5 songs to help you beat the Monday morning blues
Mondays really suck. It’s like a figurative grey cloud looming over an otherwise sunny weekend. It’s like the period after a World Cup final, making you feel like you have to wait four years for the next one. And Monday mornings are even worse – it’s like trudging through a battlefield of a war between happiness and gloominess.
Clearly, I’m not a big fan of Mondays. Simply put, it’s just so far removed from the weekend. I saw a meme the other day which put across a very valid point: How is that Monday is close to Friday but Friday is so far from Monday?
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While you ponder over that mystery, I will say that there is a way to lift up both your spirit and your mood to beat the mundane Monday blues. The cure lies in the art of music!
Plato once said, “Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.”
It’s incredible the way a song, a note, or a melody can cater to your current emotions and take you onto another kind of mood entirely. When we’re sad, we listen to songs that we deem as ‘grey’. When we’re happy, we turn to the ones that we connect with the colours blue and yellow. When we’re angry, well we just listen to a lot of Eminem.
The point is that there is a song for every single mood, emotion, and situation. Coming back to the onslaught of the Monday blues, Spotify in partnership with Ipsos, a market research company, conducted a survey to understand how people really feel when the weekend comes to a close and what they do to get their heads back in the game. According to the report they filed on the basis of their results, an average of 64 percent of people surveyed across five countries, which include the US, Australia, Brazil, France, and Sweden lack motivation on the first day of the week.
To help bring about a change in this attitude of general disdain and apathy towards the first day of the week, we recommend that you create a diverse playlist for the many moods you are sure to experience through the day. Here are some of the songs you could include:
Don’t Worry, Be Happy – Bob Marley
“In every life we have some trouble,
When you worry you make it double
Don't worry, be happy.”
Who can resist Marley’s simple, happy, and uplifting tune and lyrics to one of his most beloved songs? Released in 1988, the song speaks about how life will always spring problems and crises for you to overcome, but the trick is to remember to stay happy no matter how bad it gets. It’s a great song to kick-start your Monday morning with, and it’ll definitely stop you from growling at the breakfast table.
Manic Monday – The Bangles
“It's just another manic Monday
I wish it was Sunday
'Cause that's my fun day
My I don't have to run day
It's just another manic Monday.”
If the Bangles were singing about it way back in the ‘80s, it’s clear that this hate for Mondays isn’t a part of the infamous ‘millennial angst’. A classic in its own right, this song expresses exactly how we feel when we wake up on Monday morning and contemplate the meaning to life.
A Well Respected Man – The Kinks
“‘Cause he gets up in the morning,
And he goes to work at nine,
And he comes back home at five-thirty,
Gets the same train every time.
'Cause his world is built 'round punctuality,
It never fails.”
The satirical song about a man who leads a disciplined, by-the-book life and does everything the way society expects him to is a great reminder to those becoming mechanical in their daily life to not fall prey to the trap.
A Hard Day’s Night – The Beatles
“It's been a hard day's night, and I been working like a dog
It's been a hard day's night, I should be sleeping like a log
But when I get home to you I'll find the things that you do
Will make me feel alright.”
This upbeat Beatles number is the best way to remember that while it’s necessary for you to drag yourself to work this Monday morning, you’ll have peace waiting for you back at home in the form of your family, friend, or partner.
Home – Edward Shape and the Magnetic Zeroes
“Home, let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you
Home, let me come home
Home is wherever I'm with you”
Another upper, this song helps you believe that you will get through the seemingly endless Monday and now look forward to doing nothing but being home with the person or people who always manage to make your day.
A single song has the power to turn your whole day around. So here’s hoping you blues the ‘blue’ out of the dreaded first day of a long week. After all, it is just another Manic Monday.