Title: “Diagnosis”;

Name and year of the Album: “Such Pretty Forks in the Road”, 2020;

Songwriters:  Alanis Morissette / Michael Farrell;

Singer: Alanis Morissette;

Short description of the song: The song tackles the challenges and stigma surrounding postpartum depression and other forms of mental health issues. The singer repeats: “Call it what you want / ‘Cause I don’t even care anymore / Call me what you want to/ To make yourself comfortable / So I am debilitated / I can’t remember where the sentence started/ When I’m trying to finish it / And all of you are so frustrated / And everyone around me is trying to help as much as they can.” It seems she gives up in explaining what she is suffering from, in fighting against the wrong way the people address to her illness. On the other side, she feels that all the people around her are frustrated because they are not able to change her condition. But she is “alone in this meltdown of nervousness/ diagnosis”: nobody can really help but herself. She sings: “I’ve not left the house in a while / I’ve not felt a glimpse of ease / And I have not made much headway / Since-I-have-come-back from the war / And I no longer give a damn/about things that used to matter / And I am covering my eyes/as I am frozen on the spot”. The “coming back from the war” may be referred to the stress disorder suffered from the soldiers after experiencing traumatic events, with an open-up on forms of mental health challenges others than the one she is suffering from. She also describes the feeling of being depressed: “My house is spotless my lens is skewed my limbs/they recoil / And I’m folding in on myself / since I am out of order”. She folds in on herself both physically and mentally, translating into images the loss of interests in daily activities she is experiencing.

Tags: #postpartum #depression #frustration #nervousness #mentalillness #stressdisorder #stigma #alanismorissette #diagnosis.

Title: “Anyone”;

Name and year of the Album: “Anyone”, 2020;

Songwriters: Sam Roman / Badriia Bourelly / Dayyon Alexander / Eyelar Mirzazadeh / Demi Lovato / Jay Vincenzo Mooncie;

Singer: Demi Lovato;

Short description of the song: This song was recorded four days before the singer tried to kill herself with an overdose. Her vulnerability is highlighted given the context of her struggles with addiction and depression. The lyrics talk about the singer’s feelings of isolation and sorrow, as exemplified in the chorus: “Anyone, please send me anyone / Lord, is there anyone? / I need someone”, where she screams for help. In regard to the opening lyrics of the song “I tried to talk to my piano / I tried to talk to my guitar”, there is a reference to the attempts to find a relief through the music. She “confided into alcohol”, she talked to her imagination and to the stars, she prayed. Even so, and despite “a hundred million stories / And a hundred million songs”, she wasn’t feeling better and she feels “stupid” when she sings because it is not worthy, because nothing changes: “nobody’s listening”. She desperately tries to communicate her difficulties: “I used to crave the world’s attention / I think I cried too many times / I just need some more affection / Anything to get me by”. However, it seems like no one is listening, even if she is a famous singer with millions of fans. And this is sadly ironic.

Tags: #help #listening #depression #isolation #sorrow #anyone #demilovato.

Title: “Adam’s song”;

Name and year of the Album: “Enema of the State”, 1999;

Songwriters: Tom De Longe / Mark Hoppus;

Singer: Blink 182;

Short description of the song:  The track concerns suicide, depression and loneliness. The bassist of the band, Mark Hoppus, was feeling lonely during the tour because while all the other members of the band could not wait to come back home to meet again their loved ones, there was no one waiting for him. He was feeling sad because he did not have anything to come home to. This is the meaning behind the verses ” The tour was over, we’d survived / I couldn’t wait till I got home / To pass the time in my room alone”. Other than the personal experience of Hoppus, the song’s inspiration came from “reading a magazine where some teenage kid had killed himself and left a letter for his family”, as Hoppus declared during an interview. A clear reference to the latter episode can be found since the incipit of the song, when it says: “I never thought I’d die alone / I laughed the loudest who’d have known? / I trace the cord back to the wall / No wonder it was never plugged in at all/ I took my time, I hurried up / The choice was mine I didn’t think enough / I’m too depressed to go on/ You’ll be sorry when I’m gone.” The song speaks about how youngsters feel hopeless and depressed sometimes, and the sole solution seems to be ending your own life. On the other side, it says “Sixteen just held such better days / Days when I still felt alive / We couldn’t wait to get outside / The world was wide”, which may be interpreted as a positive message towards adolescents, since the song recalls the “better days” lived during the youth time.

Tags: #depression #loneliness #suicide #hopeless #betterdays #adamssong #blink182.

Title: “Fake Happy”;

Name and year of the Album: “After Laughter”, 2017;

Songwriters: Hayley Nichole Williams / Taylor York;

Singer: Paramore;

Short description of the song: It is about faking your own way of feeling, pretending to be always happy. The contrast between the real feelings of sadness and depression hidden behind the surface of a smile is transposed to the record’s technique of pairing difficult lyrics with instrumental pop music. Since the incipit of the song (“I love making you believe / What you get is what you see / But I’m so fake happy / I feel so fake happy / And I bet everybody here / Is just as insincere / We’re all so fake happy / And I know fake happy”) the content and its message are immediately plain: the singer knows that everyone around her is faking a smile, because she is one of them too. The chorus then says: “If I smile with my teeth / Bet you believe me / If I smile with my teeth / I think I believe me”. The bigger your smile is, the more the people who look at you can believe you are sincere, and even yourself can start believing in your own lie. Nobody should pretend to be always smiling, and instead everybody should be how they feel, without the fear of being judged badly just because of one’s state of mind.

Tags: #sadness #depression #faking #dontpretend #behowyoufeel #paramore #fakehappy.

Title: “I want to be well”;

Name and year of the Album: “The Age of Adz”, 2010;

Songwriters: Sufjan Stevens;

Singer: Sufjan Stevens;

Short description of the song: Stevens suffers from both a mysterious chronic illness and a growing unease with his own artistic identity. This viral infection debilitated him so much to lead to a growing psychological angst. The song is wild and unsettled, with a rhythm that alternates noisy electronics with an almost fairy-tale musicality, giving the idea of a fluctuating mood and psycho-psychological state. The song seems divided into two parts: the first one is more hysterical, which is a state of mind the singer himself makes a reference to: “The burning from within the burning from with (ordinary hysteria) / I could not be at rest, I could not be at peace (extraordinary hysteria)”.In this first part the main themes emerging from the chaos are death (“To think that I would die this time”; “I’ll find sleep, I’ll find peace / Or in death you’ll sleep with me”; “So do yourself a good, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes / Or do yourself a favour, or do yourself a death from ordinary causes”), loneliness (“Isolated in the room where the bed rises”) and deep sufferance (“Did I go at it wrong? / Did I go intentionally to destroy me? / I’m suffering in noise I’m suffering in (touching ordinary body)”). The rhythm calms down starting from the words “Illness likes to prey upon the lonely”. In this second part, he sings with resignation, and the perceived feelings are desperation (“I want to be well”; “I am not fucking around”) and acceptance (“And I forgive you even”). However, the whole song is a begging for relief.

Tags: #hysteria #chaos #death #loneliness #sufferance #illness #resignation #desperation #acceptance #relief #iwanttobewell #sufjanstevens.

