I get in my car and, to my delight, Dwight Yoakam’s “A Thousand Miles From Nowhere” automatically begins to play. It should be a sad song. The singer is desolate. He has been dumped and all he can think about are the cruel, cruel things that she said. He is adrift in the universe, aimless and stricken. The words say so but the music that goes with the words is anything but sad. The music is something else, elegiac. I listen to it again and again with pleasure.
A reflection by Danny Schweers for September 27, 2026.
Songs like this, sad but uplifting, convince me that desolation can be beautiful, poignant, moving, and soul satisfying. Suffering (usually mental, not physical) can be a place we want to visit again and again. The wasteland of broken hearts is full of singing, not just cries of anguish.
In “The Man That Got Away”, for example, Judy Garland explores the depths of despair and loss.
The night is bitter
The stars have lost their glitter
The winds blow colder
Suddenly you’re older*
Hearing this song, who does not want to experience such a total commitment of love even if it means devastating loss? Who, having lost, does not sympathize, the song more than a balm but a gateway?
Then there is all of Country Music — well, its stereotype, where every song is about suffering and loss — of mother, of father, of wife, of husband, of job, dog, or beloved pickup truck. Much of this music is loved because it gives us company in our heartbreak but I believe also that heartbreak and deep depression has its own music not found anywhere else. It connects us to lonesome whippoorwills, to nights so long that time crawls, to a moon that hides its face behind a cloud and cries.
Christians find this elegaic beauty during Lent and Holy Week, in the story of Christ’s suffering and death. Here there are songs aplenty, unusual in that they speak of physical pain as well as heartbreak, betrayal, and loss. Here the ears of Roman Catholics seem better tuned to the music than the ears of Protestants. Catholics seem to better appreciate Jesus’ suffering and sacrifice. Christ hangs on their crucifixes.
Dwelling on desolation, suffering, and loss is not always a good thing. You and I know people who will not move on, who cling to the familiar landscape of tragedy, who sabotage their lives again and again rather than leave the dark lonely rainy nights behind.
Yes, I want to say, it is healthy to recognize and fully experience desolation, to discover its music, but better is promised and given. Resurrection and redemption are near at hand and ready to be delivered. When you hear the knock, open the door and leave tragedy behind. Yes, the desert has its beauty, but gardens beckon.
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* “The Man That Got Away”, music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by Ira Gershwin copyright 1953.
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Photo of the Mojave Desert between Las Vegas and Los Angeles. Reflection 2026-14. Photo and text copyright 2026 by Danny Nelson Schweers.
Danny chairs SsAM’s Communication Committee. He is an active photographer and writer. Click here to visit Danny’s website and make a comment.
