mp3: "Bender" - Ramonda Hammer
When a bout of bad mental health settles in it can leave a lot of ugly feelings swirling about your brain. Ramonda Hammer brings that ugliness and the unruly nature of depression to life in the raging single "Bender." The grungy, menacing guitar and constant, pounding drums play as a musical depiction of the dark side of our thoughts, with vocalist Devin Davis howling through the struggle, confessing to hours of TV watching and the frustration of just wanting to be okay. It's a more than accurate auditory representation of how terrible and anguishing the battle to get better can be. And as the track closes out, we're left with one glimmer of sunshine, a hopefulness that appears even on the darkest days.
As Davis explains, "the lyrics are really just a conversation between two opposing sides in one's brain. The verses ask questions from the more sane, healthy part of one's psyche, and the choruses respond from the anxiety-ridden, depressed, and very frustrated side. And the reason this person (okay, it's me!) is so effing frustrated is because they care so so so much, but when crippling depression sets in from time to time, when they get caught in a bender of some sort, it's so hard to do the things that make you happy. In a final cry, I end the song with, "I swear that I deserve good things" because I think I do and I know other people feel the same."