As I was processing my wife’s death, I listed to a lot of music. TOOL helped me process the anger and guilt, Pink Floyd made me look inward,and RUSH connected me to better times of my youth. John Denver and the singer-song writers of the 70’s connected me to Katy; she loved Jim Croce. I would mix in various playlists along the way; Apple is a good source of music – 80s Movie Soundtracks and Classic Punk Essentials have become regular plays.
Classic Punk, the 70’s and 80’s era, is a genre I’ve hovered around for some time. Every heavy metal fan dips their toes into the Punk pool at some point. As a teen groups like Black Flag,The Dead Kennedy’s and the Ramones were known to me. Husker Du and The Melvins I was aware of, and I did not even consider Elvis Costello or the Police as early Punk examples! The longer I hung around the genre, the more I recognized that it is the perfect soundtrack for grief. I understand the hesitancy to accept this one, but hear me out. It’s a record I’ve been playing for the past few years; I think I can make a good argument.
The first side of this record is about anger and aggression. I was on the edge in those early months after she died. I couldn’t tell you why I was angry, At GOD maybe, Katy for hiding her scans from me. I was a boiling kettle of emotions. Anger is embedded in the fabric of punk. Political and Socio-Economic rage, anger at the mainstream, alienation. These were constant themes in the music. Watching Darby Crash writhing on the stage while singing (Or mumbling, if I am being honest) Manimal was kind of cathartic. Rollins screaming in my ear “Drinking black coffee, staring at the wall / Anger and coffee feeding me” as I would do that very thing was a special moment in my mornings.
The early stages of grief can be filled with a lot of anger, a volatile, aggressive anger that burns hot and doesn’t know where to go. Listening to punk gave that fury a home; it channeled those ugly, overwhelming emotions into something constructive. But things shifted completely when I sat behind a drum kit. Learning to play those songs was a whole different level of relief. Hitting the drums became a physical manifestation of my pain. Every snare hit was a scream, and every kick drum was a way to smash through the wall of numbness, exhausting the anger until there was finally room to breathe.
Let’s look at the second side of this record: chaos. Punk is chaotic, and so is grief. When you lose a life partner, your world rips in half. You are forced to navigate a terrifying new space without the one person you trusted implicitly. Early punk bands mirrored this exact shift. They lacked talent but possessed an abundance of passion and raw emotion. Those kids didn’t know what they were doing, yet they played anyway. This DIY ethos was famously summarized in a 1977 zine cartoon: “This is a chord. This is another. Now form a band.” The priority was raw, unpolished survival over formal ability.
When you first arrive in Griefville, everything is raw fury. Like those early punks, you have no idea what you are doing. It’s like waking up, swinging your feet out of bed, and stepping directly into ice-cold water when you only know how to doggie paddle. For me, punk music was the life preserver. Those kids just wanted to make noise and share it with friends. They surely questioned if it was worth it, breaking through walls of self-doubt to realize the music was saving them. That is the heart of punk—it isn’t about perfection, it’s about survival. I am channeling that exact, unpolished chaos to fight my way through the suffocating chaos of grief.
I never thought I’d rely on punk music for my mental stability. But then again, most of my fellow Gen-Xers are finding that everything in our 50s falls into the “I never thought I’d experience this” category.
Punk is the perfect companion to grief. Everyone’s soundtrack looks different. Some choose to cry alone in a dark room; others want to smash things. Mine is built on raw screams, out-of-tune guitars, and a blood-soaked Darby Crash reminding me I’m not alone.
Rewatch / Replay 
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