Grief is defined as “keen mental suffering or distress over affliction or loss; sharp sorrow; painful regret.” by dictonary.com
The human experience is more complicated than one word and one simple definition for an emotion as deep as grief, so experts divided it into five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. However, instead of just words to showcase emotion, we have music.
I know I have multiple playlists dedicated to the emotion I’m experiencing, personalized to me. Others don’t have that, so I picked out five songs that I feel accurately depict each of the five stages of grief. Here is what I came up with.
The first is denial. Denial is defined as “an assertion that something said, believed, alleged, etc., is false.” To showcase this emotion we have Jeff Buckley’s “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over.”
“Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” was released in 1994 in the album Grace.
In this song, Buckley repeatedly uses the repetition of “wait” and “it’s never over.” It starts with a slow and quiet melody, like the day is just starting before the drums and guitars start. As the song progresses, every guitar strum and drum beat plays into the lyrical emotion of the story.
Buckley uses the lyric, ‘Broken down and hungry for your love with no way to feed it.’ The delivery of this lyric is stretched over two rhythms of the song to add a yearning to the song.
As the song’s emotion gets more intense, so does Buckley’s singing, the drums, and the guitars. It’s very prominent in the lyrics:
So I’ll wait for you, love
And I’ll burn
Will I ever see your sweet return?
It intensifies even further when he starts to repeat lover/love after
‘Oh, love, well I’ve waited for you.’
The song accurately describes what it feels like to sit and wait for something that may never come when you know it will never come.
Next, anger. Anger is defined as ‘a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.’ For anger, I cannot think of a more beautiful example of “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac. A little bit of background information to make the emotion of this song deeper.
Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham sing the song, not only are they a part of the band Fleetwood Mac together they also dated. Nicks wrote the song about Buckingham and their break-up after Buck left Nicks for another woman.
“Silver Springs” was released in 1977 on the album Rumours.
The song starts soft and progresses into aggression from Nicks towards Buckingham.
I would be your only dream
Your shinin’ autumn ocean crashin’
Don’t say that she’s pretty
And did you say that she loved you?
Baby, I don’t want to know
And can you tell me was it worth it?
Baby, I don’t want to know
Nicks expresses her wonder about the woman before her aggression starts to build before the moment of release.
Time cast a spell on you, but you won’t forget me
I know I could’ve loved you, but you would not let me
I’ll follow you down ’til the sound of my voice will haunt you
Give me just a chance
You’ll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you
She reorders and repeats these lyrics in the last three verses, during the live performance of this song Nicks stares Buckingham down while singing. Nicks makes it evident that just because Buckingham chose another woman over her, he will never be able to forget her and that is a part of her revenge. As she continues singing at Buckingham the song speeds up, the guitar and drums get louder, and Nicks’ hostility in her singing grows along with the tension as Buckingham sings backup for Nicks.
A spell would have to be cast for the anger in the song to not be picked up on, making the song an adequate choice to represent anger.
After anger comes bargaining. Bargaining is defined as ‘negotiating the terms and conditions of a transaction.’ In this case, it is to bargain for a different outcome from a situation, and what a great representation we have no other than “Black” by Pearl Jam.
“Black” was released in 1991 on the album 10 and sung by Eddie Vedder.
“Black” starts with electric guitar that is accompanied by other guitars, and drums when the first verse starts. The song tells a story of self-bargaining about losing the woman in his life and questioning why he couldn’t spend his life with her. Throughout the song, Vedder repeats “Of what was everything” as he reminisces about what was.
And now my bitter hands
Chafe beneath the clouds
Of what was everything
Oh the pictures have
All been washed in black
Tattooed everything
I’m surrounded by
Some kids at play
I can feel their laughter
So why do I sear
I’m spinning
Oh, I’m spinning
How quick the sun can, drop away
And now my bitter hands
Cradle broken glass
Of what was everything
All the pictures had
All been washed in black
These sets of lyrics Vedder delivers with a sense of heartache. Heartache is the reason we bargain and Vedder’s delivery of heartache line up to deliver the perfect example of bargainging in music.
Yeah
I know someday you’ll have a beautiful life
I know you’ll be a star
In somebody else’s sky
But why
Why
Why can’t it be
Why can’t it be mine
The repetition of whys and the desperation in Vedder’s voice shows the depth of longing and desire that mixes and creates bargaining.
Depression comes next and is defined as “a condition of general emotional dejection and withdrawal; sadness greater and more prolonged than that warranted by any objective reason.” I have no better example to choose than “Nutshell” by Alice in Chains.
“Nutshell” was released in 1994 on the album Jar of Flies, sung by Layne Stanley.
Guitars start slow. The lead; Layne Stanley sings
And yet I fight, and yet I fight
This battle all alone
No one to cry to
No place to call home
As he repeats ‘yet I fight’, there is a certain desperation in his voice followed by a relinquishing of effort when he says ‘No one to cry to, No place to call home’.
For a song with only two verses, every word packs a punch of emotion. Between the first and second verses, and then after the second verse Stanley vocalizes sorrow in the form of held out ‘Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh
Ooh-ooh, ooh-ooh-ooh’
The second verse (and the last verse of the song) is the most straightforward with emotion rather than the other two,
My gift of self is raped
My privacy is raked
And yet I find, and yet I find
Repeating in my head
If I can’t be my own
I’d feel better dead
Stanley uses ‘raped’ as meaning an act of plunder, violent seizure, or abuse. These lyrics mean that being beaten down by life changes your thinking so that you don’t feel like yourself, and as a result of not feeling like yourself you just “feel better dead.”
The song carries on for another minute of drums and guitars that represent a feeling of desperation and anguish.
Thanks to Layne Stanley’s vocals and incredible songwriting we have a great representation of how depression feels for some.
Finally, the last step of the grieving process is acceptance. Acceptance is defined as ‘the action of consenting to receive or undertake something offered.’.
The final stage of grief is the forever stage, so acceptance is not about being okay it’s about accepting what has happened and recognizing something that is the reality now, no matter how much we wish it weren’t. That is why “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd is the best song to represent acceptance.
“Wish You Were Here” was released in 1975 on the album Wish You Were Here, vocals are led by David Gilmour.
“Wish You Were Here” starts with a prerecorded sample, followed by a slow guitar acoustic this represents the emotion of nostalgia that comes with acceptance, and reminiscing about memories.
How I wish, how I wish you were here
We’re just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl
Year after year
Running over the same old ground, what have we found?
The same old fears, wish you were here
Leading up to this verse, Gilmour sings of memories with his voice sound of reminiscences recalling memories using past tense until finally, in the last verse of his song he sings how he misses they were here.
Even with a sad melody, the song represents the beauty of missing someone, and it all comes with acceptance.
As humans, we are complex and so are our emotions, but thanks to music and the artists who create music, we have a new form of self-expression to explain how we feel when words don’t quite do it justice. God bless music.