Title: “Shine on your crazy diamonds”;

Name and year of the Album: “Wish you were here”, 1975;

Songwriters: David Jon Gilmour / Rick Wright / Roger Waters;

Singer: Pink Floyd;

Short description of the song: This song was wrote for the former band member Syd Barrett, who suffered from mental illness and drug abuse. “Now there’s a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky / Shine on your crazy diamond”: the blackened eyes are both a reference to the dilation of pupils due to the drug consumption and to the black emptiness of his look, reflecting the decline of his mental health. “You were caught on the crossfire of childhood and stardom, / Blown on the steel breeze”: these words tell about him struggling because of the premature death of his father and the exclusion from the band itself. “You reached for the secret too soon, you cried for the moon. / Shine on your crazy diamond”: the “moon” represents his madness, which is a recurring symbolism present also in other songs of the band. And the metaphor continues when it says: “Threatened by shadows at night, and exposed in the light”, where the exposition to the light (of the moon) is a reference to him facing mental health challenges. The whole song is an exhortation to shine, despite all the dramas, despite all the appellatives (“you stranger, you legend, you martyr”; “you painter, you piper, you prisoner”), because he is a diamond which has to keep on shining.

Tags: #mentalillness #mentalhealthchallenges #drugabuse #shineonyourcrazydiamond #pinkfloyd.

Title: “Fix you”;

Name and year of the Album: “X&Y”, 2005;

Songwriters: Christopher Anthony John Martin / Guy Rupert Berryman / Jonathan Mark Buckland / William Champion;

Singer: Coldplay;

Short description of the song: This song speaks about helping someone you love who is in need. Particularly, Chris Martin was inspired by his wife, who was suffering because of the recent loss of her father. “When you try your best, but you don’t succeed / When you get what you want, but not what you need / When you feel so tired, but you can’t sleep” refers to coping with the difficulties, trying to getting better without succeeding it. “Stuck in reverse” means that everything goes to the opposite side of where it should go, failing your own expectations. “Lights will guide you home and ignite your bones” is a reference to finding relief, moving on. “When you’re too in love to let it go / But if you never try you’ll never know / Just what you’re worth”: on the other side, “the light” is not that easy to find, because when you lose someone you love it is really hard to let it go. “I will try to fix you” is a promise Martin makes to her wife: he will try to help her, to understand her, to let her scream and cry, and he will be next to her, sharing with her the pain.

Tags: #struggling #loss #failingexpectations #move on #love #fixyou #coldplay.

Title: “Heavy”;

Name and year of the Album: “One More Light”, 2017;

Singers: Linkin Park feat. Kiiara;

Songwriters: Brad Delson / Chester Bennington / Julia Michaels / Justin Tranter / Mike Shinoda / Dave Farrell / Joseph Hahn / Robert G. Bourdon;

Short description of the song: It is about the difficulty of an individual to get over and move on from events and thoughts which brings him/her sadness and depression. Often it is hard to accept to have a problem and therefore separate yourself from it: you are not the problem, but there may be something inside yourself which you did not choose to deal with: “You say that I’m paranoid  / But I’m pretty sure the world is out to get me / It’s not like I make the choice / To let my mind stay so fucking messy”. The adjective “heavy” describes this deep psychological burden, enhanced by external factors too: “I know I’m not the center of the universe / But you keep spinning ’round me just the same / I know I’m not the center of the universe / But you keep spinning ’round me just the same”. However, what happens to be the focal part of the song is the inability to fight against this heaviness just by letting it go, because admit that depression is an inherent part of one’s personality is so much easier to be said than to be done. This message can clearly be seen in the chorus: “I’m holding on / Why is everything so heavy? / Holding on / So much more than I can carry / I keep dragging around what’s bringing me down / If I just let go, I’d be set free / Holding on / Why is everything so heavy?”.

Tags: #depression #sadness #accepting #letitgo #heavy #linkinpark.

Title: “In my blood”;

Name and year of the Album: “Shawn Mendes”, 2018;

Singer: Shawn Mendes;

Songwriters: Shawn Mendes / Geoff Warburton / Teddy Geiger / Scott Harris;

Short description of the song: The singer is suffering from anxiety disorder and no medicine seems to improve his conditions. However, he does not give up, because it is not “in his blood” to do so, and it turns out to be an exhortation to go on despite the obstacles everyone may face.  At the same time, he screams for help: he does not want to be left alone, struggling.  In the chorus, he repeats: “Help me, it’s like the walls are caving in / Sometimes I feel like giving up / No medicine is strong enough / Someone help me / I’m crawling in my skin / Sometimes I feel like giving up / But I just can’t / It isn’t in my blood. According to Mendes, he wrote the song about his problem in the hope that listeners would not only “relate with it” but also “understand it”, since he was the first one not to really understand the gravity of this type of disorders before it happened to him. He also describes how it feels when he has an anxiety attack and the thoughts which cross his mind while he is unable to control himself, unable to breathe: “I’m looking through my phone again, feeling anxious / Afraid to be alone again, I hate this / I’m trying to find a way to chill, can’t breathe, oh / Is there somebody who could”.

Tags: #anxietydisorder #loneliness #help #donotgiveup #inmyblood #shawnmendes.

Title: “Breathin”;

Name and year of the Album: “Sweetener”, 2018;

Singer: Ariana Grande;

Songwriters: Ariana Grande / Ilya Salmanzadeh / Max Martin / Savan Harish Kotecha / Peter Anders Svensson;

Short description of the song: It is about the singer struggling because of anxiety. People around her suggest to take medication and, leading into the pre-chorus, she shares some of the feelings she endures: “Feel my blood runnin’, swear the sky’s fallin’ / How do I know if this shit’s fabricated, oh? / Time goes by and I can’t control my mind / Don’t know what else to try, but you tell me every time”. However, instead of being stressed out by her environment (“I look up and the whole room’s spinning”), she is taking the time to pause, breathe and cater to herself (as the chorus says, “Just keep breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’ / And oh, I gotta keep, keep on breathin’ / Just keep breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’ and breathin’/ And oh, I gotta keep, keep on breathin”). It is an important message to her fans who experience anxiety too. The phrase “head in the clouds” (“Sometimes it’s hard to find, find my way up into the clouds”) is often used negatively as a term for being out of touch. It’s dismissive of people who thrive in fantasy and imagination. In this case, it is something she is looking for: detaching yourself from reality can be a way some people deal with their anxiety.

Title: “Gasoline”;

Name and year of the Album: “Badlands”, 2015;

Singer: Halsey;

Songwriters: Peder Losnegard / Ashley Frangipane;

Short description of the song: It deals with having a mental health issue, namely a bipolar disorder, and being at the same time part of the show-business. The singer uses a brutal and direct language in order to refer to being ill (“insane”, “strange”, “deranged”) because this is actually a way some people address to persons facing mental illnesses. The song describes the different states, namely mania and depression, suffered from people with bipolar disorder. The reference to the first state can be found in the line “are you high enough without the Mary Jane like me?”, since she can get euphoric without taking drugs because of her condition, while the reference to the second state can be found in the verses “I think there’s a flaw in my code/These voices won’t leave me alone”, where the voices aren’t literal. These are the “voices” that tell her she is not good enough, the same ones that can convince her to kill herself (the singer tried to kill herself once). Going through a mental health issue can be even harder when you are a “pretty face”, “part of a machine”, which is the music industry, whilst feeling trapped by it, not being able to “wake up” because her “is not a dream”. Since she is famous and she exposed herself by speaking out about her mental health disorder, she has to cope with “people whisper ’bout you on the train”. It can be really hard to reveal what a person struggle with and it can take a lot out of your self-esteem (“With your face all made up, living on a screen/Low on self-esteem, so you run on gasoline”). However, notwithstanding the pain, she knows she is more than her disorder: her “heart is gold” and she made the best decision by sharing her own experience.

