This article was originally published at Shondaland.com
This aural gratitude journal is the holiday gift that keeps giving.
Gratitude has somehow become the emotional exercise equivalent of getting your 10,000 steps. Gratitude journals, gratitude practices, an attitude of gratitude — come the holidays (hello, they kick off with one called Thanksgiving), the buzzword is everywhere, and it’s almost enough to make you go, “Bah! Humbug.” It’s as if the culture has adopted the voice of an omnipresent parental figure, wagging their finger at you to be grateful because there are people starving elsewhere.
The thing is, so much is written about gratitude these days for a very good reason — actually many good reasons. Study after study shows how taking the time to acknowledge the good and positive things in your life could potentially lend itself to numerous health benefits. Gratitude has been shown to dial down stress during the pandemic, offers an improved psychological outlook (a recent study shows that therapists are adopting gratitude exercises to complement anxiety and depression treatment), and promotes stronger interpersonal and romantic relationships. Researchers are even digging into the physiological effects of gratitude, such as whether or not gratitude can reduce inflammatory markers (spoiler: The jury’s out) or if it contributes to positive cardiovascular outcomes (spoiler: It seems to!).
During this incredibly busy time of the year, who couldn’t use an easy, free way to dial down the stress? Leaving the whole holiday thing out of it, we came up with the most passive, easiest way to put out grateful vibes, and all it requires is listening to some great tunes. After all, it’s up to us how we’d like to interpret music in our own lives, and if you find yourself singing along, is that a shortcut to a gratitude exercise? We’re going to say yes.
“Thank U,” Alanis Morissette (1998)
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When this song came out in 1998, Morissette finally had processed some things. After her tour for Jagged Little Pill ended, she got off the hamster wheel of promotion long enough to reflect and realized that gaining adulation wasn’t as fulfilling as she’d imagined it’d be. As she told VH1 Storytellers in 1999: “I achieved a lot of what society had told me to achieve, and I still didn’t feel peaceful. … I started questioning everything, and I realized that actually everything was an illusion, and it was scary for me because everything I had believed in and lived my life according to was dissolving in front of me, and there was a death of sorts, a really beautiful one ultimately, but at first a very scary one. … I stopped for the first time and ... what I was overcome with was a huge sense of compassion for myself first, and then naturally that translated into my feeling and compassion for everyone around me and a huge amount of gratitude that I had never felt before to this extent. … I had to express how exciting this was and how scary it was and all of it, all of these opportunities for us to define who we are in this realm of relativity that we live in.”
The result is a melancholy song with just a few chord changes where lyrically she questions her fears and expresses gratitude for the things that challenge, nourish, and terrify her because they shaped her journey. All she had to do was look within and allow herself to feel, as spelled out with these lyrics: How ’bout no longer being masochistic?/How ’bout remembering your divinity?/How ’bout unabashedly bawling your eyes out?/How ’bout not equating death with stopping?” In the video, she stands naked on a city street corner, her breasts shrouded by her incredibly long, wavy hair. Occasionally, a stranger will stop to kiss her on the head or put a supportive arm around her. It’s all we can truly ask for on this journey called life, isn’t it?
“In My Life,” the Beatles (1965)
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This Beatles classic expressing gratitude is a decades-long wedding favorite for good reason. The narrator is clearly at an inflection point, pausing to look back and give thanks for how his formative relationships shaped him: “All these places had their moments/With lovers and friends, I still can recall/Some are dead, and some are living/In my life, I’ve loved them all.” The last verse makes it clear that this wave of gratefulness is because he recognizes it was all those experiences that led him to the love he has now: “Though I know I’ll never lose affection/For people and things that went before/I know I’ll often stop and think about them/In my life, I love you more.”
Interestingly enough, both John Lennon and Paul McCartney have claimed a majority stake in writing this incredible song, and it has been the subject of much debate for years. According to Song Stories Matter, Lennon said the original draft was a compilation of his childhood memories in Liverpool, mentioning every place he could remember. When he gave up on trying to be clever with the lyrics, they just came to him. Regardless of who contributed what, check your pulse if this song doesn’t imbue you with goosebumps and a sense of appreciation for your loved ones. You might be dead inside.
“Thank You Song,” FKA Twigs (2022)
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A few years ago, FKA Twigs released a mixtape called Caprisongs. It closes with “Thank You Song,” a quiet, reflective song about survival. Lush synths and samples ease into a gentle piano as she admits: “I wanted to die/Just to be honest.” The lyrics go on to reveal how her feelings have changed, conveying a sense of deep gratitude for the unconditional love she’s received and the courage it has given her to go on: “Love in motion/My heart’s open/Thank you, thank you, I’m okay/Because you care, I made it through today.”
Twigs has described the Caprivid for “Thank You Song” as “intimate”: “To me, it’s about embracing one’s demons and finding things that are individual about one’s self to make your life better. The song to me is very personal — it’s really about thanking the person or even the aspect of yourself that’s got all of us through a really challenging couple of years … socially, financially, culturally.” During those years, Twigs went public about the abuse she endured from actor and former partner Shia LaBeouf, suing him for damages — a courageous act. “I’d like to be able to raise awareness on the tactics that abusers use to control you and take away your agency,” Twigs has said. In the video, she rides a bus alone late at night, clearly spent, until she finds herself sitting next to an angelic stranger, who is completely focused on her. Being seen and held — even in the depths of your pain — is an act of love to be grateful for.
“Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” Sly and the Family Stone (1969)
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Sly and the Family Stone, an eclectic, joyful funk collective from the ’60s and ’70s, are definitely a band to be grateful for. Though their second No. 1 hit, “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin),” is an infectious, upbeat bop that kicks off with a bass groove in conversation with the rhythm guitar, it gets a little dark lyrically. Referred to by Stereogum as a meta “pop song that directly rebels against the entire idea of pop music, while at the same time functioning as pop music,” the song could be interpreted as a commentary on the challenges and pressures of finding authentic success in the music business. Here’s a little from a verse: “Stiff all in the collar/fluffy in the face/Chitchat chatter tryin’/stuffy in the place/Thank you for the party/but I could never stay/Many things is on my mind/words in the way.” Lyrically, one gets the sense the band are just grateful for the opportunity to make music their way: “Dying young is hard to take/Selling out is harder.”
The takeaway in terms of how we could apply this to ourselves? We all feel pressure to do what’s expected of us. “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)” salutes those who support our authenticity whether we meet those expectations or not.
“Gratitude,” Earth, Wind & Fire (1975)
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“Gratitude” by Earth, Wind & Fire is another slapping ’70s song that celebrates the act of making music for an audience who appreciates it: “Wanna talk to ya/Open up your heart, let your body find/Freedom in your stride, love, and peace of mind, yeah/Yeah, one more time, and we got to say/that the good Lord gonna make a way.” Referring to music as “holy sound,” the band see the act of writing and performing their music itself as an act of reverence and gratitude. Isn’t it, though? Any time we pour our souls into art, then take it a step further, stick our necks out, and put that art out into the world, we create our own version of their “holy sound.” It is something to be grateful for.
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“Thank U, Next,” Ariana Grande (2018)
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Heartbreak is the worst, but once we move through it, perspective sets in, and we learn so much about ourselves. This few-year-old hit from Miss Grande cites her exes by name, expressing gratitude for all she’s learned from each failed relationship: “I got so much love/got so much patience/Learned from the pain/Turned out amazing/Say I’ve loved and I’ve lost/That’s not what I see/’Cause look what I’ve found/Ain’t no need for searching.” Seriously, who needs a love interest when you could be your own? Grande told Zach Sang that after a tough time, making this album of the same name with her friends kind of saved her life. During that time, there was an attack at one of her concerts in Manchester, her ex-boyfriend Mac Miller passed, and she parted ways with then-fiancé Pete Davidson. “It was a super-challenging chapter that sucked, but working with my friends made it special,” she said. Talk about finding catharsis and redemption through gratitude and art. Fans were also grateful for the song’s star-studded video — a send-up of such movies as Mean Girls and Legally Blonde, complete with a Jennifer Coolidge nail-salon cameo.
“We Are Family,” Sister Sledge (1979)
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If you’re celebrating the holidays with your blood or chosen family and want to get a party started, throw this dance classic on, and watch the room turn up with the volume. The song was composed by the masters of disco, Chic’s Bernard Edwards and Nile Rodgers, and Sister Sledge sing of gratitude for their sisterly love and respect to Edwards’ bouncing bass line and Rodgers’ raging rhythm guitar. This verse kind of says it all: “Living life is fun, and we’ve just begun/To get our share of this world’s delights/(High) high hopes we have for the future/And our goal’s in sight/(We) no, we don’t get depressed/Here’s what we call our golden rule/Have faith in you and the things you do/You won’t go wrong, oh no/This is our family jewel.” If sisterly unconditional love and support aren’t something to be grateful for, I don’t know what is.
“Thank You for Being a Friend,” Andrew Gold (1978)
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Friendship is the best gift you can give — and Andrew Gold clearly knew that when he penned this classic expression of deep gratitude for his friends. It only took him an hour to write it in the studio (he called it a “little throwaway thing”), but nailing it took 40 takes because he wanted the song to be rhythmically perfect, according to an interview with Gold on YouTube. It went up to No. 25 on the Billboard chart the year it came out, but it blew up when it was covered as the theme to The Golden Girls years later. If you want to send love to a confidant whose heart is true, as the lyrics say, this one’s for you.
“Gratitude,” Beastie Boys (1992)
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Beastie Boys’ third album, Check Your Head, showed tremendous growth in terms of sonic development and lyrical prowess. Included in this collection is a song that celebrates the glass-half-full POV that comes with looking around and being grateful for what you’ve got. It opens with a guitar before its fat sound snarls around the bass as the hook. Then, the lyrics kick in: “Good times gone, and you missed them/What’s gone wrong in your system?/Things they bounce, like a Spalding/What’d you think? Did you miss your calling?/It’s so free, this kind of feeling/It’s like life, it’s so appealing/When you’ve got so much to say, it’s called gratitude/And that’s right.” It’s pretty easy to interpret these lyrics as encouragement not to get stuck in a web of nostalgia for easier times and instead celebrate and be grateful for the freedom you can find in the here and now.