Depression and Popular Culture

The clear signs of depression and mania are evident wherever you turn in today's world, especially in pop culture. Take the music of the 60's and 70's, if you can remember that far back! For example, I thought that one guy was going to KILL HIMSELF for leaving that stupid cake out in the rain, didn't you? Well, one obvious sign of depression is an inappropriate emotional reaction to something as trivial as a cake (or any other baking product, for that matter) being ruined by mere precipitation!

Or the guy who was forever letting Winchester Cathedral bring him down had two problems the way I see it - depression (as in "Winchester Cathedral is bringing me down"), and full-blown psychosis (a stupid Building has got him all upset, for Chrissakes! What about the KBG or organ thief aliens bringing you down, buddy? Get with it!)

Mick Jagger, the "bad boy" of Rock and Roll, was clearly in a state of depression in his early 20's. He speaks angrily in the hit song "Satisfaction", not only about not being able to get "no" (sic) satisfaction (no matter how hard he tried and tried and tried, apparently) but eventually he even began hearing voices while driving in his car! Voices that were filling his head with "useless information" designed to "drown out his imagination"! He claims they were coming from the radio, but who did he think controlled the channel, I wonder?

Hello? Had he ever heard of Psychotics Anonymous and the debate that still rages on about the actual source of those voices? I'm sorry, but that was a cry for help, folks! Maybe he got one of those whole body blood transfusions that Keith Richards gets every now and then to rid himself of the waxy buildup of all that brown tar heroin in his blood vessels (although even that won’t cure depression, unfortunately, or I would have done it by now)!

Simon and Garfunkel were one of my favorite acts of all time, until they both slid into deep depression over the course of the 60s's. I think it started when they tried to contradict the eternal truism "No Man Is An Island" in their hit single "I Am A Rock". Remember their dubious claim about how "an island feels no pain"? Or maybe it was the Rock that felt no pain and the Island that never cried. But the way I think of them, islands are like people, people who are in constant pain of separation from the Mother Land - like aliens separated from the Mother Ship, hanging around in some crazy lady's cellar until she falls asleep so they can steal her ovaries or something. Later down the road, old Paul and Art must have been fallen into quite a depressed state - how else would you explain the verse "Hello Darkness, my Old Friend" in "Sounds of Silence" (circa 1970)?

You see, it's things like this that I can't help noticing these days! Take that stupid song about how "One is the Loneliest Number" that came out back in the 70's. To assign the emotionally depressed feelings of loneliness to a digit smacks of psychosis in the first place. But their name itself was all the evidence I ever needed to identify them as "off the charts" - THREE DOG NIGHT! What? I'm sure there is a story behind that name, but I don't want to hear it. If they were TWO DOG NIGHT or ONE DOG NIGHT they would be lonely, remember? Because for some weird reason, the number two can be equally as sad as the number one! Sheesh, give me a break you guys! I always thought that was a depressing song and now I know why!

John Lennon was a manic-depressive if there ever was one, or so I now believe. For one thing, in that song on the White Album (BTW, great design work on that cover, guys!) he goes on and on about how "I'm so tired, I'm so tired, I haven't slept a wink" - BINGO! Insomnia is one of the clearest warning signs of the disease, whether you've got just the one pole of depression or are blessed with them both! And just think of what it would be like if everyone went around imagining that there were no Heaven and no Hell at the same time - that could easily upset the balance of the entire universe if we aren't careful! We might all break through into some Transcendental State or other, something Lennon was always struggling to find but never quite realized I Imagine.

None of the esoterica of pop music ever slipped by that madman Charlie Manson, did it? Somehow he became convinced that Paul McCartney, in the song "Helter Skelter" (also on the Black, er, White Album), was telling him personally that NOW IS THE TIME TO INITIATE THE RACIAL UPRISING IN WHICH ALL BLACK PEOPLE WILL UNITE BEHIND YOU TO OVERTHROW THE OPPRESSIVE WHITE REGIME! (I never heard those words myself, but I never played it backwards either). So the coward sent his goofy band of drug-crazed hippies out into the night to slaughter a wealthy actress and a group of her friends having a dinner party! Some mass uprising, Charlie! I know they at least had MAO inhibitors back then, but old Crazy Charlie never touched a single capsule of that stuff!

You don't have to be paranoid for everyone to be out to get you, you know. Chances are they aren't, of course - think of how hard it would be to coordinate that many people to begin with! I mean, EVERYONE? C’mon! But I still have to wonder how O.J. Simpson felt tooling down that freeway in his Bronco with the entire LA police force behind him and the chopper fleets of all the major broadcasting networks fluttering overhead! A teeny bit paranoid, perhaps? A little bit like General Custer, maybe? Sure, a wild outburst of murderous rage is not an atypical symptom of this disease, is it? I'm sure he'll eventually find the "real" killers, and those guys were been full-blown manics or depressed lunatics I’m sure!

No, no, no, I'm not trying to blame every hideous crime that ever happened on undiagnosed and untreated depression or mania. But you've got to wonder what makes a seemingly ordinary high school kid suddenly snap and begin spraying bullets up and down the hallways, don't you? If you rule out drugs and alcohol, possession by "their old friend Darkness" or something like that, you aren't left with too many other choices. Satanic promptings in heavy metal songs, perhaps, but I don't know any of those songs so I can't comment. Anyone?

Let's get back to 60's. What about "These Boots are Made for Walking", by Nancy Sinatra? I hate to spoil your fun, Nancy, but most boots are made for walking (duh), as well as running, riding, jumping, hiking and so forth. What you are actually referring to is an act of emotional aggression that is not uncommon in fits of depression or mania! "Walking all over people" is what those in a state of full-blown mania are likely to do without even knowing it! Believe me, Nancy old girl, you are NOT going to keep a husband that way!

C'mon, people, I can't be the only one who notices all this! Somebody help me out here! Like the words of the prophets themselves, it's written on the subway walls and in tenement halls! (And tenement halls aren't the kinds of halls that get "decked with boughs of holly" during Christmas, either - more of a dark and depressing kind of hall than a "fa la la la la" kind of hall, don't you think)?

OK, I give up - I'm sleepy now, which is a really good sign! Time for sharing the good old Sounds of Silence with my old friend Darkness!