An experienced and critically acclaimed singer/songwriter, Toronto-born, Aurora, Ontario-residing Raina Krangle is using her musical gifts to help recover from a major health scare, and at the same time, craft some of the most compelling, emotive and powerful art of her career.
Krangle is additionally using the ups and downs of her personal journey back to health as inspiration for her songs, but also as a way to help inform and educate listeners and the general public about the impact, effects and misconceptions of concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.
All her work and energy and creativity are leading to the release of a new album next year, Headbanger – A Musical Recovery From Mild Traumatic Brain Injury. From now until then, pandemic permitting, she will be releasing singles and videos for various songs for the album, as she also completes work on a companion book that will come out at the same time as the album.
The first single released in anticipation of a full-length album next year, is the exceptionally heartfelt and profoundly moving, My Beautiful Dear, inspired by her own parents’ romance.
“The song I just released came to me in a dream. I was having a lot of really weird dreams at the time and they were all very profound and moving to me. But this one really stood out. You probably have had dreams in your life before where you wake up and you have that feeling of the experience in the dream continuing, whether it was weird or nice or not nice. And that feeling from the dream stays with you throughout the day. So, this was a really good one, luckily,” she said, beginning to retell the tale.
“It was The Dude from [the film] The Big Lebowski standing under a tree singing this beautiful melody. And I only remembered the last two lines when I woke up, ‘I can’t live without you. Don’t you leave me behind.’ I was so moved by that and I was crying I am sure in my sleep and when I woke up. I quickly recorded that in my voice notes on my phone and I couldn’t shake the feeling from the dream. I picked up my guitar to do my daily musical therapy, music always helps me, and I just started playing. I knew I had to write a love song and the only truly wonderful love story that I knew was my parents and them being married 54 years. So, I just started to tell the story and that’s how the song came about.
“I also thought it would be really cool if I got the line, ‘all the diamonds in the world,’ from the Bruce Cockburn song All The Diamonds into the song, because I really remembered that song and that line from my childhood and sing song time. My dad always played guitar and my mom sang. She had been a professional singer and used to play down at the Penny Farthing in Yorkdale with her cousin [legendary music producer] Bob Ezrin, way before she had children. There was always music in the house, and they would always sing that song before bedtime. It was a really nice memory and I thought the line would fit my song, and lo and behold, it did. Then I reached out to Bruce’s management to ask permission to use the line. And they said they wanted to hear the song. Well, It hadn’t been recorded yet, so I got together with my producer and some musicians and got it done.”
She said this song had led to many more over the past eight months or so, which has helped in her recovery from the traumatic brain injury she suffered in April 2019.
“I am still recovering, but during this whole time I had written a lot of songs and they would just come out of me all at once, and it wasn’t anything conscious. Usually when I write a song, the music will come first, because I maybe hear some music and get inspired to play as a result, and then the words will come,” Krangle explained.
“But the process for my songwriting has changed during this time and like I said, everything was coming out of me at once. I just started writing song after song after song, because every time I would sit to do my music therapy a new song would come out. It was really incredible the creative flow that was happening. I even got back to playing and writing on piano again, which I hadn’t done for years, because some days the guitar sound wasn’t resonating with me and piano was more soothing for my head.”
The injury itself was completely random and occurred in an environment and situation where no one would likely assume safety would be a concern – while doing recess duty on an elementary school playground (she has been a elementary school professional educator for a number of years). The culprit was not a fall, being hit by a piece of falling building structure, or an unexpected physical attack. The culprit was a basketball – illustrating how traumatic brain injuries can happen any time, any place, and from practically anything.
“It’s been a little over a year now and I suffered what is called a mild TBI; a mild traumatic brain injury. But mild is a bit of a misnomer. I have learned that it’s just a completely different pathology than a moderate or severe brain injury, but you’re still having a brain injury. I was on recess duty and I got hit on the back of the head with a basketball, I guess it was an older student with a great throw. I was talking to a little kid and my head was turned and I never saw it coming It’s just a simple thing, and in fact a month later a friend sent me an clip on the TV news where they said this was a common thing within schools. And I was like, ‘really? In 14 or 15 years of teaching I had never even considered it. I never crossed my mind that that was dangerous or that it would ever happen to me. But all it takes is a second and being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said.
“And then depending on your health and if you have any issues with your spine or any previous injuries it’s going to affect everyone differently. I thought I would be better in three weeks. Then I thought I would be better in three months, then I thought I would be better in six months. And even now there are still a lot of residual things that I am dealing with. I later learned that only about 10 per cent of people actually pass out from this kind of injury. I did go to the hospital, but they sent me away pretty quickly and told me to go sit in a dark room. I didn’t really remember what they said after, it was a long weekend, and no one was available to really help me. I just remember the headache being so excruciating. I couldn’t move; I would take a quick shower and be exhausted. I’d go slowly up my stairs and be exhausted. It permeates every single thing in your life. To prepare food for yourself, grocery shopping was torture.
