Madness In The Sadness

Madness In The Sadness By Emily Racanelli

All of a sudden, it hits you. It could be a verse, a chorus, the opening line, maybe just one word. Whatever "it" is, it sends you spiraling down the realm of memories you wish you'd forgotten. One minute you were fine and the next you find yourself singing/crying along with Mayday Parade vocalist Derek Sanders as he breezes through the lines "I thought we could wait for the fireworks/I thought we could wait for the snow!" Faster than Fronz runs from the cops at Warped Tour, your mood shifts and you become veiled in that broken mindset. But why do we do this to ourselves?

How are bands that build a following around breakup songs (Mayday Parade) with lines like "l'll kill myself to make things fair" (Citizen) so popular if they carry with them a cloud of darkness? If you're like me, you understand that the trade off of immense catharsis and understanding that comes along with these three-minute therapy session is so worth it.

We're all searching for some kind of meaning to the thoughts and feelings that people in our lives just can't comprehend. You know what I'm talking about. There's so much in your head but when you try to express it, the pen won't move and your mouth can't form the words. That's where these songs come in!

I can't even begin to tell you about that moment when I put on a Mayday Parade song and I heard a lyric that totally transformed me. It was a second where I thought, "Holy shit, that's exactly what I'm trying to say! They get it!" For me, that line was "Tell your new friends, that no one knows you like I do" from "Oh Well, Oh Well." At that point in the song, the music stops and I find myself absolutely screaming the a cappella line as if I'm about to throw a punch at the imaginary person I'm directing my gaze at. Sometimes, that line takes me back to a rough point at sixteen years old where I was losing parts of myself and everyone around me. Simply put, it made me sad. It didn't matter if I was in my car, bedroom, or at a concert watching it be performed live, those words made me feel something I didn't want to feel.

So that raises the question: Why put myself in that position? Why take a tragic trip down memory lane? It's because songs and lines like these remind me that there's nothing wrong with being angry or melancholic for a few minutes. Listen and cry with them and know that whoever wrote those songs wants you to feel all of that for a little while.

In the moment, it's catharsis. You are releasing all the things you didn't even know we're bottled up. If a song can tell you what you're feeling before you actually know what you're feeling, there's something special in that.

It stays special and sometimes it even gets better as you grow up. It's been years since I've first heard that song and "Three Cheers For Five Years” blasting through my headphones. However, they don't carry the same burden these days. Those sad songs that brought me down at sixteen are a reminder of how amazingly different things are at nineteen. Now, those lines I cried to are the ones I'm (poorly) harmonizing to with my best friend while we aimlessly drive around Long Island on a Friday night.

Those lines have created a whole new meaning in my adult life. They have become ingrained in me as a part of my childhood and personality. I grew up with them and will always have them in my life. Ten years from now, those same songs will come on and it'll be a flashback to the journey it took to reach this point. That's why we listen to sad songs: to feel and feel and feel until what we feel doesn’t really hurt anymore.