Tags: #bipolardisorder #mania #depression #voices #speakingout #gasoline #halsey.

Title: “Eet”;

Name and year of the Album: “Far”, 2009;

Singer: Regina Spektor;

Songwriter: Regina Spektor;

Short description of the song: It is about loneliness and depression, about losing your happiness and your faith, your sense of being. The metaphor which makes us feel this loss is the reference to forgetting a beautiful song we used to sing all the time: “It’s like forgetting the words to your favorite song/You can’t believe it/You were always singing along/It was so easy and the words so sweet/You can’t remember/You try to feel the beat”. Suddenly something has changed, you have changed, and you can’t understand why, so you struggle to accept your own condition. In the third verse, it describes a person consumed by an ambiguous situation: “someone’s deciding whether or not to steal”. While this person is deciding whether or not to steal, he “opens the window just to feel the chill/He hears that outside a small boy just starting to cry/‘Cause it’s his turn but his brother won’t let him try”. Even if everything seems to have not worked out; even if you forget the best memories you have, because the “sweet song” you used to like appears to have no meaning anymore; even if you are on the edge, likely to do something wrong, there it is that leap of faith. You can observe others representing your thoughts and understanding by their actions how powerful empathy can be: it can save yourself by doing something you may therefore regret.

Tags: #loneliness #losingfaith #changing #donotstopsinging #eet #reginaspektor.

Title: “Who you are”;

Name and year of the Album: “Who You Are”, 2011;

Singer: Jessie J;

Songwriters: Jessica Cornish / Toby Gad / Shelley Peiken;

 Short description of the song: During an interview, the singer explained: “I kind of lost myself. It’s very personal. It’s about being true to yourself. Don’t lose yourself in any situation you’re put in, and do the dew”. At the beginning, she sings: “I stare at my reflection in the mirror/Why am I doing this to myself?/Losing my mind on a tiny error”. She is staring at the mirror, watching herself suffering and wondering why she blames herself just for having committed an insignificant mistake: often we are too hard with ourselves. The chorus says: “don’t lose who you are, in the blur of the stars/seeing is deceiving, dreaming is believing”, which seems to be an answer to her will to leave the real her “on the shelf”. Things can often turn out differently from our initial expectations, but this does not mean we should give up on them nor that we should care about someone else’s opinion: “Sometimes it’s hard, to follow your heart/Tears don’t mean you’re losing, everybody’s bruising”. At the same time, we should embrace our sadness and desperation: “it’s okay not to be okay”.

It is an exhortation about being who you truly are, accept yourself and do not be scared by those moments when you want to be alone (“leave me alone”) or you would like to scream your angst out (“’Cause everything inside me screams, no, no, no, no, yeah”), because “there’s nothing wrong with who you are”.

Tags: #beyourself #donotbescared #itisokaynottobeokay #followyourdreams #whoyouare #jessiej

Title: “Hunger”;

Name and year of the Album: “High as Hope”, 2018;

Singer: Florence + The Machine;

Songwriters: Tobias Jesso / Thomas Wayland Bartlett / Emile Haynie / Florence Welch;

Short description of the song: In this song the singer, Florence Welch, reflects on the emptiness we often try to fill with obsessions or addictions. Particularly, she refers to herself suffering from eating disorders when she was young (“At seventeen, I started to starve myself”). However, she later on says that “we all have a hunger”, which means that everyone can aim at something more, that everyone can feel lonely somehow. But this “hunger” is mostly a need for love and acceptance and in fact, within the song, the singer describes what has been “love” for her through the time: “I thought that love was a kind of emptiness”, “I thought that love was in the drugs”, “I thought that love was on the stage”. These verses hide the desperation behind the research of happiness, the attempts made in order to find her own fullness. Although all these moments, which sound like a surrender, are alternated with messages of hope, clarity and acceptance of her uniqueness: “Don’t let it get you down, you’re the best thing I’ve seen”, “Oh, but you and all your vibrant youth/How could anything bad ever happen to you?/You make a fool of death with your beauty”. And at the end, as a kind of relief, the song ends with “I forget to worry”: it looks like she finally finds her peace after having gone through her own story, her own memories, her own pain.

Tags: #eatingdisorders #emptiness #loneliness #addictions #love #acceptance #relief #hunger #florencethemachine.

Title: “1-800-273-8255”;

Name and year of the Album: “Everybody”, 2017;

Singers: Logic ft. Alessia Cara and Khalid;

Songwriters: Sir Robert Bryson Hall II/Dylan Wiggins/Arjun Ivatury/Alessia Caracciolo/Khalid Robinson/Drew Taggart;

Short description of the song: The song’s title is the phone number for the American National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. It raises awareness regarding suicide, which is often related to a mental health challenge. The lyrics transpose a dialogue between a person who is willing to end his life and the operator who picks up the call. The first verses are sung form the prospective of the person who is calling the prevention lifeline because he is having suicidal thoughts: “I’ve been on the low/I been taking my time/I feel like I’m out of my mind/It feel like my life ain’t mine/Who can relate?”, “I don’t wanna be alive” and then he explains that he would rather die because of the deep suffering he acknowledges and which he is not able to fight back. He is disappointed by his own life, by the fact that people “say every life precious (but) nobody care about mine”.

The person at the other end of the line reassures him, trying to help him getting through this painful moment: “I want you to be alive/I want you to be alive/You don’t gotta die today/You don’t gotta die/ I want you to be alive/ I want you to be alive/ You don’t gotta die”.

Later on the song becomes an exhortation at “seeing light in the darkest things”, because the overwhelming negativity is just temporary: “It can be so hard/But you gotta live right now”. The song ends with the caller changing his mind: “I don’t wanna die/ I finally wanna be alive”.

It is always so important to talk to someone who can empathize with you, making you open up about your inner troubles, and there is no shame in seeking professional help, since sometimes it can literally safe your life.

Tags: #suicide #negativethoughts #iwantyoutobealive #seekinghelp #seethelight #1-800-273-8255 #logic.

Title: “Help”;

Name and year of the Album: “Help!”, 1965;

Singer: The Beatles;

Songwriters: John Lennon / Paul McCartney;

Short description of the song: “I was depressed and I was crying out for help”, Lennon said during an interview referring to this song. Even if it was commissioned to the music band for a movie, the singer soon realized it was speaking out what his subconscious was holding on. Notwithstanding the cheerful music, the song tells a story about loneliness and seek for help. Lennon remembers how different was being young, when he “never needed anybody’s help in any way”. But now he is not “so self-assured” anymore, his life has changed and the “independence seems to vanish in the haze”. He is feeling “so insecure”, he is “feeling down” and he desperately needs someone around, “to get (his) feet back on the ground”. It seems he lost contact with reality, he is not able to deal with it anymore, therefore he admits he needs help. Understanding to not feeling very well and embracing the idea that speaking to someone may bring relief are often not such easy things to accept. This song breaks the stigma which surrounds illnesses and diseases, hoping to transform an action into an attitude by singing it out loud.

Tags: #insecure #depressed #lonely #feelingdown #needsomebody #relief #help #thebeatles.

