MHAW, if the logo didn’t give it away, stands for Mental Health Awareness Week, which this year runs in the UK from 15-21 May. May is also Mental Health Month in the US, which makes for a good match. The theme for 2023 in the UK is anxiety, and what it can do to our mental health. I’ll be posting in more detail about it later in the week but it gave me the idea for a special edition of Tuesday Tunes. I’m doing something a little different this week, and instead of giving you background information about the songs – chart placings and the like – I’m going to be concentrating on their lyrics and what they say to us. Having recently given you Musicians And Health Revisited this feels like a natural companion piece. Most of the names I’m featuring today will be known to you, but have you ever stopped to think what their lyrics are saying to us?

How about this, for starters:

My independence seems to vanish in the haze
But but every now and then I feel so insecure 
I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before

Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being ’round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won’t you please, please help me

Help! lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Capitol CMG Publishing, Downtown Music Publishing, Peermusic Publishing, Royalty Network, Sentric Music, Songtrust Ave, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Tratore, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

A simple pop song by The Beatles, widely known as the title track of an album and a movie. Though they may be clowning around a little in the video, Help! is actually a cry from the heart, probably one that we have all felt the need to make at some point in our life. John Lennon said in an interview in Playboy that he wrote the lyrics to express his stress after the Beatles’ quick rise to success: “I was fat and depressed and I was crying out for ‘Help'” Like all aspects on mental health, anxiety can creep up on us when we least expect it, and when to outward appearances we might not be suffering at all.

This next one expresses those thoughts and feelings very well:

I can’t get to sleep
I think about the implication
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat, shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away
Come back another day

Overkill lyrics © Emi Songs Australia Pty Limited

At the time Overkill was released, Men At Work were enjoying huge success. It tells the story of what is going on behind the facade, and it is probably something that none of us would have expected. Just because you are successful doesn’t exempt you from fear, worries and anxieties that can play on your mind and have a negative impact on your life. Many of us, I’m sure, have had sleepless nights caused by worry and stress, and this song offers a good description of that.

Another song which deals with the way anxiety and fear can play on our minds is this one:

All day starin’ at the ceilin’ makin’
Friends with shadows on my wall
All night hearing voices tellin’ me
That I should get some sleep
Because tomorrow might be good for somethin’
Hold on, feelin’ like I’m headed for a breakdown
And I don’t know why

But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell
I know, right now you can’t tell
But stay a while and maybe then you’ll see
A different side of me

Unwell lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

Matchbox Twenty are another good example of a band who were enjoying huge success when Unwell was released. Having been through a long spell off work myself with depression I can really relate to this song. The questions he asks himself are exactly what I was doing in the months before I was diagnosed, in the spell where I was trying not to accept that there was something wrong. That “I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell” line says everything: I went through similar thoughts, worrying about whether I was mad, and the diagnosis, when I eventually plucked up courage to talk to my doctor, came as something of a relief. It had a name, it was a recognised illness, and I could get help for it. The song also speaks of the help that we can get from talking to people and being in company: I did it the other way, and shut myself off, for fear of the stigma that still attach to mental illness. It was a mistake, but by the time I knew what was wrong it was too late to turn the clock back. Take it from me: there are better ways of helping yourself than the route I went down!

Don’t be fooled by the driving beat and volume of my next tune. In a few words this one says so much:

All day long I think of things
But nothing seems to satisfy
Think I’ll lose my mind
If I don’t find something to pacify

I need someone to show me
The things in life that I can’t find
I can’t see the things that make
True happiness, I must be blind

Make a joke and I will sigh
And you will laugh and I will cry
Happiness I cannot feel
And love to me is so unreal

And so as you hear these words
Telling you now of my state
I tell you to enjoy life
I wish I could but it’s too late

Songwriters: Michael Butler / Ozzy Osbourne / Tony Iommi / William Ward

I’m sure Black Sabbath’s Paranoid is known to most, but have you ever really taken a close look at those lyrics? The pain and anguish expressed in them, the feeling that none of the good things in life can help him, and then that final verse which hints at a possible way out, are things which for the most part I can relate to, though I am happy to say I never had suicidal thoughts. But I remember once talking to one of the psychiatrists I worked alongside in my NHS days, and he said to me that if anyone ever questioned the validity of the feelings that mental health patients suffered and said that they should just pull themselves together, he would tell them to listen to this song and gain an understanding. The fact that it is a pounding, frantic song just adds to the effect.

