USA Today's Nashville music critic Brian Mansfield was diagnosed with colon cancer at age 48. In a beautiful piece at USA Today, he describes a kind of "cancer honeymoon" just after his diagnosis in which he felt hopeful and eager to make changes in his life. That ended abruptly when further information about his disease showed that things would be harder. Read the whole piece, I don't want to spoil the story for you here, but this part really resonated with me:
Cancer has changed the way I hear music, more than any other life event except my marriage. Songs I once appreciated only on a surface level now strike deep at the core of my soul. Some inspire me; some terrify me. Others that I might have liked before, I've got no use for now. I've also got more time to listen, whether it's during my morning exercise time or while lying in a hospital bed.
These songs form part of the soundtrack to my cancer story…
Man. Same here, Brian. Before my mastectomy, someone on Twitter told me that some study showed that patients who were able to bring a CD of music to the operating room, to be played during their surgery, had better recovery outcomes. I made just such a CD and brought it to the hospital. Didn't end up playing it, and I recovered well, but I share this anecdote because there have also been certain songs that I play to and from important medical appointments, certain songs I've cried to or just listened over and over to, to jolt me out of the awful darkness that comes with cancer. And I'm going to play that "surgery" CD when I drive to radiation treatment this morning.
Anyway, Brian's Spotify playlist is here.
And read the rest of this story: My Semicolon Life: Cancer honeymoon's over. (USATODAY.com)
The track at the top of his list is embedded above: "Dance in the Graveyard," by Delta Rae. Download it here, and the lyrics are here, and pasted below:
When I die
I don’t want to rest in peace
I want to dance in joy
I want to dance in the graveyards, the graveyards
And while I’m alive
I don’t want to be alone
Mourning the ones who came before
I want to dance with them some more
Let’s dance in the graveyards
Gloria, like some other name we kept on calling ya and waiting for change
But I belong to all of your mysteries
And all of us, we’re meant for the fire, but we keep rising up and walking the wires
So when we go below don’t lose us in mourning
’Cause when I die
I don’t want to rest in peace
I want to dance in joy
I want to dance in the graveyards, the graveyards
And while I’m alive
I don’t want to be alone
Mourning the ones who came before
I want to dance with them some more
Let’s dance in the graveyards
Oh my love, don’t cry when I’m gone
I will lift you up, the air in your lungs
And when you reach for me, we’ll dance in the darkness
And we will walk beyond
Our daughters and sons, they will carry on
Like when we were young, and we will stand beside and breathe in their new life
’Cause when I die
I don’t want to rest in peace
I want to dance in joy
I want to dance in the graveyards, the graveyards
And while I’m alive
I don’t want to be alone
Mourning the ones who came before
I want to dance with them some more
Let’s dance in the graveyards