Title: “Anxiety”;

Name and year of the Album: “Inner Monologue Part 1”, 2019

Singers: Julia Michaels feat. Selena Gomez;

Songwriters: Julia Michaels / Scott Harris / Ian Kirkpatrick / Selena Gomez;

Short description of the song: Both singers suffer from mental health issues and through “Anxiety” they speak about a battle they know very well. The song particularly focuses on the difficulties people having anxiety and depression face when it comes to relationships. It is about a perpetual conflict of a person who is conscious of dealing with a mental health challenge (“I’m holding hands with my depression/And right when I think I’ve overcome it/Anxiety starts kicking in to teach that shit a lesson”) and at the same time would like “to be social”, but she cannot. She would rather staying alone with her affliction than going out (“My friends, they wanna take me to the movies/I tell ’em to fuck off“). However, she feels like she is missing something, she fantasizes about what an amazing time she could have spent with her friends (“Then I overthink about the things I’m missing/Now I’m wishing I was with ’em”). The sentiments which come out from the song are on one side the need to be heard and understood by the others (“But all my friends/They don’t know what it’s like, what it’s like/They don’t understand why”) and on the other side the sympathy for the negative feelings people around her may experience towards her (“And my exes all say that I’m hard to deal with/And I admit it, yeah”). She knowns what she is coping with, but she has not given in to these afflictions. She tries her best to eliminate this feeling of frustration, that for the others seems to be so much easier than how it actually is (“I’ve been told that I could take something to fix it/Damn, I wish it, I wish it was that simple, ah”).

Tags: #anxiety #depression #understanding #frustration #relationships #juliamichaels #selenagomez

Title: “Unwell”;

Name and year of the Album: “More Than You Think You Are”, 2002;

Singer: Matchbox Twenty;

Songwriters: Rob Thomas / Robert Thomas;

Short description of the song: This song is about mental illness and the way people with mental illness feel perceived by others. “Feeling like I’m headed for a breakdown/And I don’t know why/But I’m not crazy, I’m just a little unwell/I know right now you can’t tell/But stay awhile and maybe then you’ll see/A different side of me.” It is about the stigma which surrounds mental health challenges and the negative meaning which comes along with the word “crazy”. The singer tries to justify himself by saying that he is feeling just “unwell”, “impaired”, ashamed of being labelled as “crazy”. He asks the listener to be patient and take time to deeply understand him and his struggles instead of “whisper” behind his back, making him think that “there must be something wrong with me”. Moreover, this song seems to describe psychotic events: the singer is “making friends with shadows on (his) wall” and he is “hearing voices”, which may be episodes referring to the hallucinations as symptoms of his condition, even if the latter is not further defined. Towards the end he says: “I know right now you don’t care/But soon enough you’re gonna think of me/And how I used to be”, which may be read as his hope both for a redemption and for getting better.

Tags: #crazy #psychosis #shame #hearingvoices #redemption #gettingbetter #unwell #matchboxtwenty.

Title: “Lights”;

Name and year of the Album: “Bright Lights”, 2010;

Singer: Ellie Goulding;

Songwriters: Ash Howes / Elena Goulding / Richard Stannard;

Short description of the song: It is about fighting against the “dark” of the depression, being scared of it, feeling overwhelmed by the sense of hopelessness (“the dark is too hard to beat”). She suffers from insomnia (“I’m not sleeping now”) and she is close to give up on fighting (“And I’m not keeping up/The strength I need to push me”). However, someone shows her the “lights”, instilling into her the will to go ahead. This “someone” may be a part of herself, this inside, often hidden part that everyone has and that make ourselves react upon failure: “You shine it when I’m alone/And so I tell myself that I’ll be strong”. There is then a constant reference to her “home”, a place where she “felt safe”, with her “brother” and “sister”, a place where there she supposedly used to be happy (“I had a way then/losing it all on my own/I had a heart then”), but “home” can also be a metaphor for a place away from the sadness (“And so I tell myself that I’ll be strong/And dreaming when they’re gone/’Cause they’re calling, calling, calling me home/Calling, calling, calling home”). “Noises, I play within my head/Touch my own skin/And hope that I’m still breathing/And I think back to when/My brother and my sister slept/In another place/The only time I feel safe”: the noises are the negative thoughts, the ones who make her being afraid of dying, hence she checks on herself, hoping she is still alive. And again there is a reminder to her past sweet memories of family life, when she was feeling safe most probably from herself, from that voices inside her head which bring pain and sadness.

Tags: #darkness #depression #insomnia #hopelessness #voices #safeplace #lights #elliegoulding.

Title: “Paint it black”;

Name and year of the Album: “Aftermath”, 1966;

Singer: The Rolling Stones;

Songwriters: Keith Richards / Mick Jagger;

Short description of the song: This is written from the point of view of a person who is depressed and wants everything to turn black to match his mood. In this song, the pain derives from the extreme grief suffered by a person who is shocked by a sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one (“I could not foresee this thing happening to you”). “I have to turn my head until my darkness goes” describes the resignation of a person facing an event which is bigger than himself and out of his control. The black colour is therefore both a visive representation of the funeral the singer is attending to (“I see a line of cars and they’re all painted black/with flowers and my love both never to come back”) and, metaphorically speaking, it gives the idea of the emotion the singer is experiencing: his “whole world is black”, he sees “no colours anymore I want them to turn black”.

It refers to an attitude which is typical of a person who is suffering, who wants to be left alone with his pain, because he is unable to talk about it neither he thinks that the people around him can truly understand his feelings. This often happens to those who face a dark moment: becoming reluctant to others, closing in on themselves, not seeing a way out, because even the latter one is shrouded in sadness (“I see a red door and I want it painted black”).

Tags: #loss #darkness #suffering #closingin #sadness #paintitblack #therollingstones.

  • Title: “Mad World”;

Name and year of the Album: “Trading Snakeoil for Wolftickets”, 2001;

Singer: Gary Jules (Tears for Fears cover);

Songwriter: Roland Orzabal;

Short description of the song:  This song seems to revolve the usual points of view: the singer is a person who suffers because he does not feel part of a world in which people act obediently, whose happiness probably derives from the constant avoidance of questioning what surrounds them. He sings, expressing his emotions and his sense of detachment for the “familiar faces”, for the routine, for the way in which the days always turn out to be the same.

Everything around him appears futile, and a sense of isolation and insignificance pervades him. The idea of ​​dying seems more exciting than all that the protagonist of the song has ever experienced. But this is not a song about suicide: it depicts the sensation of not feeling part of a certain society, the same society which stigmatizes a person who is struggling and which uses the word “mad” with a negative meaning. There is however a contrast between a sense of familiar and a feeling of rejection: all his thoughts and emotions are “kinda funny…kinda sad”. It perfectly explains a moment of break from the interconnectedness towards a full knowledge and acceptance of himself. The song speaks of depression, of feeling out of the world: but what if the whole world is the one to be “mad”?

Tags: #sadness #suffering #isolation #insignificance #futile #depression #stigma #madworld #garyjules.

  • Title: “Crazy”;

Name and year of the Album: “Seal”, 1991;

Singer: Seal;

Songwriters: Seal / Guy Sigsworth;

Short description of the song: Seal wrote “Crazy” inspired by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Tiananmen Square massacre, both happened in 1989. During an interview, he said: “I felt the cycle had reached its apex. I felt the world changing and I felt profound things happening”.  The lyrics “and through a fractal on a breaking wall, I see you my friend, and touch your face again” are a clear reference to the Berlin Wall coming down, whilst “crazy yellow people walking through my head/One of them has got a gun, to shoot the other one/And yet together they were friends at school” seems to be a reference to the students’ demonstrations in China. It is a song about hope, about believing in a better word, as we look at it through the eyes of a child, with purity and love (“someday, only child know”). In contrast with this image, there is the one of an elderly man who spent 70 years praying, closed in himself and far away from other people (“A man decides after seventy years/That what he goes there for/Is to unlock the door/While those around him criticize and sleep”), which may be a critique towards those who are apathetic and who prefer escaping their problems instead of facing them; who are likely to avoid people who have a different opinion instead of fighting for their freedom of thought. Hence, the “miracle” cannot derived (just) from a pray, but by being “a little crazy” (“Miracles will happen as we speak / But we’re never gonna survive unless / We get a little crazy / No we’re never gonna survive unless / We are a little Crazy”). The word “crazy” here is a synonym of freedom and change. Far away from the stigma which usually surrounds it, being “crazy” becomes the only real chance to survive in a better World.

