It takes a worried man to sing a worried song. And there will be plenty of worried songs in Chelmsford and Staffordshire this weekend, as the world’s leading miserabilists unite to pump out angst by the megadecibel to 65,000 fans who may feel by Monday that life is barely worth living. And not just angst: the camp site will be awash with so much depression, despair and maudlin, misanthropic melancholy that 125 volunteer trauma counsellors will be on hand to rescue those engulfed in the gloomy quagmire.
A great time will clearly be had by all. Sensitive souls love nothing so much as a good wallow in misery. What else explains the popularity of A. E. Housman, the screaming, tortured Munch, the novels of Dostoevsky? Icy depression shifts CDs by the shelfload. Morrissey, the pope of mope, long ago discovered the secret of the eternal pout and has been profitably regaling audiences with Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now for years. He will be on hand this weekend to add darkness to the mood, as will the Oxford rockers Radiohead, while Daniel Powter will set the festive note with “You had a bad day, You’re taking one down”, encouraging arrivals to join in.
The list of all-time gloomy hits is depressingly long. Think of Johnny Cash’s mournful last recording of the Nine Inch Nails’ Hurt, Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb, a self-help manual for paranoid depressives, or Noël Coward’s blue There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner. A weekend of such laments could bring you down. But paradoxically, it usually perks you up with a song in your heart and a smile on your lips. It’s so heartening to be sad.