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Step 1
Different breakdowns merit different soundtracks, naturally. But one that covers a lot of neuroses in a beautiful and compelling fashion is Neutral Milk Hotel’s "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea." From depression to existential panic to full-on psycho-sexual mania, the singing saws, acid-pop brass and the strangled, bizarrely fascinating voice of mastermind Jeff Mangum will soothe your nutty brain even as the surreal and unsettling lyrics get under your skin. The famously weird Mangum disappeared after the release of the album, and has been a virtual recluse since, appropriately enough.
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Step 2
Slow descent into alcoholism? Downers your cup of tea? Welcome to "Third/Sister Lovers." Nominally the third album by influential power pop outfit Big Star, the album was mainly the work of songwriter Alex Chilton, Big Star having all but fallen apart. Chilton was slipping into a private hell of booze, pills, and chronic depression, and this shambling and beautiful music is all over the place, but the stoned, spacy atmosphere is strangely inviting. Chilton confronts his self-destruction on the heartbreaking and frighteningly direct “Holocaust,” which justifies its provocative title as one of the most emotionally shattering songs ever written: “You’re sitting down to dress/and you’re a mess/you look in the mirror. . .you’re a wasted face you’re a sad-eyed lie, you’re a holocaust.”
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Step 3
Taken a few two many dips in that great lysergic lake? Feeling a bit on the fried side? Pretty much any Syd Barrett, solo or with the Pink Floyd, will do the trick. Syd’s monstrous appetite for acid may have amplified pre-existing mental health problems, but whatever the case, his song-writing was full of divine madness and the some prefer the spaced out sounds he made with the Pink Floyd over the band’s later, Roger Waters-dominated years. See: “Interstellar Overdrive,” “Astronomy Domine,” “Scarecrow,” “Jugband Blues,” and the solo album "The Madcap Laughs." For an all-American take on this style of freakout, see "Oar" by Skip Spence, the former guitarist of Moby Grape, a solid but lesser-known San Francisco psychedelic band. Acid and injections of speed pushed him over the edge and the bad advice of an occultist girlfriend turned Skip against his band mates. An attempted attack with a fire axe at a recording studio earned Skip a well-deserved stay in a mental institution. Upon his release, he rode his motorcycle to Nashville (in um, his bathrobe) and recorded an out-there psych-folk gem. Let’s put it this way; when there’s stuff coming out of the walls, few songs are as appropriate a soundtrack as the song “Grey/Afro” which is even weirder than it sounds.
