Music is Therapy: The Six Songs That Made Me Feel Heard

There are so many different outlets that people use to ease themselves through life. Different ways to cope with living with mental health issues. Art is always one form that is suggested. Painting, drawing, dance, writing, and music. They are ways to escape, they are ways to express the pain when you simply don’t have the ability to talk about it.

Personally, my own way of dealing with and coping with anxiety is through the written word. I journal my thoughts daily, regardless of how bad or good the anxiety is. Sometimes I write them in a more ‘artsy’ form and then they become the sad poems that I keep to myself. They help me explain what anxiety feels like, not just mentally, but physically, as that is something I have really struggled with over the last month.

But, sometimes you simply don’t have the ability to do any of that, and you just want to escape. You also want to feel seen and heard. To know you are not the only one who feels the same way, and music has done that for me. Below are six songs that when I listened to for the first time I cried because it was the first time I felt heard by someone else, and I didn’t have to say what I was feeling.

Someone else had felt it for me.

1 — ‘Diet Soda Society’ by The Maine (Album: American Candy)

This whole album is a pretty special one to me because a lot of the songs do help me when I am ‘going through it,’ but Diet Soda Society has a special place in my heart. It’s upbeat and friendly tune threw me off the actual lyrics, until I replayed the song and actually heard it.

The first line ‘to be honest i am full of shit,’ took me off guard at first. But, as we get deeper into the song I think, John you are not full of shit. The chorus boasts the lines ‘my mind is on the brink of going supernova’ and ‘the brain is a funny place.’ This is how very much it feels with the overthinking that comes with anxiety. It feels like your brain is in overdrive and all you just want to say is shut up.

But it was the last verse that really struck me recently.

“The bloody unknown, my every fear in essence, this neurotic head makes me believe danger is omnipresent. And all the crazies talk about the world is going to end. I sit worried sick because I’m starting to believe them and I’ve got an ugly little feeling.”

This description is like when every little thought is amplified, and you end up feeling scared about anything and everything. With coronavirus, it feels like the world is going to end and with the constant stream of negative media, it does feel like my heart is going to explode very often.

This one I definitely recommend, because unlike the others it’s not as sad sounding like the others. Its catchy melody has you thinking it’s a happier song and is one that helps me get out of the dark hole.

2 — ‘I Can’t Breathe’ by Bea Miller (Album: aurora)

This song had me in tears when I first listened to it, partially because of the lyrics and partially because I heard it at a time where I was really struggling with an anxiety attack. The soft, slow piano against the gentleness of Bea’s voice is incredibly soothing.

“now my body and mind are so distant, don’t know how to escape from this prison, how can i free my mind”

She really gets how a panic attack feels. It feels like the mind and body are so separate, and it is so hard to get out of the situation. She talks about how her thoughts don’t feel like her own anymore followed by the song's main line “I can’t breathe.” The repetitiveness is soothing, it is consistent and calm.

3— ‘Empty’ by Olivia O’Brien (EP: It’s Not That Deep)

This is probably one of the darkest songs on this list. Olivia talks about how the pressures of everything is getting to her. I like that she doesn’t sugar coat things, she knows reality is hard and doesn’t want to be lied to. O’Brien goes through the motions of how she tries to drown out the pain.

The chorus really hits home, as many people have been in her position:

“Yeah I’m empty inside, I just don’t feel alive, And I don’t wanna live, but I’m too scared to die”

There is hope when she acknowledges that things are hard but she doesn’t want to be. It is just the reality of the situation sometimes we feel so empty like we don’t want to exist anymore, but we are too scared to die. This is what life has felt like for a while, especially in this world where it has been difficult to see a future that is ‘normal’ and hopeful.

4 — ‘Version of Me’ by Sasha Sloan (EP: Loser)

Sasha Sloan has been one of the musicians that has really got me through this lockdown. Her songs are really songs you listen to when you are ‘in your feelings.’ Her soft-toned voice is one that really soothes me when I am in the ‘sad girl hours.’

She asks if she can be loved for the version of her that is not perfect. The version no one sees, just the version she does. The one that struggles, the one who is not happy, the someone who can’t get out of bed some days.

This song is one that gets to me in the way, as someone with a complicated life, Sloans line “Cause I got some trauma, some family drama.” As someone with a complicated life, with more baggage than the average twenty-two-year-old, life experiences that a very small group of people in this country go through. It strikes me because it’s something like Sloan says, she doesn’t let anyone see.

The vulnerability in her words and her voice is something I admire.

5 — ‘i feel 2 much’ by blackbear (Album: everything means nothing)

This is a song I recently discovered, but blackbear is someone I listened to a lot a few years ago. The part of this song that I really relate to is the feeling of feeling too much. I am a highly sensitive person, I always have been, and recently in the world being so difficult and there is so much pain.

I feel it all.

I feel the pain of my friends, my family, the world and then I feel my own pain, and it is too much.

The way he describes it being pain from the moment you wake up to being unable to eat or sleep, you are just awake. There is pain all of the time, pain just lying down. That is what my anxiety felt like at its highest functioning.

There is a pain in his voice when he asks to not feel at all is something I have felt a lot. When I listen to this song it gives me the assurance that someone else can feel that much. When I am better I don’t regret feeling so much because not everyone can, it’s just sometimes it gets too much and you just want to switch off.

6— ‘Last Hope’ by Paramore (Album: Paramore)

This last one is by one of my favourite bands, and I am incredibly lucky to have heard this song live. I also cried when I heard it live, which shocked a 14/15-year-old me. This one is less sad and more hopeful than the rest of the songs which is why I wanted to include it.

This is the song when I want to hope and I am needing that optimism. It’s when the pain is hurting less and you are getting better. It’s the song for when you have accepted the pain and you are working through it.

“it’s just a spark, but it’s enough to keep me going, and when it’s dark out, no one’s around it keeps glowing.”

That is the line that keeps me living. The line that gives me hope, that there is one thing, whatever that one thing may be at the time. It is the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you Paramore for this.