Using music to deal with anger

Generally calming down.

I don’t really want to dance around the title of this, but also should provide some kind of introduction, haha. I get quite angry quite a lot of the time. Not like, find out something that makes me upset, then throw all of the toys out of the pram and go berserk, instead small things snowball up in my head and I end up taking it out on something, myself, a lot of the time. You might read these words and immediately want to get as far away from me as possible, and I’ll admit it’s probably not the greatest rep for someone to have, but I want to make one thing very clear: I am not an angry person. I don’t wake up angry and don’t go about my day constantly full of rage, but it comes in waves and can tend to completely overwhelm my day. It isn’t something that really can’t go away completely, but over the years, I’ve found ways to calm myself down after flipping out, and music has always been there to keep me grounded.

I smashed my phone when I was younger, at a time when I was being left out by my friends and saw pictures of them all together, and I was immediately filled with a sharp moment of anger, and just threw it at the floor. It was a moment of stupidity and carelessness where I ended up paying the price for something that I hadn’t even done, all because of my anger. When you’re 15, your phone is everything; my way of communicating with anyone or seeing the news, and mostly where I listened to music. Without a phone and being all wound up, I resorted to putting on a record and settled on a copy of Help! by the Beatles that I inherited from my late Grandma. She adored The Beatles, so much so that she got to see them when they came to Cardiff in the mid-60s. She was a nurse at the time and decided that she wanted to give some terminally ill kids the chance to see the Beatles, as they were the biggest band in the world at the time! After a bit of back and forth with the hospital, they decided to let her take them. As much as it was a sweet gesture from my Grandma, she made sure that she had the best view of the Fab-4 as no one loved them more than her. She loved them so much that my dad’s middle name is “Paul”, and while she never confirmed it, it is absolutely after Mr McCartney. The A-Side of “Help!” leads straight into the title track, which I can tell you now is NOT what you want to hear when you’re in a fit of rage, so I go for the B-side, which includes the most covered song of all time, “Yesterday”.

I find it easy to focus on the nitty gritty of the song, the key signature, time signature, ETC. The process of digesting the song helps my brain switch off from the world; it’s escapism. This song is so lush; McCartney is obviously very distraught about this split, but spills it out in a way that carries so much love. It’s a good one to help me calm down because it makes me think of how Paul controlled his emotions, and it makes me think of my lovely, lovely Grandma.

I still get angry, but music still seems to calm me down every time. I would like to share some songs that have helped me do this and why.

No Machiene - Adrianne Lenker

It’s been a long year for me, I’ve been repeating my A-Levels and have watched all my friends leave Cardiff and have to be in a space where I saw them every day, all by myself. My partner Slight also moved away in September, and to be honest, I was devastated. I spent a lot of days not wanting to go in, too angry at myself for underachieving academically, and I’ve turned to this song a lot of the time. It’s a pretty love song, but it helps me stay grateful for the love I have been lucky to receive in my life. To have loitered around school grounds, laughed in bedrooms and drunk wine with amazing, lovely people is nothing but a gift that I received, and even though it’s gone, it doesn’t hinder it’s beauty. Slight and I have stayed strong throughout this year. I take the train up to Bath a lot, and they come down to Cardiff, and it’s taken a lot of work on both ends. This song, like lots of Lenker’s work, is delicate and drawn out, and instrumentally, she is working very hard to be able to play that guitar part and sing at the same time. She’s working hard to show off her love on this track, and It helps me appreciate the work that I, and Slight, have put into our lovely relationship.

Ice Cream Tubs - Sunglasz Vendor

I’ve found embracing someones else anger helps mine cool off, this song back to front is fucking immense. It’s an emo slam dunk, which covers human nature in a breakup in a way I’ve never really seen before. Every part is constructed in an unconventional, mis-shaped way, but it’s very clearly done that way on purpose and the final product is fucking brilliant. The first guitar solo at full blast has carried me through the stresses I’ve been going through. I am gone from the world for 45 seconds, and I am inside of the studio listening to that guitar. We were lucky enough to have Sunglasz open for us in our Clwb all day headline show at the start of this month and I am very grateful for that bands existence.

Rotten - Porridge Radio

Takes me back to our tour with them (the greatest thing ever), but is also a sweet 3 minutes of growth and overcoming past self-struggle. We can all feel like we’re rotting a little bit sometimes and this song is good at embracing that, but also good at helping me go outside and put my mind to something else. I am going to miss Porridge Radio very very much.