Happiness and sadness belong to our everyday lives. This is like light versus dark. However, I am thinking of something different. Think about it, you are a happy person and always try to be happy. Based on the situation, you may feel sad for a moment. But while you are in a happy mood, and you feel like listening to songs or music sometimes you choose sad songs. Why? I am asking because it happens to me.
It may happen that you started with very famous happy songs such as, “Happy” by Pharrell Williams. I can listen to this “Happy” song many times in one sitting. Then you go for Taylor Swift’s “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” You like it, I like it, and who doesn’t?
Obviously, you know the name of the famous British singer Adele. Her song “Easy on Me” – also is one of my favorites. Adele won the Grammy award in 2023 for Best Pop Solo Performance for her song “Easy on Me,” which is considered the saddest song.
However, most of the time, I listen to sad songs in my own Bengali language. The Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore’s songs and his poems are also considered mostly of a sad tune. That may be because Tagore is from a Third World country. It is very much true that the Tagore generation and following generations were obsessed with sad songs and music. Think about world famous Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar. His music also makes you nostalgic with his finger-tune. Sad music touches our hearts easily. On the other hand, my three daughters born in Bangladesh but raised in the USA do not enjoy our kind of songs or music.
What does science or research say about this feeling of listening to sad songs while happy?
Dr. Sach’s group has done a lot of research on this issue. According to them, people who are more sympathetic may like sad songs more. Is it true?
Other researchers also suggest that sad music stimulates the part of our brain that controls our imagination and regulates our emotions. So, you, me, many people like sad songs.
The Indian philosophy has also given a rationale for listening to sad songs. This is called “Kama Muta” in Sanskrit, meaning “moved by love, emotion.”
A study of Free University of Berlin, suggests that listening to sad music when you’re feeling down doesn’t make you feel worse but actually improves your mood.
Listening to sad music might be particularly helpful when people are experiencing negative life events.
The psychologists or music experts believe that sad songs create empathy, as well as a sense of belonging, as we relate to a genre, an artist or simply the universe when we realize that someone else has gone through what we’re going through.
Hirsch wrote in his book Music in American Crime Prevention and Punishment how classical music was used to deter loitering in her hometown of Santa Rosa, California. In 1996, she wrote, city leaders decided to play classical music to clear young people from the city’s Old Courthouse Square. Many teens didn’t enjoy the music, according to Hirsch, and left the area, which encouraged the city to keep the background music playing.
Other researchers also confirmed that sad music has a high aesthetic value. Slow, sorrowful music is generally the most beautiful type of music because it contains colorful, intense, and ample meaning.
Sad music also has a tendency to trigger nostalgia or memories. When we listen to these songs, our brains retrieve those memories and enhance the solemn feelings of the past. And who doesn’t like to think about the past – happy or sad.
Jiben Roy, a native of Bangladesh, teaches chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at Mississippi University for Women. He writes occasional column in the Dispatch. His email address is [email protected].
Jiben Roy, a native of Bangladesh, teaches chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences at Mississippi University for Women. His email address is [email protected].
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 39 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.