“And I am a very social person, so it was very hard to not be playing music or seeing friends or being able to even go to a restaurant without it hurting. If I did go, it would be at off times so I could be somewhere quiet. It was a big learning curve and recognizing that I don’t know when I am going to get better. Just like this current pandemic, we don’t know when it’s going to get better. There’s a ton of uncertainty – I have been living with that feeling for more than a year now.”
As for current symptoms, Krangle said there are still enough that it makes life unpleasant at times.
“There’s a lot of brain fog. Some days I wake up, and it’s like when you feel hungover: you’re not of course, but you feel like that. So, my brain is foggy like that sometimes, and I am still not seeing properly in my right eye. I still have headaches all the time and I get overwhelmed. There is a common thing with concussions which they call flooding. I have learned that it’s that feeling of being overwhelmed and it can come from just one or two things, even simple things. So, yes, you can feel overwhelmed by simple things, whereas before you could handle it fine. I have learned that when this happens, to get up and go for a walk and come back to it refreshed, because you can get stuck there,” she said.
“At the beginning, I was nauseous for a month and a half. I couldn’t really eat, and I didn’t want to eat. I still struggle with my appetite kind of being off. For some people, exercise can exacerbate the symptoms. I find I am getting more energy now, so I am able to do a little bit more. I feel better when I exercise. I find I feel better and it makes the anxiety feel so much better. So that’s really helpful. And one other thing that I noticed is that when I am talking, I will go off on tangents more, or I forget what I said, or where I was going with something. A lot of people say, ‘oh well, I am like that all the time.’ Well I get it, but it’s different because I was never like this.
“There’s something else I discovered that people might find useful. A lot of people would say, ‘you look great. You look amazing, you look all rested.’ And it’s like, ‘hmm, I wish, I wish I felt as good as you say I look.’ I think people look at a smile on social media and think the wrong things. I think we need to recognize that what you see on social media is not exactly what the reality is. I don’t know if you can see it through one picture. I am generally a happy person, I am very positive, that’s sort of my nature. But when you deal with anything that knocks you out of the game for any substantial length of time, anybody is bound to have other emotional problems. You could have some depression, you could have anxiety, you could have all those things and they are usually a lot worse than they normally might be. One thing that I have found helps is telling people about the spoon theory. You might start of your day with 20 spoons, like 20 spoons of energy. I might also start my day with 20 spoons. When you shower and get dressed for the day, you might not use any spoons. For me, that might use up five of my spoons already. Then I might have to drive to work and that could use up two spoons and then I use up the rest getting through the day. The energy levels are just not the same and this could be for anybody that has had a brain injury or a lot of other so-called invisible illnesses.”
Because of everything that Krangle has gone through on her road to recovery, a road that perhaps has no conclusion as there is no definite long-term prognosis for her injury, she sees the music she is creating for her forthcoming album, Headbangers – A Musical Recovery from Mild Traumatic Brain Injury, and its accompanying book, as having a greater purpose than just to entertain.
“I think that I just kind of ended up in this position. It wasn’t something that I consciously thought about, but I realized that through all my research in trying to heal myself and knowing how many people have concussions every year, and how so many people don’t understand them, and how everybody’s are so different from one another, that for me to share the music of how my mind was working in its very acute stage, is important. And, also, I have participated in workshops at the Royal Conservatory of Music about music and learning and that when you play an instrument you are connecting both your brain’s hemispheres. So, to me, it kind of made sense that I have to play every day because that will heal my brain and will connect the hemisphere and create new neural pathways,” she said.
“It’s a message that’s important to share. I also journaled a lot too during this process. So, the book that I want to do that comes out with the album will be more of an artistic book, not a scientific research kind of thing. I will talk about what the symptoms were, what the thoughts of the day were, what were the photos that I took that day, did I write a song that day and what were the lyrics? I think it’s a journey that’s worth telling and sharing because there are so many people with concussions. You just don’t realize how pervasive it is so part of this is about sharing the usefulness of music to heal the brain. So, yeah, I guess that’s the mission – to share how music can help people who have gone through what I have gone through.”
In some ways, the Covid-19 pandemic is a tiny bit of a blessing, in the sense that because all gigs and open mics and related activities are on hold, Krangle isn’t having to live vicariously through her music pals who do get to play and enjoy live music. Prior to the self-isolating and social distancing regulations, she said she did try to get out once in a while.
“I would try, but I couldn’t do it for long. And even with earplugs it would hurt. So, it wasn’t always a pleasant thing for me anymore, which is horrifying. That’s the worst part. I am hoping by the time things get sort of back to normal, I will be well enough to get back out to those kinds of things. I really miss playing and I miss my friends,” she said.
To follow Krangle’s journey, including the forthcoming release of new music, visit http://www.rainakrangle.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, ON, who has been writing about music and musicians for 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavours, he now works as a communications and marketing specialist. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
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