There are two very different reasons a person might find themselves alone at midnight, noise-cancelling headphones on, staring out their bedroom window at a dwindling pile of dirty snow illuminated by a single golden street lamp while The Gaslight Anthem’s entire discography plays on shuffle. One possibility is that you find the New Jersey nostalgia rock band’s songs about blue jeans, car trouble, and girls who left you but not your mind profoundly poetic. The other, more likely reason, is that you probably forgot to take your Wellbutrin three days in a row, and your brain’s serotonin level has drastically dipped. The problem is, at that moment, these two scenarios are, medically speaking, identical.
Now, I’m not saying The Gaslight Anthem isn’t good. They are, objectively, probably decent. Brian Fallon can pen lyrics about boardwalks, teenage heartbreak, and songs about songs that feel like they were written in a note you passed in a high school hallway. The guitars shimmer. The drums gallop. Everything feels like a false memory that growing up in the suburbs wasn’t a complete and total nightmare. But that’s exactly the problem.
Depression has this neat trick where it convinces you that you’re having a profound spiritual connection where every line about driving around a small town at night feels like a thesis on your existence, when, in reality, your brain chemistry is just slightly off. You’re not connecting with the music. Your brain is lying to you.
If you catch yourself waxing nostalgic for Jersey beaches even though you have never left the Midwest, that’s one red flag. If you pine for smoking cigarettes on broken plastic patio furniture at a house party, that’s two. Lastly, you may start daydreaming about how life would have turned out if you had the courage to ask out that cool girl who worked at Tower Records. You should probably count how many pills are left in your bottle and see if you missed a dose or two.
Some psychiatrists warn about listening to The Gaslight Anthem during antidepressant withdrawal. The nostalgia saturation can trigger what experts call a “longing whirlpool,” where the patient becomes convinced that their entire identity is tied to false memories of a fictional American past filled with neon signs, drinking on football fields, and a 1997 Toyota Camry.
So, before you tattoo “Where’d you get them scars?” on your forearm, ask yourself the hard question: do you love The Gaslight Anthem, or perhaps do you need to call your GP and see if Seasonal Affective Disorder might be messing with you?
Remember, you are always 150 milligrams away from thinking wood paneling is a metaphor.
