PULP RANKED: Top 8 Songs For Crying In The Shower
By Jack Westbury
Hey there fellow depressed millennials, stop disassociating on the train and quit staring blankly at the reflection of the physical flesh form that traps your psyche in an endless ballet of emotional melodrama! Because I’m here to teach you how to let it all wash away down the drain.
In a study by Dutch psychologists, the activities that distressed people engage in to console themselves revealed that at the top of the list was listening to music, crying and making yourself warmer like putting on extra clothes or in our case, showering.
So it stands to reason that doing all 3 at the same time is going to provide some God-tier depression curing power.
Here’s what you should be listening to as you cry naked on the floor under the hot water.
7. Jovian Witness by Ben Ross
I’m going to endeavour to include some tracks you might not know at first, but bear with me and be assured that I’m an expert on this method and all of these songs should immediately be added to your playlists if you’re a serious sad binch like me.
The song literally starts with the artist croakily exclaiming “Ugh… F*ck…” As such, it is a perfect track to take you from the coldness of our unforgiving world of nonsense and cruelty to the safe and private place of introspection and emotional honesty that your shower is about to become.
6. If I Believe You by The 1975
If God didn’t strike us down with depression then we would have beaten Him in hand to hand combat by the age of 15. This song’s religious allusions remind us of that fact.
This song is a perfect atmospheric track, complete with bursts of Gospel vocals to really have you throwing your head back in apathy at the pain of merely existing.
5. Visions of Gideon by Sufjan Stevens
This haunting, breathy song by the master of sad, Sufjan Stevens, is an absolute heartbreaker. Your naked butt should be seated firmly on the floor of the shower for this one, turn that water temperature up a tad to account for the extra distance it has to reach you and rest your empty head against the wall. Get ready to stare blankly forward and reminisce about everything that has lead you to this point.
4. You Don’t Know How Lucky You Are by Keaton Henson
This might be another one you aren’t familiar with but hear me out. Keaton Henson’s music is pure poetry to the bleeding soul, this song especially isn’t to be taken lightly. The music video alone is a revelation, depicting a single continuous shot of a woman in an open field breaking down and crying.
The video and song is a blank canvas for you to apply your own grief to. It’s a special experience if you’re in the mood, and if you’re a lifeless husk on the floor of your shower, that is the perfect time for this song.
3. To Build A Home by The Cinematic Orchestra
This list would be incomplete without this beauty. A song so powerfully sad it proves completely inappropriate to listen to casually. The emotional potency of this song’s piano swells should really get your saltwater tears and shower water mixing.
2. Smother by Daughter
Nothing says ‘I am a worthless burden that should never have been born’ like this incredible song. To be honest this list could have all been Daughter songs. (Go ahead and check out their other songs like Medicine and Landfill as well for some top tier depression bops).
This song encapsulates everything that this experience is about. To surrender to the sadness you’re feeling, to let the warm water melt the numbness inside and let your devastating emotional truth and tears flow out of you to the journey of the music.
1. Obstacles by Syd Matters
This song evokes a lot of imagery for me. I see myself relaxed in a warm jacket against the cold of a winter night, staring up at the sky or the lights of the far off city simultaneously exhausted and at peace with the chaotic beauty and volatile uncertainty of ones own life and the decadent heights of tragedy and whirlwinds of joy we constantly experience as creatures of intangible emotion, our pure bleeding hearts irrevocably open to the rhythm of the cosmic dance we repeatedly perform on an impossible rock floating in an inconceivable ocean of fire and dust.