The Life and Times (Of a Man Called Depression)

Album: Encore (2019)
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Songfacts®:

  • The Specials singer Terry Hall was diagnosed as bipolar following a suicide attempt in 2004. During this lounge-pop tune peppered with nervy brass, Hall delivers a soul-baring monologue about mental illness. The song was recorded in the aptly disengaging time signature of 5/4.
  • Hall told Uncut magazine in 2019 that writing and recording this song was very therapeutic. "I got really ill around 10 years ago, to a level where I could barely walk and speak it affected my brain so badly," he said. "I'd been recognized as suffering from a mild version of manic depression since I was about 13, at a time in the early 1970s when doctors would give you Valium, which you can get very easily addicted to. It was why I was so reluctant to try medication, but I'm now on meds and they work well."

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