Mad World

I must admit this is not a song I particularly like very much. I watched a documentary last night called The Autistic Me and posted the article I found about it on Facebook, which sparked a comment about the lyrics. I googled them and after reading them realised that despite the comment in the article saying it wasn't an appropriate song to have played when dealing with Mental Health issues, it was in fact the perfect song to have played (in my opinion)

I posted the lyrics in a post below, for people who haven't heard it to read, and to me it sum's up how Autistic kids/adults feel about the world on a daily basis. The song Mad World is a Tears For Fears cover about the Vietnam War. But is now more commonly related to Autism because of the lyrics, as they are very apt and a lot of Autistic people relate to the song in a lot of different ways. It was also used as the soundtrack for a film called Donnie Darko in which the character showed Autistic tendencies throughout the film.

In my opinion this is going back to the Rain Man theory. I hear from lots of different people that their child is always referred to as The Rain Man when they tell someone he/she is Autistic. In my experience this is not the case. Because of my age and my friends ages, I tend to get the response of 'like the little boy in Mercury Rising' which is exactly what I thought when the news was broken to us. This was probably mainly because I've never watched the film Rain Man all the way through, whereas I'd already seen Mercury Rising a LOT of times beforehand as I am a huge Bruce Willis fan! I'm suspecting that it's probably the older generations who automatically think of The Rain Man because of the era it was released, whereas the younger generation will think of Mercury Rising because it was a fairly recent film and like myself may not have seen Rain Man. It's a bit like the Banana Boat Song - Day-O. The older generation will tell you immediately that it was Harry Belafonte that sang it, whereas the younger generation will refer to it as 'the song from Beetlejuice' and won't necessarily know the singer's name. These theories go on forever and no matter who or what these songs are written for or about, everyone will always see them as the 'perfect' song for them in some way or another!!

Here is a list of my favourite songs which have nothing at all to do with Autism, that I can relate to myself where Taylor and his Autism are concerned (I hope this gives the general idea of what I was trying to get at by all that rambling!) My list is literally endless, so I will narrow it down to 10 songs and singers. Feel free to click on the lyrics link next to each song to see the lyrics to that specific song:

1) Beuatiful Disaster - Kelly Clarkson (lyrics)
2) Big Boys Don't Cry - Lolly (lyrics)
3) Every Part Of Me - Victoria Beckham (lyrics)
4) Hold On - Wilson Phillips (lyrics)
5) I Know Him So Well - Elaine Paige (lyrics)
6) I Wish I Knew How It Feels To Be Free - The Lighthouse Family (lyrics)
7) I'm Your Angel - R Kelly & Celine Dion (lyrics)
8) Outside - Staind FT Fred Durst - (lyrics)
9) Somewhere Out There - An American Tail Soundtrack (lyrics)
10) Us Against The World - Westlife (lyrics)

Man that really wasn't easy as I have lots and lots to choose from, so I just went through my list and picked 10 at random!