Why do we like to listen to sad music?
Intrigued by this question, the American coach and trainer Susan Cain investigated "the happiness of being sad", title of her latest book, published by Éditions Leduc in 2022, which rehabilitates the strength of melancholy in a society where reigns the tyranny of positive thinking.
“When I listen to Leonard Cohen, this cantor of pessimism, you could say that I am sad, but it is in fact love that I feel, a great wave of love. A deep kinship with all the other souls in the world who know the grief that this music strives to convey
,” she explains in the preamble.
The “bittersweet” songs comfort us, because they allow us to feel connected to each other, all united in a common humanity.
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