Credits

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Gloomy Sunday

Just last night, Jav was telling me about Gloomy Sunday, which is widely known as the Hungarian Suicide Song. Its nickname speaks for itself. The song is of crushing hopelessness and bitter despair that it drives people to their death. Reports from Hungary alleged individuals had taken their lives after listening to the hauntying melody, or that the lyrics had been left with their last letters.

This composer of this particular piece, Reszo Seress, had composed this song when his long-time girlfriend/fiancee had left him.

In Berlin, a young man requested a band to play Gloomy Sunday and after the number was performed, the man went home and blasted himself in the head with a revolver after complaining that he felt severly depressed by the melody of a new song which he couldn't get out of his head. And that song was Gloomy Sunday. A week later, in the same city, a young lady hung herself in her flat and in her bedroom was a copy of the sheet-music to Gloomy Sunday.

When the composer gave the song to his finacee, what he didn't expect was that she would commit suicide the next day too.

Jav said he had 2 copies of that song and he claimed that after listening to the 1st 10 seconds of the song, he switched it off because it sounded very eerie.

I sked him to send me the song but he adamantly refused because he said he didn't want to take chances. But I mean, it's all in the mind. While he is scared of the song, I was more curious than afraid because I know I am not at the stage in life where everything's at an all-time low. There's nothing to get me down.

Like what my dad told me this morning, the strong-minded will never understand the weak-minded and vice versa. And while it might be a little thick skinned to say this, I am strong-minded and I know nothing will happen.

What's wrong with a song? It is just a song after all and if something happened to you when you listened to it, it is because and only because you were unfortunate enough to have listened to it when your life wasn't going smoothly.

Those people who died were, in a way, pitiful because that was not the way they should have gone. If they had listened to the song at different stages of their lives, nothing would have happened to them.

Because a dark cloud can only hover over your life for so long and after a while, things will go back on track again.

As written in John 1:5, The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. Darkness will never triumph over the light because God would not have allowed it.

Never fear shadows. They simply mean there's light shining somewhere nearby.

John 8:12, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.

Psalms 91:4, He will cover you with His feathers, & under his wings you will find refuge.

And so I say, it's all in the mind. Don't be scared of all this because there's no witch crafts involved.

My dad was just telling me about his Muslim Fiji classmate back in his Canterbury days. They were joking one fine day when this guy suddenly said, "I am gg to die on ----- (fill in some date yourself)." And everyone laughed, including him, because as I said earlier, it was a joke. But when the date drew nearer, said guy become increasingly frightened because he was all like, "Why did this day pop out in my mind out of 365 days in the calender?!" "Was it the work of a supernatural being?" and everything negative was thought out by him. But of course, said guy didn't die because it was all a joke! Like I said, it is all in the mind. But if he had really died, he wouldn't have died of accidents and the likes but of fear.

Psalm 46:1,2 - God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear.

And so, I will trust and not be afraid, for the Lord is my strength and my song; he is my salvation. Isaiah 12:2