Animated music videos for when you need a good cry

Despite the jingles, sparkles, and the prospect of stuffing oneself with cake and being showered with presents, December is not necessarily as bouncy as the stuff played continuously on radio stations. For many of us it also means stress, time worries, financial worries, complicated-family-situation worries, first-Christmas-without-so-and-so worries, another-Christmas-as-a-single-gal worries and many others sources of anxiety. For me, it’s the cold — indoors in Portugal (learning to speak Portuguese is nowhere near as challenging as getting used to the lack of central heating in Portuguese flats!) and outdoors in Poland (Polish flats are thankfully very well heated). Christmas or no Christmas, I’m really not a fan of winter and often wish I could spend it in hibernation like animals. This year, I’ve also had all sorts of health issues and a mountain of logistical issues making my head about to explode.

So what can you do when you find yourself boiling with tension and anxiety, or crushed by helplessness (“Aaarghhh! I won’t get my presents sorted in time!!”) and sadness?

Animated music videos: cry your stress away

Well, you can, which I often do, lock yourself in a steamy bathroom on a cold evening and immerse in a hot bath (it’s amazing what the feeling of warmth and comfort can do to one’s mood). But that is not always sufficient. Sometimes you really need to vent your emotions, release the demons, and have a proper cry. And that’s where art and music come in handy. Listening to sad songs, watching sad films and reading sad tales can, by moving you to the core and reminding you that lots of people are trying to find a way out of a dark place at any given time, help you bounce back. So today I want to present a few animated music videos I recommend watching if you feel you need a good, cleansing cry before Christmas.

(Warning: If you’re the type of person who needs a wicked comedy to get back on track, this is definitely not for you!)

1. Eels: Elisabeth on the bathroom floor

This extremely bleak song comes from Mark Oliver Everett’s second studio album, Electro-Shock Blues (1998) which he wrote in response to his sister’s suicide two years earlier (the name of the album refers to electroconvulsive therapy Elizabeth Everett was subjected to at a mental institution). E, as Mark Oliver Everett is commonly called, attributes his sister’s mental disease and drug addictions to being raised in a household “haunted by the tortured genius of their father” (Dr Hugh Everett III was a famous quantum physicist). In her suicide note, Elizabeth mentioned joining their father in a parallel universe.

I don’t know who created the music video but I love its simplicity. The hand-drawn text and squiggly line have a sense of fragility and vulnerability. The bouncy line, writing the text of the story, which comes from and turns into an EKG line, first with a heartbeat, then flat, is a very poignant symbol of one’s life ending. (I admit I am quite partial to the EKG symbolism, having used it in my Bacon project). It’s one of the most touching tunes I’ve heard.

2. Steven Wilson: Routine

If you feel that 2:28 minutes was not nearly enough to release all your tears, now you’ve got a longer shot. At 10:05 minute long, Wilson’s video feels more like a short film than a music clip and it’s bound to make you weep. The beautifully designed puppet with her eyes full of sorrow is a very sad view in itself, and the story of a woman who is trying to deal with the tragic loss of her family by creating routines will get everyon