Cerebellum Blues

Take it to the bridge, er middle 8, no wait, bridge, um...

The other day, a post appeared on Measure for Measure discussing bridges. Personally, for me, a bridge has always been a confounded thing, because I was never sure what exactly a bridge was. The source of my confusion is the interchangeable way people use the terms bridge and middle 8. Well, sometime in the last few years, I finally settled on what I think the definitions of the terms should be: a bridge is exactly that, it connects one part of a song to another, usually a verse to a chorus; a middle 8 is a tangent, a detour into some other musical territory that while different from the bulk of the tune still fits.

To me one of the greatest  bridges ever happens in U2's Stuck In A Moment. The way the music moves so gracefully and builds so powerfully from the verse into the chorus gives me goosebumps. And a lump in the throat.

Actually, that same song also has a fabulous middle 8 starting with "I was unconscious". I mean, wow, wow, wow. For me, only the Beatles outdo U2 for songcraft. Speaking of the Fab Four, they were the kings of the middle 8. Lennon's in We can Work it Out is one of their very best.

More thoughts on depression and songwriting.

Since thwacking my head against the bathroom wall and mushing a tiny bit of my cerebellum, I've been under doctor's orders to take antidepressants. I started with Lexapro, then switched to Cymbalta, since there's evidence that Cymbalta can help with damaged nerve pathways, which I seem to have along with my crunched cranial cells. But here's the interesting part: Both drugs have been a boon to my creativity, which is counterintuitive, you know? We all tend to think of great art arising out of great struggle (not that my art is very great), and while I actually believe this to be true, in my case, the antidepressents free my mind from its joyous downward spiral and allow it to actually think about and process some of my hopes and fears. in other words, I can make sense of stuff, and in the process of making sense, my maddeningly embattled brain seems to be willing to give up little nuggets of clarity, little summations that pop out as lines describing an idea, and those lines and ideas become songs. Without the antidepressants, there is never enough calm in my skull to allow such ideas to form and rise to the surface. Has anyone else out there had a similar experience or the complete opposite? Would love to hear about other's experiences, especially within the realm of making music.