He Told Me Just to Take My Time
Songs about death and dying
I was going to post this on Nov 2, aka Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), but I got distracted by other matters. So I’m a bit late with it. On the other hand, death is forever, so what’s a delay of a few days?
Actually, Día de los Muertos is not a day of sadness but of remembrance and celebration of one’s ancestors. You mention death in our Anglo-inflected culture, and people think it’s all about gloom and doom. For many other cultures, death is tied to renewal and rebirth.
These songs are all different takes on death. What they have in common is I find them beautiful.
Oingo Boingo “We Close Our Eyes”
Danny Elfman is best known to the wider public as a film score composer (over 100 features and counting), but he first made his mark as the founder and main composer of the 1980s New Wave band Oingo Boingo. His arrangements helped set the band apart from its peers. They did a lot of experimental music and beautiful, dance-able songs. The ballads are subtle and complex but never overdone and combine the driving beat typical of New Wave with gorgeous melodies.
This is my favorite song by the band.
Fleetwood Mac “Dust”
From the album “Bare Trees,” which was released when Fleetwood Mac were still good. The lyrics were written by the English poet Rupert Brooke, who died at the age of 27 on his way to the front during the First World War. The music was composed 60 years later by Danny Kirwan, my favorite of the many magical guitarists who graced the band in its early years.
The poem and the song walk a fine line between bleakness and the peace that comes with death. RIP Danny.
Diana Ankudinova “Ornery Horses”
Backstories are often overrated, but in this case, without the backstory, it’s impossible to make sense of the artist. Diana was born to an alcoholic mother and a father who was in prison most of the time. For the first three years of her life, her mother physically abused her before abandoning her in the middle of the brutal Russian winter. When she was rescued, she had a broken collarbone and various speech and developmental deficits that were probably the result of the abuse. She was placed in an orphanage and would likely have remained there had not one of the staff (at the urging of her own daughter) adopted her.
As part of Diana’s ongoing recovery, her therapists suggested singing lessons. Her teachers quickly discovered she had an extraordinary voice, and she began singing in shows and children’s festivals at every opportunity. She has now become an international sensation.
Diana is a natural dramatic contralto. She has a powerful, terrifyingly haunted voice. This was the first time she ever performed this song in public.
Really interesting and reading how some people have overcome almost impossible odds puts people like me to shame. But it is interesting how listening to songs that are more morbid makes me actually more content if I am in a bad mood. It is also odd how we in the Western culture still treat death as we do, like some embarrassment. When all the time what happens in life is actually what we should really try and forget.