So friends, who listens to “The Blues”? And does it help move “the blues” on from you?

You know blues when you hear it, it starts out as gut wrenching depression, loss, raw grief – then somehow the singer – through their experience, voice and authenticity – transforms this muck of human experience into the brilliance and shining truth of the Self.

And we listen – amazed and touched. We catch a little of their journey from depravity to divinity – as we listen and we feel better.

Many people find that listening to ‘the Blues’ shoos ‘the blues’away. Some of us, the curious and the brave – ask “why?”

Have you noticed a Blues Singer can be not only much better live, but even exquisite? Somehow, by some magic that as yet remains mysterious and unexplained – the expression of blues via the voice of a gifted singer – transforms.

Here is Lana del Rey live singing … “Ride” – see what it tells about the long journey we all walk, sometimes – alone, sometimes in loneliness.

Nick Cave, goes a bit lower than Blues, if anyone is asking. The man is dark. The voice is low. The desire for heroin – insatiable. He takes us to black places in his music. I believe t’was friend Nick who said something along the lines of ‘music can change your brain chemistry in three minutes’. So now, it seems the science – agrees. Music affects the brain and releases dopamine. The mystery is why and how.

Music interestingly releases dopamine for one person and not another. I wonder – why? Probably we go straight to the “Nature versus Nurture” file. Researchers scanned the brains of subjects while they listened to new songs and asked how much they would spend on buying the tracks. They found that the most popular songs – those which people were prepared to pay more for – were also the ones that elicited the strongest response in the nucleus accumbens, a structure in the centre of the brain that is involved in reward processing.

“This area is important because it’s involved in forming expectations and these are expectations that could be rewarding,” said Valorie Salimpoor of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “What makes music so emotionally powerful is the creation of expectation. Activity in the nucleus accumbens normally would indicate that expectations are being met or surpassed.”

Music is also Art, therefore an expression of the Self of the Artist whose mind captured the inspiration, perceived the music and translated it into song. Science helps pull things apart but it is Art and Self Expression that puts us together. Singing and music changes depravity to divinity – as long friends, as we are ‘in tune’.

Make Art friends, big or small because when you do – you build your Authentic Self.

Here’s “Ride” with the Epilogue, the Feminists complained about this clip. For this reason alone – it is worth watching to figure out what fresh hell, new madness has offended. I think they completely missed the point of the “song” … myself.

And now, partially to introduce you to the style of Feminism that does not understand either the Self, which is odd since that’s what they are ‘fighting for’, nor the Expression of that Self – but also to lift you back up to the light after travelling so low with Lana.

Let me introduce you to the Feminist Book Store Ladies in Portland Oregon … take it away Candace and Toni!