William Finn's writing never demanded perfection. It demanded honesty. These five songs are not merely songs—they're blueprints of emotion, penned in his voice and style. In recalling these, we recall ...

From obscure volumes to spectral melodies and threatening insignia, these hidden clues do not depict mere references to the past; rather, they depict a concealed reality that requires exploration.

He had both the ability and the desire to make beautiful music. That's what virtue is ... we experience Dislike, Aversion, Sorrow, Despair, Fear, and Anger. The problem is that most of us ...

Even 150 years later, the illustrations are shockingly ... “Ten thousand stories, ten thousand songs,” Giddens begins, her voice filled with sorrow and gold. “Ten thousand worries, ten ...

Within a few years of completing school, Mytinger was earning her living painting portraits of local socialites and doing illustrations ... not out of sorrow but to revenge herself by haunting ...

Don’t want to miss a single column? Sign up to get “Dear James” in your inbox. I turned 82 last Bastille Day, and I cannot ...

In verse 8 of her lengthy poem “Dark Testament,” Pauli Murray captures the essence of a hope that refuses to be silenced, a hope that persists even in the face of adversity: Hope is a song in a weary ...

It’s a tradition that goes back at least as far as W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk, with its notated excerpts of spirituals, or “sorrow songs,” that preface each essay.

In David Cronenberg’s film, billed as his most personal work, Vincent Cassel plays a grieving husband who has devised a novel ...