Music and Grief

One’s relationship to music changes in grief, at least the type of grief that I and others are living with, after suddenly losing our children. For some, it brings their loved ones back to them in a calming sort of way. For many others, like me, it can be a bitter pill.

The year prior to Charlie’s suicide, I had made a playlist - our modern answer to the mixtapes of the 80s - of my favourite songs from over the years. I called it “Feeling Retro in 2020”. Many of the songs hailed from the 80s and 90s. There were tunes like Forever Young by Alphaville, Song for Whoever by The Beautiful South, Lost Together by Blue Rodeo, and Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up, just for a laugh. Much to my surprise, although I don’t know why I didn’t see it coming, Charlie loved that mix as much as I did.

I remember noticing at some point in my kids’ early years that Charlie responded to music as I do, loving the tunes she could sing along to. James, on the other hand, tends to listen to music like Carl does, very much focussed on listening, not singing, absorbing and memorizing the notes and nuances in each piece.

Charlie’s choice of music was more eclectic than anyone else I know. From an early age, she showed an appreciation for everything from Classical to 80s pop to the Mongolian Throat Warbler, The Hu, and one of her favourite bands, Sabaton - a rock band that writes songs about historical events. She was offended by any suggestion that such and such a song was odd or unpalatable to one of us. There was very little in the way of music she couldn’t enjoy.

On the weekend of Charlie’s 16th birthday, we were invited to stay with family at a cottage up north (a bit of a misnomer for a six bedroom lake-house). I vividly remember the drive up there because we listened to my  retro mix, Charlie and I singing along, all the way there. At the time, it made me happy to know that something I enjoyed could also be appreciated by my sixteen year old, who had been growing ever more distant throughout her teenage years.

My other music-related memory of Charlie occurred in the weeks before that fateful day when she walked away from me for the last time. Like a number of such memories, it is one that I hardly gave any mind to at the time. It wasn’t until she died that I realised the message she was really sharing was surreptitiously hidden within her seemingly innocuous statement, “I’m making a playlist of all my favourite songs”. I’m sure I probably answered with some sort of generic response like, “cool, that’s a good idea.” As I learned weeks later, she was creating her funeral playlist.

We played those songs as friends and family arrived for Charlie’s memorial service. I have never even had the strength to look at, let alone listen to her playlist since that day. I haven’t been able to listen to my retro list either. Too many memories, too much pain.

That’s the power of music. It makes us think; reminds us of people and places; and when remembering just hurts, the music brings our pain to the surface.

I don’t often listen to music now. I haven’t in many years but, since Charlie, even less so. I used to listen to the radio whenever I was in the car, but at some point I got frustrated by the lack of intellect demonstrated by the dj’s on the stations I listened to. I could pay for dj- and commercial-free music, but I am just as happy to listen to podcasts and audible books.

My choice to largely avoid music was cemented one day in the shower. The shower is the one place where I always listened to music. It was in the weeks after Charlie died that I decided to try playing a random new playlist, which I reckoned couldn’t bring back memories of Charlie. Wouldn’t you know it, the first song that played was one by Justin Bieber that, needless to say, I had never heard before. As Bieber began the chorus, the lyrics haunted me;

Since the love that you left

is all that I get

I want you to know

That if I can't be close to you

I'll settle for the ghost of you

I miss you more than life

It was then that I realised that all music has the potential to evoke pain, whether due to memories of Charlie or inferences and thoughts that necessarily remind me of her

That’s why I mostly avoid music today. Perhaps one day that will change. I haven’t given up hope. I have started building a “post-2021” playlist with songs either released recently or which simply don’t send me back in time. So far I have three songs.

I also still attend a concert once in a while. For my birthday treat, I went to a concert with Carl that Charlie would have loved, featuring Berlin, Howard Jones (whom I last saw in the early 90s before either Howard or I had turned silver) and Culture Club, starring a very energetic, sober, and fun-loving Boy George. I bawled my way through numerous songs but I’m sure no-one but Carl was aware of my sunglass-covered, bloodshot eyes.

Nights like that concert are the definition of bittersweet. So many awesome moments and so many others tainted by the ever-present pain of missing Charlie, which is so easily evoked by the power of music.