Tags: #betterworld #changing #hoping #freedom #crazy #seal

  • Title: “Mi realidad”;

Name and year of the Album: “Cuando el destino nos alcance”, 2010;

Singer: Lori Meyers;

Songwriters: /

Short description of the song: This Spanish song talks about a person suffering from bipolar disorder. The way he perceives the world is his reality and there is nothing he can do to change this: he is just afraid that it could be worse. The singer is wondering what he can do to feel better, since the people who surrounds him think he is not happy. However, he says that his sole ambition is to love and be loved. Bipolar disorder can deeply influence the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks. That is the reason why the singer refers to his own world, which the majority of the people cannot truly understand. It is a song about the acceptance of suffering from this type of mental health issue, which does not make him any different from the whole humanity: everyone is seeking love, and this is a shared common reality.

Tags: #bipolardisorder #reality #feelingbetter #acceptance #love #mirealidad #lorimeyers

  • Title: “Sometimes”;

Name and year of the Album: “One Day at a Time”, 2020;

Singer: Kodaline;

Songwriter: Steve Garrigan;

Short description of the song: “Sometimes” is a song the frontman of the band wrote in Asia. He said: “I had a really bad day dealing with my own anxiety issues and I kind of let it get the better of me. I started writing the song in my hotel room to help me calm down, music has always helped me in that way. For me It’s a song about accepting the bad days and trying to stay positive”.

We all get lost sometimes and there is nothing wrong with it: this may happen because of a mental health issue (“Maybe I’m crazy”), or because we are confused and negative (“Maybe I’m blind”). People may not understand how you are feeling, maybe because they are simply too busy with their own lives (“All of my friends/don’t understand”; “But I break down and I lose control/The band don’t care ’cause they had a good show”), but this does not lessen the pain. The song is an invitation to relate with anxiety and it tells how the singer tries to comfort himself (“I put another podcast on”; “Reading books on meditation/Fights away the hesitations/Hanging over me/Easing the anxiety). However, it does not claim to hold an answer to overcome the struggle: the singer “just hope(s) these words will help whoever’s listening/If someone cares to listen in”.

Tags: #badtimes #acceptance #pain #anxiety #calmingdown #meditation #sometimes #kodaline

  • Title: “Doctor Please”;

Name and year of the Album: “Doctor Please”, 2018;

Singers: Jim and Sam;

Songwriters: Jim and Sam;

Short description of the song:  Upon the day of releasing the song, the music duo said that it is a song “about waiting for news from the doctor, for yourself or for someone you love. Most of us have gone through this in one way or another, and when you are reminded of how fragile life can be, we hope this song brings you some kind of comfort”. This song reminds us that we all have to deal with difficulties in our lives and that we all have a different burden and a similar pain (“Sister when you’re praying/Could you pray for me/ ‘Cause I don’t know that song/Those chords or that key/Tell us something good Doctor please/Tell us something good Doctor lie/Has it all been a waste/Down on our knees/Tell us something good Doctor please”). And when we are drowning in the struggles, we often look for someone we trust who can tell us that everything is going to be fine: it can be a professional (“doctor”) and it can be someone close to our everyday life (“Brother lend me light/When they hand me darkness”).

In the music video, the protagonists are dressing up like clowns, which represents the commitment we all bring into our lives about showing that everything is great even if it does not.

Tags: #beingworried #burden #pain #commitment #struggling #doctorplease #jimandsam

  • Title: “Good News”;

Name and year of the Album: “Circles”, 2020;

Singer: Mac Miller;

Songwriters: Jon Brion / Malcolm McCormick;

Short description of the song:  This song describes isolation very well. The lyrics tell the story of the singer and his overall resignation with life. He is “too busy dreaming” while he would have rather “spent the whole day in his head”. Mac Miller was opened about his struggling with drugs and depression and in this song he explains how the fame was not improving his condition. He wishes to “get out of his goddam way”, he asks for “a break”, since he is “so tired of being so tired”. “There ain’t a better time than today. But maybe I’ll lay down for a little, yeah”: he accepts his own pain as well as his own duties, but on the other side he wonders: “Why can’t it just be easy?/Why does everybody need me to stay?”. He ends the song with optimism “I’ll finally discover/that it ain’t that bad”. He is hoping for himself to find a way out of the constant, tiring battle between what he really wants and really is and the expectations of his circle: “Good news, good news, good news/That’s all they wanna hear/No, they don’t like it when I’m down/But when I’m flying, oh, it makes ’em so uncomfortable/So different, what’s the difference?”. The “good news” he talks about are most probably the ones which will put an end to his burning interior conflict.

Tags: #isolation #drugs #depression #tiredtobetired #break #wayout #goodnews #macmiller

  • Title: “Stand Like an Oak”;

Name and year of the Album: “Stand Like an Oak”, 2020;

Singer: Rising Appalachia;

Songwriter:  Chloe Smith

Short description of the song: Chloe Smith said: “I wrote this song for a loved one going through the wave and arc of depression and anxiety, someone whom I wanted to sing a reminder to find her roots and footing when the wind blows strong. Mental health is a gripping mountain for so many people to climb, and this song honors that journey as well as the people who pull us up out of it. Now, in the time of Coronavirus, we are seeing the necessary roles of music and healing practices in our abilities to see through this pandemic and stay steady on our course of compassion and strength. This song sings, like the mighty oaks, of claiming your little piece of earth fiercely when the storms pass through”. The oak tree becomes a symbol of stability, calmness and strength: when the wind rises and the storm begins, the roots, firm and strong, are the ones that can help the whole tree to gently move without breaking. Because storms can always come, as suffering does, and they cannot be stopped. The only solution for us is to accept the bad weather, as well as to accept that it can mess up with our leaves (or lives!), but without bending us: if we remain anchored to ourselves, we can overcome even a tornado.

Tags: #depression #anxiety #storm #strength #calmness #stability #standlikeanoak #risingappalachia

  • Title: “No surprises”;

Name and year of the Album: “OK Computer”, 1997;

Singer: Radiohead;

Songwriters: Colin Charles Greenwood/Edward John O’brien/Jonathan Richard Guy Greenwood/Philip James Selway/Thomas Edward Yorke;

Short description of the song: “A heart that’s full up like a landfill/A job that slowly kills you/Bruises that won’t heal/You look so tired, unhappy/Bring down the government/They don’t, they don’t speak for us/I’ll take a quiet life/A handshake of carbon monoxide/With no alarms and no surprises”. This song describes the life of a normal man, made of work, alarm clocks and dissatisfaction. Very often we find ourselves stuck in a cage that we built ourselves, where time is marked by mechanical and involuntary gestures. In the busy life that we impose to ourselves, we often forget to evaluate our mood, our feelings and our frustration. When we finally manage to look lucidly at ourselves and we realize how unhappy we are, a huge sense of emptiness seems to swallow us up. Nothing makes more sense and the only way out of surprises and alarms seems to be by inhaling “carbon monoxide”. In the background, the music which plays resembles a lullaby, and it accompanies the singer in a sleep without awakening.

