Practice English Speaking&Listening with: The Science Behind Why We Love Sad Songs | Genius News

JACQUES: Sad music has a time and place but if you’re in that mood, artists like Rod Wave…

Ali Gatie...

And Kid Cudi’s somber hums are there to lift you up.

JACQUES: But why do we listen to sad songs when we’re down?

DR. LIILA TARUFFI: They are allowed to express their own emotions so they experience a sort

of catharsis or venting of the negative emotional experience through music.

JACQUES: That’s Dr. Liila Taruffi, a music researcher at Durham University in the UK.

She is the co-author of a 2014 study, "The Paradox of Music-Evoked Sadness: An Online

Survey," where she found that quote.

JACQUES: Dr. Taruffi’s research showed that

people seek out sad music for obvious situations.

DR. LIILA TARUFFI: For most of the people they tend to seek sad music when they are feeling

some sort of emotional distress.

When they’re going through a break up, loss of a person as well as the death of a

person as well as stress at work.

JACQUES: And it can make us feel happier.

DR. LIILA TARUFFI: People get a sort of comfort from the music as if it were a surrogate from

an emphatic friend.

People feel like they’re sharing their negative emotional experience with someone else.

JACQUES: But I wanted a real world take on this so I pinged a few colleagues to see what

they thought.

JACQUES: Mikey!

*Laugh* MIKEY: * “Sir!

BRIANA: Do I look at the camera or look at you?

JACQUES: Look at me BRIANA: Hey!

JACQUES: When do you listen to sad music?

MATT: I listen to sad music all the time.

BRIANA: When I’m in my feels I’m feeling sad. In a way, yeah, it does sorta make me feel better.

MIKEY: On gloomy days the first thing I’m putting on is like quote unquote sad music.

DELISA: It makes me feel seen and like I’m not alone.

JACQUES: Dr. Taruffi says feeling ‘seen’ is called ‘emotional communion.’

DR. TARUFFI: When a person feels they can share their emotional experience with an author

of a song and this idea that somebody else in the world is having the same life circumstances

or emotional experience seems to be a great source of comfort.

JACQUES: And my colleagues agreed.

BRI: I feel better because I’m connecting with whoever is singing the sad song and I’m

like, ‘Man, we’re just sad together.’

MATT: My friends have always been like if you’re sad, why do you listen to sad music?

I’m like it’s an experience you just gotta go through it.

DELISA: A song when I’m going through any type of break up. ‘Nobody’

by Mitski is probably like top 2 and it’s not 2.

BRI: Lately when I’m feeling down, I just

want to relish that feeling lately I’ve been listening to “Cellophane” by FKA Twigs.

MATT: “Real Love” by Beach House.

MATT: When I was going through some love problems back in college,

I always go back to that one.

JACQUES: But Dr. Taruffi says one person's sad song can be another's happy song.

DR. TARUFFI: What you made of that song, what that song represented for you in your life,

that counts more at the end of the day.

JACQUES: But apparently listening to a song after a break up is not always the best idea.

GUY WINCH: If you’re trying to get over someone, do you want to evoke all those feelings

and associations or not is a question you should be asking yourself.

JACQUES: That’s Guy Winch, author of “How To Fix A Broken Heart.”

He told us that a tough break up affects us in the brain.

GUY: The withdrawals of romantic love is the same as the withdrawal of opioids for an addict.

You are jonesing for a fix, nothing matters to you more than getting a fix of that person.

JACQUES: With that context, it’s easy to understand why so many lyrics about heartbreak

deal with a feeling of being near death - like Ali Gatie’s “Losing You.”

And Kanye West’s “Heartless.”

JACQUES: And why people could grow callous

towards love - as explained on Rod Wave’s 2016 cut “Heartbreak Hotel.”

JACQUES: Guy believes music after a break up

could be either good thing...

GUY: You’re using it as a way to say goodbye to the person separating and really coming

to terms with the fact that it’s over it can be useful.

JACQUES: Or a bad thing...

GUY: But if you’re listening to that song a month later and you’re still associating it with

the person who broke your heart,

it’sgoing to be painful and it's really going to set you back.

JACQUES: But all in all, time heals all wounds - best explained by Lil Uzi Vert.

I’m Jacques Morel with Genius News,

bringing you the meaning and the knowledge behind the music.

Peace!