My Dark Places
This is not an archaeology post, but I hope you’ll read it
anyway.
In August this year the magnificent Punk survivors Stiff
Little Fingers finished their current tour on home ground at the ‘Putting
the Fast in Belfast’ festival at Custom House Square. This is the third such
event and I’ve been lucky enough to attend them all. Going back before that they’ve
been playing one particular song since 2014 and always with a similar themed introduction.
I though it was time that Jake Burns’ words were allowed to speak beyond SLF
fans to whatever little audience I can provide. Here’s what he said in Belfast
on August 24th 2019:
“The next tune was never supposed to see the light of day. It was written just for something for me to keep to myself. But we went ahead and recorded it and I’m really glad we did and I’ll tell you for why. It’s a song I wrote to deal with the fact that I suffer from depression. It’s a thing that’s bugged me for abut four or five years now, if not longer in fact.
I basically wrote down everything that I went through to remind myself that there was light at the end of the tunnel because for some reason we don’t like to talk about this stuff. We don’t like to talk about any form of mental anguish or whatever, and particularly men. Men are the world’s fucking worst at bottling stuff up. To the point that last year in the UK alone over 4,000 young men committed suicide and simply because they didn’t feel that they had anybody they could talk to.
So, here’s the thing. If you do suffer from depression or any form of mental anguish at all – for Fuck’s Sake talk about it! Talk to somebody about it, will ya?
It’s the first step to getting well.
This is a song called My Dark Places”
UK Mental Health charities include Mind and Mental Health UK - talk to them & get help if you need it.
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