Tags: #depression #suicide #emptiness #unhappiness #frustration #no surprises #radiohead

  • Title: “Under Pressure”;

Name and year of the Album: released as single in 1981, and later on included in the 1982 album “Hot Space”;

Singers: Queen and David Bowie;

Songwriters: Roger Taylor / Freddie Mercury / John Deacon / David Bowie / Brian May;

Short description of the song: The song speaks about how stressful life can be. However, it can also refer to the social pressure a bisexual person, as Freddy Mercury was, may experience.

In the first verse, the devastating effects of pressure are described: it can make you feel miserable (“push you down”), “split a family in two”, lead to poverty and abandon (“puts people on streets”). In the chorus, the singers explain what the meaning of the song is: “It’s (pressure) the terror of knowing what this world is about…”. Hence, mostly the “terror” of the truth, of what we really are and its acceptance, leads to our greatest pressure. The lyrics of the second verse refer to “chipping around”, which has been interpreted as a synonym of using heroin: drugs are often seen as the fastest remedies to stop feeling pain and sorrow.  However, avoiding or escaping the problems, being a “blind man” in front of them simply does not work. The sole solution seems to be “love”, which can be intended as love towards ourselves as well as towards the world. A kind of love which is limitless and boundless and which can bring us to help the “people on the streets” mentioned above, those who find it hard to fight against the pressure they impose to themselves, those whose “insanity laughs under pressure we’re breaking”.

Tags: #insanity #feelingmiserable #acceptance #drugs #pain #sorrow #love #underpressure #queen #bowie

  • Title: “Hurt”;

Name and year of the Album: “American IV: The Man Comes Around”, 2002;

Singer: Johnny Cash (Nine Inch Nails cover);

Songwriter: Trent Reznor;

Short description of the song: This song includes references to self-harm (“I hurt myself today”) and heroin addiction (“The needle tears a hole/the old familiar string”). It talks about depression and suicide thoughts, perfectly describing the feeling of surrender to oneself, without anger nor resentment, but only with melancholy and some regrets. “I hurt myself today/To see if I still feel/I focus on the pain/The only thing that’s real”: the opening verse seems to scream out the desperation of a man whose only way to “feel” is through the pain. The song looks like a bitter, sad, letter the protagonist has written to himself, as it was a page of his diary. “What have I become”, he wonders, referring to his past “him” as his “sweetest friend”. With resignation, he minimizes his will to die, saying that “everyone he knows goes away in the end”: is then death really a choice? He keeps on describing his deep, immense pain, with his mind and his “broken thoughts” surrounded by a tied “crown of thorns”. With resignation and sweetness, he turns to his “him from the past” once again, telling him that he has become someone else: he is now that corrupt and corroded person “beneath the stains of time” who is standing in the struggle. And at the end he confesses that he would have liked to find another way: “If I could start again/A million miles away/I will keep myself/ I would find a way”.

Tags: #depression #suicide #heroinaddiction #selfharm #melancholy #regrets #pain #hurt #johnnycash

  • Title: “Keep Moving On”;

Name and year of the Album: “#I Will Listen”, 2014;

Singer: Jenna Kyle;

Songwriters: Jenna Kyle / Tony Verderosa / Jeremy Lublin;

Short description of the song: This song has been included in an album whose aim was precisely to fight the stigma that surrounds mental illness. The main purpose is both to raise awareness about mental health challenges and to give a message of embracement and hope. When you “hit the ground” just “shake it off”: we all go through moments of despair, but we should accept that they can happen and don’t let these moments make us doubt our strength. “There is no shame” in “feeling low”, in suffering and thinking we are not able to “take the pain”. But our battles are the ones which make us who we are, the ones that “keep (us) strong”. We are not alone in the darkness and we must keep this in mind. And “when darkness comes / light the candle and run”: the light represents the hope of overcoming the pain. “Let your light shine on and on”: the important thing is to “keep moving on”.

Tags: #noshame #shakeitoff #awareness #mentalillness #bestrong #shine #keepmoovingon #jennakyle

  • Title: “Spirits”;

Name and year of the Album: “Hope”, 2015;

Singer: The Strumbellas;

Songwriters: Jeremy Drury /Jon Hembrey / Darryl James / Izzy Ritchie / David Ritter / Simon Ward;

Short description of the song:  Simon Ward said: “Basically the song is about fighting your inner demons”. The demons he is speaking about are represented by the “guns” and the “spirits” which are fighting in his head. Ward also explained: “I was going through a rough patch when I wrote that song. We were on the road and I was feeling down and out. I missed my family. The metaphor of guns in my head symbolized my bad thoughts, but the thing about being down is that it always will get better in the end; that’s where hope comes in the song.”

“I’ve been looking at the stars tonight / And I think oh, how I miss that bright sun / I’ll be a dreamer ’til the day I die”: these verses give the idea of ​​how sometimes, even when we are experiencing the sight of a wonderful thing like a starry night, our mind leads us to the desire of something else, something different, and maybe we are simply dreamers or maybe we are not able to enjoy the present moments. “I spent a lot of nights on the run / And I think oh, like I’m lost and can’t be found / I’m just waiting for my day to come”: here resignation and fatigue are vivid. Sometimes the constant fight against our demons can be exhausting. And that’s why the singer does not “want to see another night”, does not want to feel lonely anymore. “And I don’t want a never ending life / I just want to be alive while I’m here”: however, Isn’t better to live intensely than to survive forever?

Tags: #demons #inyourhead #resignation #badthoughts #loneliness #feelingalive #spirits #thestrumbellas

  • Title: “Rainbow”;

Name and year of the Album: “Rainbow”, 2017;

Singer: Kesha;

Songwriter: Kesha Sebert;

Short description of the song: “This whole album, for me, really is a healing album” Kesha said. “It’s healing from so many things from my past and just trying to get back to the most childlike, naive, purest version of myself that I can find — the most free-spirited, un-jaded version of myself… Rainbow was the first song I wrote for this record. I was in rehab for my eating disorder. I was sitting on the floor, and I had begged the head of the rehab to let me have a keyboard for one hour a day, and finally she relented. And for that one hour a day I played and wrote Rainbow. Rainbow was just my promise, my letter to myself that things would get better”.

“And I know that I’m still fucked up / But aren’t we all, my love? / Darling, our scars make us who we are, are / So when the winds are howling strong / And you think you can’t go on, hold tight, sweetheart”:  Kesha speaks to the listener with affection, as if it is an old dear friend. Such confidence arises from the profound knowledge of the pain that a person in the same situation can experience, as well as from sharing the same suffering. With sweetness and understanding, the singer encourages to not give up, because “you’ll find a rainbow, rainbow, baby”. She knows that “life is scary”, but one must keep on seeking “colours”, putting “the past behind you”, being aware that “the ghosts will try to find you”. But these bitter memories, the sorrow and the struggles can be overcome: accept them and try to remember that after a storm there comes a rainbow.

