Mad necessary

Last week, I felt the pulse of live music for the first time since Covid shut us down. On the deck of a bar, far apart from other people, I uncovered my face. I day drank margaritas and sang out loud.

And I cried, hard, for the first time in a while.

I keep reading that music is necessary at a time like this. But playing it alone—and dancing by myself—just makes me sad. I’ve grown tired of Zoom concerts. Even my ukulele bores me.

After the patio gig, I was desperate for the free feeling I get from good music. So I scanned my phone and found Sadnecessary, the 2013 debut studio album from Milky Chance. It’s a bouncy global mishmash of folksy-bluesy-indie rock. It’s a tad techno, with a rad hint of reggae.

The sound makes me forget, then remember, then forget again, how lonely and sad and pissed off I am—at Covid and Trump, and the smug Texans who are crawling all over Colorado with their bare-faced smiles.

The message in the title song is almost spot on for today.

“On the one side you’re sad now, but on the other side you’re happy, looking forward to turning that sad feeling into a hoping mood,” said Philipp Dausch, half of the two-man German band, of the title song, in an interview. There’s a balance “a sad melody with sad lyrics—but the whole song has a happy and danceable mood.”

Until now staying home, having patience, waiting out the danger, has felt both sad and necessary.

But today, I’m feeling more mad than sad.

We wait for a vaccine to save us—yet, more than half of Americans have said they won’t get it.

We wait for an election—yet, the integrity of its outcome is far from guaranteed.

And we wait for school to start—though we lack a viable plan for keeping students and teachers safe.

It’s been six months since the first coronavirus case was reported. Six months!

Sad doesn’t seem to be getting the necessary job done.

I’m thinking it’s necessary to get mad.