Music is a reason to live.

Before anything else, before the blog, the podcast, or even the gigs, music was the only thing that made me feel alive. It still is. This post isn’t about one band or album. It’s about why music matters when everything else feels empty.

There are times when life feels like it’s moving in straight lines, no highs, no lows. Just a quiet, numbing sameness. You might remember the version of yourself that used to yearn, the version of yourself who felt everything with an aching intensity.

“It’s getting bad again,” you might say. The emptiness you try so hard to suppress always finds its way back to the surface. You begin to question why nothing ever feels like it’s enough.

Depression isn’t linear. You can have a life full of love and laughter, but still struggle to get out of bed in the morning. You might even convince yourself that this emotional weight is normal, that feeling inadequate is a part of growing up, until you’re reaching for the pills again.

Is it better to feel everything, to feel as if the life is being sucked out of your bones or to feel nothing at all, to be fine, flat and regulated?.

I still don’t have an answer. I do know this, life must mean something. It must be for something.

Music means something, something real. It offers comfort in ways another person sometimes can’t. A song can speak for you when you don’t have the words. I’ve lost count of how many nights I’ve fallen asleep with headphones in, letting some stranger’s voice carry what I couldn’t say out loud. When you hear lyrics, it helps to remember someone wrote them. Someone lived through the experience they wrote about. They survived the pain and the numbness. The darkness didn't swallow them whole.

Music brings people together. It reminds us that we’re never alone in how we feel. It creates space for understanding, even between strangers. I believe we can help heal each other by connecting through this.

Find something you love, something that you can hold onto. It may not fix everything, but sometimes it’s enough to keep you going.

Written by Sophie Lee.