This one is dedicated to all you grievers out there, which—honestly—is most of us at some point. Death, divorce, losses of all types can stab our hearts and wreck our minds in a way only grief can, and in its wake, there's usually a song or ten to remind us of our pain and loss.
I woke up this morning with the 1975 Austin Robert’s song “Rocky” playing in my head. It’s been decades since I’ve heard it, but there it was, in my ears, and I remembered every single sad word.
I was twelve when it came out, and I’d listened to it with Romeo and Juliet tragic-romantic curiosity (like I did the songs “Teen Angel” and “Run, Joey, Run”), never thinking that seven years later, I would be Rocky.
A lot of us grievers have a list of songs we either embrace—because they help ease our grief—or avoid, because hearing them elevates that pain, like in the movie Roots when Omoro raises his baby to the heavens and proclaims, “Kunta Kinte!”
When I started writing this post, I was just going to throw out a list of my stop-me-in-my-tracks songs and hit "Publish," but that didn't feel at all sincere. If I was going to ask you to examine your grief songs, then I needed to listen to mine and feel the feels.
It took a lot of tears to compile this partial list, but these songs are a part of my growing up in grief, my understanding of grief. As I say in my comment in "Pictures of You," there is community in grief. And I don't know where I'd be without you fellow grievers.
Please add your grief songs in the comments.
“More than a Feeling” – Boston (This is also my favorite song, and I still grieve the loss of Brad Delp.)
"Begin" - Toad the Wet Sprocket (This one's for my daughters, who have saved me from grief more times than they will ever know. It's a difficult song, but I will never not listen to it.)
“I’ll Be There” – Escape Club
“How Great Thou Art” - The Alan Jackson version. (Bruce loved singing this song. I still can't get through it, though, at a funeral.)
“Separate Ways” – Journey (Just the first few notes brings me back to 1983 and all the yuck. But still, I'll never not listen.)
“Total Eclipse of the Heart” – Bonnie Tyler
“A Bushel and a Peck” – Doris Day (I wrote the lyrics on the back of an envelope of a letter I sent to my then-boyfriend Bruce in 1982. Eighteen-year-old me was so naive and corny. I miss her sometimes.)
“Juke Box Hero” – Foreigner
“Every Breath You Take” – The Police (I reimagine this song as a duet: the one who died and the one left behind.)
The entire Paradise Theater album – Styx
“I Will Always Love You” – Dolly/Whitney (Someone played this on a jukebox in a bar I was at in 1994ish, and I, who'd had a few drinks, climbed up on a table and yelled, "Who played the goddamn Whitney Houston?" I learned later it was someone from the group I was with, who had no knowledge of why this song hits the way it does. Grief can make us do and say weird things.)
“Pictures of You” – The Cure (If you click on the YouTube link, read the comments. There is community in grief.)
“Moonlight Sonata” – Beethoven
“Fast Movin’ Train” – Restless Heart (Once my theme song. Grief makes us do some stupid things and let go of things we should probably hang on to.)
“Bus to St. Cloud” – Trisha Yearwood (Popular in the aftermath of the second-worst time in my life; grief can come at us from anywhere, anytime.)
“The Dance” – Garth Brooks (The mother of all grief songs. I suspect this one’s on a lot of lists.)
Wide River to Cross by Levon Helm