Why happy music does not exist for me

A friend recently asked me, “Do you think some people just have sad souls?” (I forget the exact wording but something to that effect), referring to Kurt Kobain’s sad, angsty music.  I told him what Fiona Apple said about all music coming from angst.  (skip to4:36 for the start of the interview)

“Here’s what I think though: I only write when I’m angry or sad or something because that’s when I just have to write and I only will work if I absolutely have to.  If I’m having a good time and I’m happy and things are going really well, why would I want to stop what I’m doing to go and write at the piano?”

I feel like I’ve written about this before in a previous blog.  Hmm.  In any case, I tried to explain to my friend that maybe Kurt Kobain did have an eternally sad soul–I didn’t know him– but if we simply take a look at his/Nirvana’s music which may be sad, it’s not completely telling of his character.  I don’t believe he had zero happy moments in his life, but that, like me and like Fiona Apple, perhaps he simply wrote sad, angsty songs because he felt it was a way to let out his sadness, in order to feel good again.  And since so few of us in the world knew Kobain as a person, we might suggest through his songs and the subject matter of them that he was a sad soul, when it might not be the case.

We all pour out our feelings into something, to an extent, I think.