One of Belinda's heroes and rumored ancestors was the baroque-era composer Johann Sebastian Bach. He wrote many minuets and was believed to have written the classic "Minuet in G." But unlike the simple cheerful dance attributed to J.S. Bach, Belinda Bach - the "Minuett in B" - had a darker, more complex, beauty. She was more of a Minuet in B minor. In music, "happier" songs are generally written in major scales, while more melancholy music is most often composed in minor scales. Beauty and sadness intertwine in much classic and enduring music written by J.S. Bach. This same beauty and sadness can be heard in Belinda Bach's sounds.
"Luna" is the Roman Goddess of the moon, a pale woman with a crescent moon symbol. Belinda's inspiration was a black anime cat, also named Luna, who had a crescent moon in her forehead.
The "c" on DJLuna's MySpace is similarly symbolized with a crescent moon - a waning crescent - the phase the where the moon's illumination decreases just before it fades to a new moon. The waning crescent "c" at the end of DJLuna's name isn't just ornamental; It's pronounced "lunacy" reflecting, maybe mocking, folklore and medieval superstition that madness is induced by phases of the moon. Madness is one of many themes that ran through Belinda's music - indeed it's a verse in her very first song: "There's insanity in grief and there's insanity in me and there's insanity in everything I know."
"Sun Revolves," she explained on her website, "Is about how insane things can get. How at the worst possible time it will seem like the earth has turned on its axis just to irritate and annoy." Belinda's lyrics were "dark," Snyder noted. "I don't really look at my music as dark," she responded. "It's just kind of a stream of consciousness, how I'm feeling at the moment ... I get in the mood and I sit down with my guitar and I just kind of pour out." Belinda admitted she couldn't always remember what she was thinking about when she wrote a particular song. But the melodies are haunting - the lyrics more haunting still - in light of her untimely death. "I'm still standing here behind my own black curtain ... and I'm still conversing with the future so uncertain," she sings in her composition, "Shoreline." "I guess my lyrics do come across as dark," she confessed to Snyder. "I don't mean for them to, but I guess they do."
Pain Runs Deep
Belinda's lyrics speak much about pain. "Pain runs deep ..." she wrote in her song, "Time." Pain was familiar to Belinda. She and it were longtime foes. "She suffered from asthma from about the age of two," Sharon said. "Once she confided to me that she would be glad to sacrifice a limb if she could wake up the next morning and not have to feel that elephant sitting on her chest ever again." In her radio interview, Belinda audibly gasped as she answered the interviewer's questions. For Belinda, asthma was just the first taste of pain.
When puberty hit, migraines struck her too - intense, throbbing, pulsating headaches thrice as common in women as in men. Sometimes they're explained by hormonal irregularities, but many of the headaches' causes and triggers remain elusive. Researchers now posit migraines are linked to genetic mutations in the brain. At least sometimes, they're inherited. Belinda's mom also suffered the terrible headaches. "My migraines stopped with menopause," Sharon said. "Belinda didn't make it that far." And Belinda was allergic to Cafergot - the med that eased her mom's migraines. She was also allergic to triptans, a common class of migraine-treating meds. "She tried Tylenol, she tried indomethacin, she tried naproxen," Sharon said. "All with little relief."