The 80s: When Music Was Art
If my favorite song had a color, it would be deep burgundy melting into midnight blue, the same shade of old velvet curtains, smoke filled rooms, and hearts that have loved too honestly to be whole again.
My favorite song is Etta James’ I’d Rather Go Blind.
I have listened to this song over and over again and I tell you for free that it isn’t background music. It’s the kind of song that demands stillness because it makes you sit down, lowers the lights by itself while carrying the weight of a woman standing in the ruins of love and choosing pain over absence. Love has never been sensible.
Songs like this came from an era when music was purely art. It’s obvious that back then, especially in the 70s and 80s, music was built with hands, breath, and patience. You can literally hear it in the instruments. The slow cry of the guitar, the bass that hums low and the drums that don’t overpower but hold the song together, just steady and restrained. And the horns, soft, aching, almost conversational, like they’re mourning alongside the singer. I don’t think anything was trying to go viral or be trendy.
Those songs were rich, not in money which my days music artists are chasing, but in soul. They carried lived experiences. You could hear cigarettes smoked between takes, heartbreaks survived, nights spent staring at ceilings. Voices weren’t auto-tuned into sameness, they cracked, trembled and sometimes broke. And that was the beauty.
Etta didn’t just sing heartbreak, she literally embodied it. Her voice in I’d Rather Go Blind sounds worn in the most sacred way, like someone who has loved deeply and paid for it in full. When she sings, you don’t just hear her, you feel the room she was standing in, the silence after the last note and the ache she couldn’t soften.
Oh, that era gave us songs that had no fear of being slow. Songs that let pain stretch out, that didn’t rush healing, that understood that some wounds don’t need fixing, only witnessing. Every time I hear music from that time, especially when it pops up unexpectedly, like in old shows, it stirs something in me. A longing for a time I never lived in, but somehow miss. A time when music trusted the listener to feel deeply.
If my favorite song had a color, it wouldn’t be bright or cheerful. It would be the color of night just before dawn. The color of love you’d rather lose your sight than lose entirely.
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That's one of my favorites of hers as well. Between that and At Last, you really can't beat them. I recently picked up a copy of Etta James greatest hits on vinyl. It's an amazing album!
You’re living the dream tbh. Etta on vinyl? The vibes in your house must be immaculate.
Thank you! We are quite blessed.