Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
New Visions
Religious Art
Plagues and Panic: how art can keep us from feeling alone

Plagues and Panic: how art can keep us from feeling alone

Last updated on: October 7, 2024 at 1:13 pm by Melissa Ingoldsby

0 Comments

Plagues and Panic: how art can keep us from feeling alone 2024-10-07T13:13:41-04:00 Melissa Ingoldsby

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Nina Simone plays piano during the Playboy Jazz Festival at the Hollywood Bowl on June 15, 1986.
Jose Galvez, Los Angeles Times Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

Plagues and Panic: how art can keep us from feeling alone

During the 2019 COVID pandemic, before that even, the lingering malaise that has covered the world has filled me with dread. It’s more than that basic existential dread, it is more of a sudden burst of inexplicable, terrifying consternation. The worry for the well-being of others. Of humanity as a whole.

These feelings are as indescribable as they are relatable and have always been punctuated with art, books, music and media. To somehow bottle up a feeling in a song, to encapsulate a moment or an expression in a paragraph of a novel, or of an experience in a painting. I have always found refuge in media. Jane Eyre, for instance, is my dog-eared expression for spiritual freedom and renewal, love and compassion that I constantly circle back to with passion.

To actually hear the feeling of loneliness. To see the feeling of utter joy. Of the most intense pain, of terrible loss. Of love, kissing and dreams.

Nina Simone: The Powerhouse of Spiritual Beauty

Nina Simone can do all of that in one song. In one word. In one verse. In a single breath.

She is known for many things, as a Civil Rights activist, as a jazz and folk singer, songwriter, and as a hot-tempered woman who wouldn’t take crap from anyone —even her own audience.

She took the most painful and melancholic feelings and turned them into something magnificent. Almost like an epic ballad.

Accidentally Falling in Love on Purpose

I discovered Nina by accident, searching for new music at a Barnes and Noble over ten years ago when I got into my jazz phase as a teenager… a phase that turned into a lifelong love affair. I fell in love with Nina.

There were others, of course. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Etta James and many more talented jazz artists. But Nina was something special. A force to be reckoned with. A true tour de force. A lot of things have to do with force, but as everyone would agree, she came onto the jazz scene with gusto and prowess, and that may be intimidating to some—but to the rest of us—-it was powerful.

Jazz was never something anyone ever introduced me to, but like a cannon blast, it hit me suddenly one day and after that, I was never the same. I never looked at music the same way again, especially after listening to Nina Simone.

When I first heard, “I Want a Little Sugar in My Bowl,” I was instantly smitten. Her vocals were bold, unapologetic, smoky, smooth like honey… and I could not get enough. I instantly bought her CD, having only listened to one or two of her songs. Her raspy, sad, almost angry sounding at times contralto voice vibrated through my soul, and it gave me chills, but grounded me.

Bojack Horseman & Jazz

There was this particular feeling that I got when I first heard, “Stars,”… and it was when I was watching an episode of Bojack Horseman. The feeling was an overwhelming sense of love and forgiveness for humanity. Of all of our shared memories, pain, love, depression, and joy.

I know what you are probably thinking. Over an episode of Bojack?! Silly, right?

But, it was so good. The two somewhat contrasting forms of media meshed together in such a way that dramatically highlighted the importance of the scene and drew an emotionally resonant arc for the story and the character.

But it was more than just about the song, or the show, or how I was feeling at that moment.

It was a shared pain.

That feeling that we all knew exactly what Nina was crooning on about, and why Bojack let go of his control of his car, because he didn’t actually ever have control of anything or anyone—especially himself. And with Nina’s strong and powerful chords slowly working up that wonderful and cathartic climax, singing—

And we always have a story.

I was absolutely enthralled.

I cried and I laughed, thinking, yes, you are right Nina. We all have a story. We all want to be free. We all want to live our lives the way we want to live it.

I love her so much because by listening to, “Stars,” I found something in myself that I thought I lost.

That shared sense of humanity.

Of loss, pain, misery, love, kissing and dreamin’.

Healing in a shared experience

This is one of the most cathartic experiences for me—-to listen to that painful and gorgeous song, Stars, because it helps me resolve my own tension and stress.

With her brilliant interpretation of, “I loves you, Porgy,” she won the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 2000. There really is no contest when it came to who made the most intense and creative covers; she always made it her own and gave it an original flair that no one could surpass.

To me, she is a luminous woman, who was and still is a legend, and one of the most talented and interesting musicians I ever had the opportunity to get to know. Through her music, through her pain and her joy, we all can know her.

And through that, she’ll live forever.

New Visions

More Voices

About Melissa Ingoldsby

Melissa Ingoldsby is a published author of the crime drama novel The Half Paper Moon and the horror/romance novel I am Bexley. She lives in the Saint Louis region and is a boy mom of three, with many different publications of poetry, novels and short stories on the online platform Vocal, Patheos, Amazon, Resurgence Novels, and Golden Storyline Books. She enjoys film, animation, art and literature of many varieties, including horror, science-fiction, fantasy, romance, dark comedy, entomology and non-fiction. You can read more about the author here.

Previous Post

August 14, 2024

Layers that make up an art installation : 2024 Olympics