Laura AM Peffer
Virginia College
Lyrical Pain Music dates back over 40,000 years where most music was influenced by natural surroundings like animal sounds and wind whistling through the trees. Now, most musical influence comes from the experiences and emotions the songwriter faces at the time. A quote of Bob Marley, a well-known Rastafarian singer, states “One good thing about music: when it hits you, you feel no pain.” This quote envelops the idea that music does not play on emotions and cause pain. Although music does not cause pain, memories that return when certain songs play do cause emotion, physical, and spiritual pain. When one thinks of emotional pain, it seems to mean things such as anger, hurt, resentment, confusion, and sadness. Music can play on these emotions through songs such as “Here By Me” by 3 Doors Down, “Colder Weather” by Zac Brown Band, “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About it” by Darius Rucker, and “The Ghost of You” by My Chemical Romance. These four songs have a common theme in the lyrics, an ended relationship and questions leading to why the relationship ended. Between the memories and the questioning lyrics, the depressed melody enthralls the mind and causes a deep emotional agony. Most would not think of physical pain coming from a song, but when paired with emotional pain, music leads to heart ache and crying, which can cause a headache to ensue. A broken heart is one of the hardest diseases to fight because a person cannot see the physical harm that comes from the disease. Lyrics of certain songs can cause a person to feel the pain and heartache all over again. Songs such as “Over You” by Miranda Lambert, “Highway Don’t Care” by Tim McGraw, and “Just a Dream” by Nelly can all bring the heartache caused by a loved one back to the present. Spiritual pain crawls deep inside one’s soul to the core of the person and buries into the very reason for existence until it hurts to