My therapists come to me with lyrics and musical notes

We’re moving into a year in which none of us knows just what may happen, and we’re a little tense. Seems like a good time for something to soothe our souls. Which got us to thinking ... what helps when we need a little self-therapy to ease the mayhem? Join us in these days leading up to 2025 – we’ll post daily Dec. 28-Jan. 1 – as we share some of our favorite ways to get through these troubled times. 

By JoAnne Young

My daughter introduced me to the music of Sarah McLachlan and Patty Griffin. 

FM radio brought me to Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell and Elton John, and record  

stores to James Taylor and Carole King. My son ushered in Warren G. and the world of rap. My granddaughter launched Taylor Swift, and my husband helped me find Brandi Carlisle. 

 

Amazon Music, thanks most recently for Wolf Larson and Allison Russell. 

 

All these singer/songwriters play a part in my self-therapy. 

 

I listen to their songs and others when I need some relief from anxiety or uneasiness, when I need to calm down, to stay awake on a long car trip or get inspired. 

 

There are so many great poets in the world who set their words to music. I recently discovered that one of my favorite Christmas/winter songs, “In the Bleak Midwinter,” was from a poem written by one of my newly favorite poets, Christina Rossetti. 

 

In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron
Water like a stone
Snow had fallen
Snow on snow, snow on snow
In the bleak midwinter, long, long ago

 

I credit my big sister, Jackie, for taking me along on her musical journey when I was a child. We shared a room, and the radio on our bedside table was on day and night. She was nearly five years older, and her favorite Top 40 songs became mine. 

 

Jackie, who was artistic in many ways, wanted to be a singer in her teen years, and entered a contest to see how far she could get. I will always remember the song she sang: “Secret Love.” I think about that song from time to time and my sister dressed up and singing her heart out. 

 

Once I had a secret love,

That lived within the heart of me

All too soon my secret love, 

Became impatient to be free.

Music isn’t just self-therapy. It’s actually used by health professionals to treat people with brain injuries or strokes. People who can’t form sentences of three to four words can sing their favorite songs, be it hymns, Garth Brooks or the Rolling Stones. 

 

Neurologists say music can create a groove in the brain where the meaning of the words can be laid down deeply. Is that why we can remember the words to songs for a lifetime? 

 

I worked at a classical music station in Omaha when I was pregnant with my first child. Many mornings we both listened to Mozart, Shostakovich and Bach. He is the only one of our three who is a musician. 

 

I believe in the power of music to soothe us, like Patty Griffin’s “Luminous Places.” It’s like a daydream that lowers my heart rate and blood pressure. 

 

Love flows out of these luminous places 
Love lies down in the deep of the sea 
Falls out of the sky in millions of pieces on me. 
I've been over these highways for years in the dark 

Crisscrossing the land like a stitch on a wound.

Rolling through the night while millions were sleeping 

Under every phase of the moon.

 

I find it somewhat staggering that Paul Simon wrote “An American Tune” in 1973,  and not in 1995 or 2001 or 2020 or 2024. There’s been so many years Simon’s lyrics fit, especially now. Thank you for your words and the healing. 

 

We come on the ship they call The Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age's most uncertain hours
And sing an American tune.

Oh, and it's alright, it's alright, it's alright
You can't be forever blessed.
Still, tomorrow's going to be another working day
And I'm trying to get some rest
That's all I'm trying to get some rest.