1,001 Albums [I] Must Hear before [I] Die: 15

Lady in Satin - Billie Holiday

That voice - the vulnerability, the pain, the sense of unfulfilled hope, the pure humanity contained within it - it's impossible for me to listen to Lady Day without, at least, choking-up. Every word, every phrase is heartbreaking.

There is a genuineness to her melancholy which few other artists have ever been able to achieve, let alone have it come so naturally to them. Billy Holiday never had it easy, to say the very least. By the time she had achieved fame, she had already become a truly broken individual.

Raped as a child, forced into prostitution, a drug addict and alcoholic as a result, the pain and isolation in every note she delivers is real. Easily one of, if not my favorite singer of all time - you can't help but wish you never heard her voice at all. The suffering she went through that resulted in such a unique delivery... a truly moral person could never wish what she went through upon another human being, even if it provides one with hours of entertainment and joy as a result. It simply isn't worth it.

As I mentioned before, my grandmother actually knew her. I try, sometimes, to imagine meeting Billie Holiday, and I cannot see myself doing anything other than breaking down in tears. It would not be in pity for her- pity never got anyone anywhere - but she is the embodiment of the cliché, "man's inhumanity to man". She is a reminder that there is (not to use another cliché, but) always someone who has it so much worse than you. The striking realization that there are people in the world who, even in our modern day, somehow have it worse than Lady Day ever did is unfathomable.

(If often wondered about that adage - that there is always someone who has it worse than you. That statement simply cannot be true. With a finite amount of people living, there must, by definition, be one person in the world in which no one has it worse than them. I often wonder what their life could possible be like - and I am grateful for the fact that I can't even begin to imagine that sort of life.)

This is what listening to Billy Holiday does to me - makes me ponder the topics of pain and suffering - makes me think of morality, the evils which exist in the world - as well as the good. It kills me to know that the amount of pain which would cause a person to have this kind of voice exists, let alone the fact that even more pain can exist - yet it strangely makes me feel better about my own life.

My New Year's resolution was to stop complaining (as much as possible), and to remember that I have it relatively good - very good. I'm a white, middle-class American, with a roof over my head, a job I like quite a bit, a girlfriend I love tremendously, a good quantity of supportive and loving friends and family, and four wonderful kitty-cats (yes, I have four cats - don't you judge me!). Do I have problems, stresses, etc.? Yes I do - but nothing I cannot overcome. I have so much more to be grateful for than things to lament.

If you feel at like contemplating life, the goods and evils in the world, etc. - this is a great soundtrack to such meditations.

P.S. - Billie Holiday didn't live to see this album released - she died just before it came out - making it that much more gut-wrenchingly moving.