DEPRESSION

The Good Thing About Depression © Eddie Rhoades 2010

Depression is a terrible state of mind and most all of us have it from time to time in our lives. Think about the first extended trip when you were young and away from home and how homesick you were. Or how about when your first romance ended.
Later in life one or both of your parents died. Then you might have gone through a divorce and were living alone. Dear Abby said there is nothing worse than being lonely and I believe her. So you have a drink or two or more and guess what? You wind up being even more depressed. But if you're a songwriter you're all about capturing raw emotions and setting it to music because you're not alone in your feelings. There are plenty of people who can identify with your emotions, sometimes right down to the letter. It's good for your soul to step back and take a look at your condition and the accompanying emotions in the process of writing them down. And to tell the truth, many a great song is a tear-jerker. What's your favorite sad song? One of mine is Bobby Goldsboro singing Honey I Miss You. I tear up just thinking about it. My brother,Robert Rhoades, wrote a song about suicide. Despite the morbid subject matter it is a beautiful song. And how about Johnny Cash singing Give My Love To Rose. Those are sad songs but they were big hits and I'm sure you can think of lots more examples. When my daddy died I wrote a song about how hard that was. Same thing when my mother died twenty years later. These are great songs and at first they were extremely hard to perform due to my emotional ties to them. Yes, it was depressing for my parents to pass away but from that family tragedy came two beautiful songs and I know mother and daddy would have been extremely proud to know I wrote these songs for them. Now if you are battling depression and you are a songwriter then use these strong emotions to tell the world how you feel - It's what we do, express the human condition and the feelings that accompany them. Good times and bad times and memories of them all, that's what life is all about so write about it.