I’ve played a couple of songs by Ingrid Michaelson before, to a good response, so I thought I’d add this one into the mix today. Again, this is one where the jaunty little tune might mislead you, but just listen to the lyrics. This version of her video was made especially to support Stand Up To Cancer, but is just as valid in describing how someone with mental health issues might be feeling:

I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today
I just want to feel something today
I just want to feel today, feel today, feel today
I just want to feel something today

Open me up and you will see
I’m a gallery of broken hearts
I’m beyond repair, let me be
And give me back my broken parts

Be OK lyrics © Spirit Catalogue Holdings S.a.r.l.

I think the imagery in that, when she realises that something is happening outside and goes to investigate, is beautiful in its simplicity. The meaning is very clear: support is there if we know where to look for it, and can help us feel better. “Give me back my broken parts” is such a good description of how we can be feeling.

My next tune for today is, on the face of it, about losing someone from our lives. That might be because we have parted company, or due to the passing of a friend or loved one. But underneath there lies a darkness in the lyrics. It is a cracking good song and video too:

I don’t like walking around this old and empty house
So hold my hand, I’ll walk with you my dear
The stairs creak as you sleep
It’s keeping me awake
It’s the house telling you to close your eyes
And some days I can’t even dress myself
It’s killing me to see you this way

You’re gone, gone, gone away
I watched you disappear
All that’s left is a ghost of you
Now we’re torn, torn, torn apart
There’s nothing we can do
Just let me go, we’ll meet again soon

Little Talks lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

My interpretation of that is that the loved one has passed away, and the singer is wishing for their own passing in order to be reunited in the afterlife. The impact of a bereavement on our mental health can be dramatic and should never be underestimated – it is the reason why counselling is offered in such circumstances. Little Talks, by the Icelandic band Of Monsters And Men, is powerful in its reminder of how that can make us feel, and what it might bring into our thoughts about whether we can carry on. It is another song whose upbeat tune masks something much deeper.

Whilst this next tune mightn’t be overtly about mental health issues, it builds a picture of the pressures we can put on ourselves by worrying about what we say or do. I think ‘religion’ is used as a metaphor here, for the loss of a set of beliefs on which the singer has been depending. If you know Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you’ll understand that you don’t have to be far up the pyramid before thoughts like this start kicking in:

Every whisper, of every waking hour
I’m choosing my confessions
Trying to keep an eye on you
Like a hurt, lost and blinded fool, fool
Oh no I’ve said too much
I set it up

Consider this
Consider this the hint of the century
Consider this the slip
That brought me to my knees, failed
What if all these fantasies come
Flailing around
Now I’ve said too much

Losing My Religion lyrics © Night Garden Music

Those lyrics are, for me, a very good impression of how anxiety and worry can affect us in negative ways. The constant feel of have I said the right thing, have I said enough, have I said too much that runs through the song is something which can be so destructive to our wellbeing.

For today’s final song I’ve chosen one which talks about how pressure can impact our lives and the lives of those we care about, until everything comes crashing down in our minds. No guesses as to what it will be, now that I’ve said that:

Pressure pushin’ down on me
Pressin’ down on you, no man ask for
Under pressure that brings a building down
Splits a family in two, puts people on streets

Turned away from it all like a blind man
Sat on the fence but it don’t work
Keep comin’ up with love but it’s so slashed and torn
Why, why, why?
Love
Insanity laughs under pressure we’re breaking

Under Pressure lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Queen and David Bowie had a massive hit with Under Pressure, but I wonder how many of us actually took its message to heart?  I think the video does a good job of driving it into us, and some of its images are very relevant in the context of mental health, anxiety and pressure. Watch it with that in mind and its effect is enhanced.

That’s all for this week. I hope you can see why I chose this theme to support MHAW: it is a subject near to my heart, and sharing some songs which get us thinking about the message behind them is no bad thing, I think. I’ll be back to the regular pattern next week, for episode 150 in this growing saga. I’ll see you again in a couple of days for a more detailed piece on MHAW, and will of course be back for Song Lyric Sunday. Have a good week 😊