A friend and I were talking about crying a few days ago.  She admitted she hasn’t shed a single tear in over a decade.  And it got me thinking… since those first couple of years after my husband left me, I have been fortunate enough that nothing bad has happened in my life to make me weep.

Except… when there’s music involved.

I’m taking my daughter to see Les Miserables in a few weeks’ time and I’ve given her fair warning that I will start bubbling as soon as the first few notes ring out.  I don’t know what it is about music, particularly live music, but it reaches down into my soul.

Sometimes it’s classical.  Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ and Vaughan Williams’ ‘Lark Arising’ get the tears flowing, but so can the Star Wars theme.  I was at a Spice Girls tribute concert with my daughter in January, and the tears started dripping down my cheeks to ‘Wannabe’.

In some cases, I think it’s situational.  When it comes to the Spice Girls, I remember my daughter and her friend as ten-year-olds, dancing and singing down the street, and the memories that conjures up are warm and lovely.  Star Wars reminds me of a special time in my life.

But why, with other pieces of music that are not situational, do I cry at some but not others.

The latest piece of music that has really got to me is ‘Golden’ from K Pop Demon Hunters.  (I’m late to the game as my seven-year-old granddaughter rolled her eyes when I talked to her about it.  Apparently ‘Golden’ is ‘So 2025’!!!)

I rarely – never – listen to a song’s lyrics.  For me it’s all about the melody and from the first time I heard ‘Golden’ it brought tears to my eyes.  Why?

There’s a line in Alan Bennett’s play ‘The History Boys’ that I love.  “The best moments in reading are when you come across something – a thought, a feeling, a way of looking at things – which you had thought special and particular to you. Now here it is, set down by someone else, a person you have never met, someone even who is long dead. And it is as if a hand has come out and taken yours.”

He’s talking about words, but I think the same emotion can hold true for all kinds of art… including music.

So what is it about Golden – without listening to the lyrics –  that resonated so strongly with me?  Was it the wistful opening? The different voices?  The build to ecstatic joy?  Lots of songs do that.  Why is this one special?

I decided to research one of the writers, Ejae.  She’s still very young – only 34 – but started training to be a K Pop singer when she was eleven, until she was dropped just over ten years later.  She talks about being heartbroken by this in interviews, and at this point she slowly moved into song writing.

I finally read the lyrics to ‘Golden’, and things started to fall into place for me. Although she and her co-writer were given a brief by the producers of the film as to what they wanted the song to be about, it was the music that came first to her.  (She talks about noting down the melodies on her way to the dentist.) The characters’ emotional journeys – despite the fact they’re demon hunters – reflects her own. Resilience and rebuilding

So, what did I learn from this?  Two things.

1. Perhaps the biggest lesson I have learned from my divorce is the gift of resilience and second chances/rebuilding.  In my marriage ‘I lived both lives, tried to play both sides’, but now I’m finally growing into ‘Who I’m born to be’. 

• As in the Alan Bennett quote above, I have come to believe that when one allows oneself to be really honest and truthful in your creation – whether it’s in writing, or music or art, or any kind of design or creative activity like cooking a meal or baking a cake – that’s when you are going to touch the soul of others, allowing us to realise we’re not alone on this journey of life.

So… bring on the tears!