Music: Were Pink Floyd the first band to write songs about mental illness?

[tarheelhockey]

Don't confuse the blues with depression. While it may be a major illness associated with it, it can also stand for a variety of other illnesses.

For example, we know the narrator beat his wife. That may be depression, PTSD, anxiety/phobia or any other forms that may cause one to lash out at their loved ones. The narrator only identifies the rage that caused him to lash out as a devil. It is unclear whether the narrator associated that devil with hard liquor (spirits).

That's exactly what I mean. Blues songs, especially in the early days, have a narrative structure that AFAIK universally follows the premise that something bad has happened externally to the narrator. Whether it be a woman cheating on him (usually), being out of work, being out of money, going on a long hard trip, or whatever else. There's always some sort of triggering event which causes the narrator to feel low, or violent, or just sarcastic.

What's tough about analyzing those lyrics for mental illness is that they come from a pre-psychiatric worldview where "mental illness" as a we know it didn't quite exist. If a person was dealing with anxiety/depression/PTSD, it was interpreted as a struggle with external rather than internal forces. If a person was seriously insane, it was interpreted as a manifestation of evil and represented as such in art. There really isn't a space in those early songs for mental illness to show up as such, because simply being depressed or being traumatized was not conceived of as a medical condition. So even in blues songs which have shadowy undertones that might hint at psychological issues, there's no direct treatment of the subject and therefore nothing you can pin down as a clear reference to it.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

I think it was fashionable in the late 60s/early 70s to romanticize insanity as a type of escape from the real madness of the modern world. Lunatics were somehow better off living in a world of their own. This looks like Floyd's angle.

 

[Ralph Spoilsport]

Helen Reddy followed up her breakthrough hit--the feminist anthem "I Am Woman"--with three hits about crazy women! ("Delta Dawn" (cover of Tanya Tucker song above), "Ruby Red Dress (Leave Me Alone)" and "Angie Baby".) Way to stay on-message!