Over a decade ago on the eve of Thanksgiving, I drove with my father on Interstate 95 from Baltimore to New Haven. It was well after midnight when out of the blue he told me he wanted Gordon Lightfoot’s song If Children Had Wings played at his funeral. He was supposed to keep me awake as I drove and he succeeded–I never forgot that jarring comment or the strange conversation that followed. Does music help your grief or make it worse? It gave me plenty to think about later as I rolled down the window to help me stay awake and my dad snored in the passenger seat.

Previously Lightfoot’s music brought back memories of growing up in the 80’s and 90’s–cold winter nights at home by the fireplace or summer time boating and evening bonfires by the river, cracking open peanuts and throwing the salted shells into the flames, carelessly running barefoot through tall grass in the dark–but for the past 15 years when I’ve heard any song by the Canadian folk-rock modern day troubadour, I’ve thought about my dad’s someday-funeral because of that one late night conversation. (He turns 77 this week.) 

Listening to music helps us express emotions–usually love, joy, and celebration, but also sadness and longing. When you find a song that touches your grief and gives it a safe space to expand, you may feel a significant emotional response.

It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to play the same song on repeat over and over. And over and over again (as much as you need). Sometimes we need that repetition to get it all out. 

My mom died in 2018, and still my grief can build up inside. I might not have a healthy way to get it out and find emotional relief, but if a certain song plays it provides an emotional trigger–it tips my grief over the edge, enabling me to cry and release the built up sadness and negative energy.

Music pulls our feelings out, sometimes in an unavoidable, involuntary way. Music gives our mind something it needs. It can leave you with a palpable sense of relief, of being done with grief, at least, for now, temporarily, or a feeling that you can continue on functioning once you’ve worn out your grief muscles, like after having a good cry when you can breathe deeply again. 

For some people, the thing about music that touches their grief in the best way is the lyrics–language that pierces the heart and finds words for what we’ve been trying to convey. 

For others, it’s the instrumental sound, the melody, or the instruments themselves that provide relief. I love the sound of a strong, soulful cello. Musicians can pour such yearning into their music. The sounds can perfectly tap into your emotions, stirring your heart on a rough day. At other times I need the sound of drums, as if someone else is keeping my heart beating and reminding me how to breathe. 

Sometimes I like music sung in a foreign language so that my brain doesn’t attach to certain lyrics or the meaning of the words, but can simply float along with the feeling. Music can distract us from pain. It can help us avoid what we aren’t ready to face.

For many years at bedtime my kids listened to world music lullabies (the Putumayo Kids Dreamland series of albums…we like the French Dreamland, as well as Celtic, Latin, Asian, African, and Yoga Dreamland collections.) They are soft, sleepy, beautiful songs sung in native languages–perfect for busy brains that require convincing to relax for bed.   

If you’ve ever had an MRI or another potentially stressful or lengthy medical procedure, your provider may have given you headphones and music to keep your mind off the process. At my first MRI, I told the tech right away that I was claustrophobic and extra nervous about being inserted into a solid tube for an hour.

They kindly gave me headphones and let me pick the radio station (this was the late 90s, kids–no streaming services existed!), so I chose 97 Rock, the classic rock station where I worked as an intern for college credit. 

I closed my eyes before the tech pushed me into the MRI tube, and as the machine began clunking and whirring, the music started–by playing a lunchtime block of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon, which is definitely the creepiest, most unsettling music I’ve listened to while feeling like I’m unable to move and buried underground.

Like when suspenseful music swells during a scary movie and your heart rate quickens, Dark Side of the Moon at that particular time certainly didn’t help distract me! It’s a funny story now, but at the time it made me panic. (Worst. MRI. Ever.)  

Music can also affect your grief by quickly bringing up childhood memories or other times with your mom or dad. Certain songs might be connected to a milestone or a core memory for you, like a birth, marriage, or holiday.

Most days my mom sang in the kitchen. When she was happy, I would hear Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da by the Beatles. When she sang out her frustration, (probably because we were quite poor) I often heard (Oh Lord Won’t You Buy Me A) Mercedes-Benz by Janis Joplin. 

It can honor their memory and yet hurt so much to hear these special songs that make us feel close to our lost loved ones. Hearing Art Garfunkel sing Bridge Over Troubled Water never fails to make me cry. That song makes me feel like just for a moment I have someone who can hold my heart and give me what I need. It promises everything I long for but will never have, because my mother died, and I am alone. I almost never seek out listening to it (because who in their right mind seeks to purposely break their own heart?), but if the song finds me I won’t turn it off. It’s so beautiful, so I let it hurt me. (Maybe I’m not always in my right mind.)  

What are the songs of your grief? What helps and what hurts? Talk to me in the comments below.