| Page 1 2 Suicide Catharsis: A First Note by Chris CataniaThe truth is I am terrified to write this feature. My whole being has squirmed excessively as I scratch and claw for words to express ideas about such nebulous, personal and ambiguous topics. I want to do justice to the artists and their fans. The goal here is to begin to at least try to find some way to explain how music, as a form of art, is used by a suicidal or tormented artist to cope and what we can learn and do as fans, who also struggle with suicide and its tragic wake, to make changes in how we deal with suicide and its expression in music. This is not a song by song or poem by poem examination. My hope is that you have either heard or read the artist's work before and can fill in the spots were the song should be playing or you will, like me, discover a new artist in a new way and be encouraged to listen and absorb and reflect. This is not a eulogy or biography but a first attempt at a fresh and unfortunately under-researched and under-dialoged topic. I hope to be semi-successful since I have limited space. I have spent hours reading books about suicide, talking with artists who struggle with suicide, thinking about how listening to music inspired by the suicidal thoughts and memories of loved ones who have committed suicide all fit together and how the music effects us as inherently musical beings. And still I am nowhere near a complete understanding of what role music—and words put to music—plays in the life of a person who struggles with suicide or those left behind. But at least by writing this I have begun to understand and refine my thinking, which usually is the hardest part. The purpose here is not to be definitive but to press play on my own heart and mind with the hope that it will inspire others to do the same. Why in the world would I even begin to tackle such a massive topic? Well, for a couple of reasons. One and probably the biggest is that within the last year I have had four friends take their lives. One shot himself, one hung himself, one drowned herself and one sat in front of a train. Three of them occurred with four weeks and the last one occurred earlier this year. Like all of us when we are overcome with grief, sadness and any other emotion related to suicide or death we usually stuff it down because it is far to painful to deal with the thoughts. I did this. But a few brave souls choose to deal with the pain: either by artistic expression—song, drawing, poem—or by talking with others who share the grief. I am trying to be a brave soul. The second reason is that in music—beyond the primary joy of listening—I find comfort and freedom and solace, all of which aid in dealing with the effects of suicide. This may appear a little bit selfish but I hope my love for music and my personal experience in dealing with the effects of suicide and the examination, albeit brief, spurs thought. So in a few thousand words—the tip of a very large iceberg—we will look at the history of suicide, three artists who have committed suicide and how their life and art and choice to take their own life has affected us as fans and what we as fans can do in our own lives in response. Aside from this sentence you will not find the names Kurt Cobain, Ozzy Osbourne, Marilyn Manson or any other expected subject mentioned here. I could examine them and find enough material—most of which I had to dig through to get to fresh ideas and perspectives. I want to travel down a different route. The mentioned have been exhausted in speculation and become all most cliché when mentioned in the same phrase as controversy or suicide. So with limited space we will look at three fairly familiar artists hopefully in a fresh approach. You will find a few statistics on suicide—it's almost impossible not to include them—but I have pulled mostly from my own emotional research and collection of less examined books and articles on music and suicide. Elliott Smith (singer/songwriter), Sylvia Plath (poet) and Ian Curtis (lead singer/songwriter for Joy Division) all struggled immensely with depression and the desire to end their life to escape their pain. Each story, like most suicides, is complicated, sad, and shake-your-fist-at-the-sky-and-cry incomprehensible. As a person who has never had the desire to take my own life or truly struggled with depression I cannot directly relate with the anguish of each artist. However, as someone who has had to work through the repercussions of four friends who have taken their own life I can speak on how I have dealt with a large amount of pain, anger, sadness and grief. This is where I will try to connect with you the reader. Odds are if you are reading this you have either experienced the suicide of a friend, have been inspired by or connected with one of the artists or have contemplated suicide yourself. Ironically, I discovered that I have taken solace in the work of Elliott Smith and Sylvia Plath who always laid their bleeding, battered heart and soul on the page and in song, unaware of how deep and dark their struggle was. This caught me by surprise and actually helped me to understand a little better why my friends did what they did. But the more questions I asked the more confusing things became. But before we get going I want to take a second to extend massive gratitude to the editors of Being There for allowing space to discuss a merging of two controversial and perplexing topics. It's pretty risky to discuss such a taboo topic alongside others that are certainly more fun to talk about—but what better place to do so where the discussion of the cultural impact of books, music and movies is paramount. I chose Curtis and Smith out of several musicians because their lives and music hold a particular quality that fits our topic better than others. Albeit some still unsettled controversy with Smith, the two stories were not as distorted or blurry as other possible artists. And also I knew very little about their personal lives which allowed me a chance to learn with few preconceived ideas. Having limited knowledge about their lives also allowed me, like you the reader, to be fueled by curiosity and discover a new perspective. As I did. As you read this you will probably add the artists I have left out—there are tragically far too many to include them all here. Please feel free to add them to this piece and do by all means, look into their lives, as we go along and after we're done. This is not a laundry list of unfortunate souls but a piece designed to encourage a fresh insight into a subject that does not get enough attention. I am writing this not to get everything right but to make an attempt at beginning a different discussion about music and suicide and most importantly the artistic impact and expression the two seem to have on fans and other tormented artists. Sylvia Plath's poems had a force within fueled by her courageousness to write directly about her struggle with depression and suicide. As noted on sylviaplath.com,“In these last poems it is as if some deeper, powerful self has grabbed control; death is given a cruel physical allure and psychic pain becomes almost tactile.” A. Alvarez, a friend of Plath, writes in The Savage God: A Study of Suicide that she embraced her gift for words and used it as a means to cope. Unfortunately Plath got too close to her art and could not handle or bear the burden of what she encountered in the midst of her depression. Like Curtis and Smith in song and performance, Plath found a momentary medicine and a way to cope via her poetry which proved fatal in the end. I think sometimes we forget just how terrible the battle was but in a selfish way it is the very struggle of the artist that we enjoy so much and it is why we love their music. But should that be all we get from an artist's cathartic audacity? Let's take a quick break from the contemporary music scene for a short history lesson. Page 1 2 |
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