Tags: #eatingdisorders #rehab #gettingbetter #donotgiveup #acceptance #seekingcolors #rainbow #kesha

  • Title: “Reborn”;

Name and year of the Album: “Kids See Ghosts”, 2018;

Singer: Kids See Ghosts;

Songwriters: Kanye West / Scott Mescudi / Evan Mast / Oladipo Omishore / Benjamin Levin;

Short description of the song: For the two members of the music duo, Kanye West and Kid Cudi, the year 2016 was tough: Cudi posted a letter on Facebook while he was into rehab for depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and he wrote: “I’ll be back, stronger, better. Reborn”. In the meantime, West was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and he was hospitalized for paranoia and hallucinations. The lyrics appear to be a mix of painful memories, emotional exhaustion and hope. The chorus is repeated as it was a mantra: ““I’m so, I’m so reborn / I’m moving’ forward / Keep moving’ forward / Keep moving’ forward”. The idea of starting again, of seeing a light after going through the darkness, encourages the listeners to move from their current struggles: “I was off the chain, I was often drained / I was off the meds, I was called insane / What an awesome thing, engulfed in shame / I want all the rain, I want all the pain / I want all the smoke, I want all the blame”. They explain, though, how difficult it was not knowing “where to go”, having “so much on (their) mind” and therefore they create empathy with whoever is paying attention to their song.

Tags: #depression #anxiety #suicidalthoughts #bipolardisorder #paranoia #hallucinations #rehab #hospitalization #startinganew #keepmovingforward #reborn #kidsseeghosts

  • Title: “Perfect To Me”;

Name and year of the Album: “Speak Your Mind”, 2018;

Singer: Anne-Marie;

Songwriters: Anne-Marie Nicholson / Jenn Decilveo / Levi Lennox / Mike Woods / Kevin White;

Short description of the song: During an interview, Anne-Marie said that she used to look at other people and willing to be like them. However, by growing up, she learnt that the real perfection lies upon differences: “to be perfect is to be you”, as someone says in the video of the song. In this anthem of acceptance, the singer addresses various common issues such as body confidence and mental health (“You know I get depressed, are you impressed with my honesty?”). She also sings about her sexuality: “And I’ll love who I want to love, ’cause this love is gender-free”. Body image is how you perceive your own body. People who have negative body images are more likely to suffer from depression, eating disorders, or other mental and physical health problems. That is why Anne-Marie celebrates her own imperfections alongside with body positivity (“Love every single part of my body / Top to the bottom / I’m not a supermodel from a magazine / I’m okay with not being perfect”), accompanied by an empathetic video, in which different people have their say on their own understandings of perfection: because at the end the actual thing we all have in common is our diversity, in our being and in our perceptions.

Tags: #bodyimage #bodyconfidence #bodypositivity #mentalhealth #eatingdisorders #depression #diversity #perfecttome #annemarie

  • Title: “Chandelier”;

Name and year of the Album: “1000 Forms of Fear”, 2014;

Singer: Sia;

Songwriters: Jesse Shatkin / Sia Furler;

Short description of the song: Sia suffered from depression and she declared she had contemplated suicide in the past. In this song, the “chandelier” may have a double meaning: on one side, it may refer to careless and impulsivity of a “party girl” who “does not get hurt”, and on the other side it may have a darker meaning, referring to hanging herself. Actually, the whole song seems to have a linguistic duality: the same “party girl” doesn’t get hurt because she “pushes it down”, avoiding to deal with her own struggles. She is drinking (“One, two, three, one, two, three, drink… Throw ‘em back, till I lose count”) and she “feels the love”, but it looks just a façade, she is just “holding on”, getting lost into alcoholism, which seems to be her way to escape from the pain, even if she knows this is not a good solution. She cannot “open her eyes” while she “keeps her glass full until morning light”: she does not want to look at herself while she is getting wasted as if she is ashamed of what she has become. On the other hand, she is “holding on”, but “just … for tonight”: it may be a justification to herself, a sort of promise made to herself of not trying to find relief into alcohol ever again, or it might sound like a reference to the fact that after this night she will no longer suffer because she will never see the following day, letting herself die.

Tags: #alcoholism #facade #holdingon #pushitdown #suicidethoughts #depression #pain  #findingrelief #chandelier #sia

  • Title: “Demons”;

Name and year of the Album: “Night Visions”, 2013;

Singer: Imagine Dragons;

Songwriters:  Joshua Francis Mosser / Alex Grant / Benjamin Arthur McKee / Daniel Coulter Reynold / Daniel Wayne Sermon;

Short description of the song: We all have some sort of demons inside us and we all try to fight them. Sometimes it may be harder, some other times we may accept to live with them forever, without being scared of them since they are part of what we are. In this song, the singer is totally aware of the “beast” he has inside and his only concern seems to be to hurt those around him: “I wanna hide the truth / I wanna shelter you / But with the beast inside / There’s nowhere we can hide”. Dealing with mental health issues can make people suffering from it being worried for their loved ones: they want to protect them from themselves. At the same time, they are aware of how difficult can be to hide their personal struggles. Therefore, they often prefer to close in on themselves, moving away from all those who want to save from themselves. “No matter what we breed / We still are made of greed / This is my kingdom come / This is my kingdom come”: despite all the efforts, those “demons” cannot be easily defeated. Suffering is not a choice, it just happens. The only thing to do whilst feeling down is to acknowledge this inner status and do not be afraid to harm people: a relationship based on sincerity and mutual trust is able to bear even those truths we are most afraid of revealing.

Tags: #beingafraid #hurt #protecting #struggle #pain #suffering #love #beasts #sincerity #trust #demons #imaginedragons

  • Title: “24/7”;

Name and year of the Album: “24/7”, 2016;

Singer: Kehlani;

Songwriter: Kehlani Parrish;

Short description of the song: This song was released after Kehlani was hospitalized for an apparent suicide attempt and it is powerfully addressed to her struggle with depression. She sings that “it’s OK to not be OK” and that she does not know anyone who is always happy (“I don’t know nobody who smiles at everybody 24/7”) or that never gets lost in himself/herself (“I don’t know nobody / Who thinks that they’re somebody / 24/7”). She also says that some nights she stops getting anxious by thinking she will not get up (“I had my nights where I’m not anxious to wake up and feel any better”), since sometimes sadness and impotence are so strong and demeaning that the only way to stop the pain is to think that there will be no more opportunities to experience anything: death seems the only answer and the only cure.  The singer knows what it feels like to give up and she empathizes with those who listen to her song: she knows that probably many are “fuckin ‘sick of it”, tired of  feeling “upside-down, topsy-turvy”. Hence, she cheers them up by being supportive and not judgemental at all: “And it’s alright to not be alright / To search for your light / And it’s all good to not be all good / To feel like you shouldn’t feel any better / You gotta lose you just a little / Lose your cool just a little / I won’t judge you a little.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdmI_8bw03k;

Tags: #depression #pain #searchforyourlight #loseyou #suicideattempt #hospitalization #24/7 #kehlani.

  • Title: “Everybody Hurts”;

Name and year of the Album: “Automatic for the People”, 1992;

Singer: R.E.M.;

Songwriters: Bill Berry / Peter Buck / Mike Mills / Michael Stipe;

Short description of the song:  This deep and straightforward song seems to caress the soul of those who listen to it, spreading at the same time sweetness and strength. The words reassure the listeners, by saying that “everybody hurts”, without thought minimizing the various moods and conditions that can bring a person “to feel like letting go”. There are times when “you’re sure you’ve had enough / Of this life”,”when you think you’ve had too much” and when “ everything is wrong”. There are days which merge with the nights because they all look the same, spent in solitude. But the truth is that we are not alone, or at least we are not the only ones who can feel the pain, we are not the only ones to suffer, to “cry”. The singer urges the listeners to not give up, to “hang on” and “hold on”. Often it could also help to talk about what torments us, to open up with our loved ones (“Take comfort in your friends”), whose presence could help us stop having this feeling of loneliness that makes us so confused, tired and deeply sad. Finally, the music seems to bring us into a state of grace and tranquillity, far away from the deafening noise of our thoughts and the turbulence of our struggles.

