The Power of Music

I recently started an interesting book from The Best American Series. This book is The Best American Nonrequired Reading (2007) Edited by Dave Eggers. Its basically a compilation of literary works that were found interesting by the 'experts'.
The most interesting story I've read so far was an article from Spin by Jonathan Ames who went to a goth music festival. Though he was unaccustomed to this unique type of music, he found some very intriguing thoughts on the culture and on life.
The first idea that I found note-worthy was a line from a song that was being performed : "Feeling empty because there's something to say,". Ames goes on to say that all one can really express is pain. This made me wonder about happy works of art, music, and writing in general. By showing happiness are they expressing pain? Maybe they're covering their inner grief by telling the world "Hey, I'm really OK. I promise" just to get people off their backs. They don't want the world nagging or bugging them about always being so angry and dismal, so with all their works that show their venting of anger, they throw in a joyful piece to cover it up. Therefore all their work is focusing on the pain they feel. Or maybe the author of this article was just overwhelmed by the contrast in culture and the focus on pain.
A second point I found interesting was an interview with Mark, one of the organizers of Gothicfest. During the interview, Mark gets into talking about how his father abuses him and that he never fights back. He comments, " 'As much as I don't like him, I love him because he's my father. So I just take it...'". I found this beautiful. Since Mark still loves his abusive father, it shows how he's connected to other humans. He knows when its right to do something just because it's right. This is really the whole idea of concerts and a culture of misfit people. Never ending love. If you ever go to a concert, even a scary goth one, you'll never be rejected or hated, because everyone in that room understands the pain of being different and alone. They understand that its not alright to hurt others physically or socially. So this music, this expression and venting of suffering brings them all together to share the security of being understood.

That is pretty powerful.