glad. I put my faith back in a trillion Amazon reviewers who have a lot more time and energy than I do to comment three paragraphs long. Soooo, it really is a great story in the end. And there’s an excellently presented scene evoking internal despair and self-pity, and a great soundtrack to go with it. Amy’s Theme, a composition by David Shire originally for the film The Conversation, drips with ragtime discordant trilling. The song was so familiar and yet I’d never seen The Conversation. It felt like sitting with an old friend and telling her my woes. How well she listened!
Alright, little lads and lassies, its time to buck up and put the blues behind. A little melancholic uplift is called for with Can I Call You Tonight, by DayGlow. You’ll have a tiny bop in your hips when you get up to wash that sweet baby face of yours.
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