Tags: #havingenough #cry #suffering #struggling #lettinggo #loneliness #sadness #friends #everybodyhurts #rem.

  • Title: “Looking for the beauty on the World”;

Name and year of the Album: “Looking for the Beauty in the World”, 2018;

Singer:  Isbells;

Songwriter: Gaetan Vandewoude

Short description of the song: In one of their posts on Facebook, the music band exclaimed: “… don’t forget I wrote this song to slow down and take a breath”. We often forget how important is just to calm down and contemplate what surrounds us, admiring how much the World has to offer to us as well as being aware of what each one of us can give back to the World. Everybody is fundamental since evryone participates in enriching the “Beauty”, the one we can perceive if we pay attention to the small things. And if we pay attention to those small things, realizing their importance, we can then empower ourselves, by understanding how much our small gestures contribute as much as the small things to the harmony of everyone’s lives. Sometimes it’s just hard to be optimistic: “I worry about my children when I see the evening news / And when I turn on the radio it’s like there’s nothing left to lose / Even if I try to put it all aside / I can’t keep from crying, I can’t seem to find the good”.  At the same time, however, we should not give up on hoping: just as the sun illuminates the “Beauty”, we can illuminate our path as well as the path of those around us. Take your time, trust yourself and contemplate your own beauty.

Tags: #takeabreath #slowdown #contemplate #smallthings #smallgestures #hope #trustyourself #lookingforthebeautyoftheworld #isbells

Title: Map of the problematique
Name and year of the Album: Black Holes and Revelations (2007)
Singer: Muse
Songwriters: Matt Bellamy
Short description of the song: The song refers to a person who has realised that he/she is suffering from anxiety and tries to deal with it (“fear and panic in the air/I want to be free from desolation and despair”);however, sometimes he/she feels trapped, like they don’t know whether they will be able to escape the loneliness and isolation it emerges (“when this will be over”). Feelings such as anxiety, isolation and loneliness can happen to anyone and no one should be stigmatised for it; cause “when we bleed, we bleed the same”.
 
Title: Rut
Name and year of the Album: Wonderful Wonderful (2017)
Singer: The Killers
Songwriters: Brandon Flowers, Dave Keuning, Mark Stoermer, Ronnie Vannucci Jr., Jacknife Lee
Short description of the song: The song’s subject matter is depression and the clip serves the lyrics by visualising their meaning; we watch a couple of different women of various ages cowering in room corners, as if they’re trapped. It refers to all these people who feel like they have lost themselves due to what they’re going through and therefore seek support. They ask from their loved ones not to give up on them, because they try really hard but feel like they’re ready to collapse (“but don’t give up on me, cause I’m just in a rut/I’m climbing but the walls keep stacking up”). In an attempt to keep a part of their old self alive, they try to remind both their loved ones and themselves that they weren’t always like this (“so I’m handing you a memory/that steadily reminds you/of who I really am”), hoping that they will eventually overcome the challenge (“and I’ll climb and I’ll climb”).
Title: Youth
Name and year of the Album: If You Leave (2013)
Band: Daughter
Songwriters: Elena Tonra
Short description of the song: The road to adulthood is mostly a tough one. As Tonra herself has stated: “As an early teen, I felt a bit lost. You’re trying to find out who you are. You move schools and [meet] different people and kind of lose touch of who you are. I went through phases of sadness and kept to myself a lot. For me, going through youth is positive, but there’s a sadness and a smokiness to it.” Anxiety, sadness or even more challenging situations related to mental health can occur at any age. From a brief relationship that didn’t last (“lovers that went wrong”) to the loss of a loved one everything seems hard and impossible to overcome, since adolescence is a transient state, where children begin to discover who they are, what they like and what they want; all this freedom of choosing who to eventually become can cause a lot of stress (“our minds are troubled by the emptiness”), especially to those who still feel confused and cannot find answers to their questions (“chasing visions of our futures/one day we’ll reveal the truth”). This can lead teenagers to become impatient and more aggressive with the people around them (“destroy the middle, it’s a waste of time”). From the perfect start to the finish line; in particular, when they deal with mental health challenges, they can sometimes even hurt themselves (“most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs/setting fire to our insides for fun”).
Title: Tha rthei o kairos pou tha spaso tin porta
Name and year of the Album: Oi Anases Ton Likon (2004)
Singer: Yannis Angelakas
Songwriters: Yannis Angelakas, Nikos Velliotis
Short description of the song: Through his lyrics that often resemble poems, Angelakas tells the story of a person struggling with depression, but dreams of the day he/she will have completely overcome the sadness and sorrow they currently feel; the struggle is likened to a door that he/she has to break (“tha rthei o kairos pou tha spaso tin porta” – “there will come a time when I’ll break the door”). He is positive that he will eventually get over his sorrow, even if these feelings try to hunt them down again (“tha girnaei san treli, tha zitaei na me vrei kai de tha me vriskei” – “she will wander around looking for me, but she won’t find me”). He acknowledges it’s a big step for him, therefore he hopes that there won’t be any backsliding (“kai den prokeitai elpizo pote na mou leipsei” – “I hope I will not ever miss it”).
Title: Kati san psema
Name and year of the Album: Ta Xromata Tou Misous (1998)
Singer: Hasma
Songwriters: Hasma
Short description of the song: The singer talks about how the thoughts in our mind can often drive us crazy or make us sick. These thoughts are not always expressed in front of other people; therefore, they could be regarded as unreal for everyone else, except for the person that has to deal with them. He often repeats that because of such thoughts, which refers to them as “circles”, his soul sickens (“kyklous kanei to mialo mou ki arrostaino stin psichi mou” – “circles inside my mind/my soul becomes sick”).  He also mentions that some days he manages to get through, while some others are really hard (“einai meres pou sou vgainoun/einai meres pou de vgikan” – “some days I get by/some days I don’t”). Moreover, he talks about how the passing days are always filled with sadness (“oi meres mou pernane sa thlimmeni skia” – “the days go by like a sorrowful shadow”), caused by his endless thoughts.
Title: Bones
Name and year of the Album: The Bends(1995)
Singer: Radiohead
Songwriters: Thom Yorke
Short description of the song: The title of the song can be interpreted both literally and metaphorically (“I don’t want to be crippled cracked/Shoulders, wrists, knees and back”). Therefore, when a person deals with mental health challenges, he is affected both physically and mentally. In particular, when one suffers from depression, one can often feel broken, crushed, or simply extremely tired at all times. The song also makes a reference to prozak (“now I can’t climb the stairs/pieces missing everywhere/prozak painkillers”), a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, which is mainly used to treat major depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic disorder. “Bones” also talks about a time when it felt like everything was simpler and easier; the singer recalls and misses it, wishing he could go back (“and I used to fly like Peter Pan/All the children flew when I touched their hands”).
Title: Allazei prosopa i thlipsi
Name and year of the Album: Mia Matia San Vrohi (1997)
Singer: Ksylina Spathia
Songwriters: Pavlos Pavlidis
Short description of the song: Pavlidis humanises sorrow and describes it as a young woman that often changes faces. Sometimes she looks like a little girl partying and dancing, but what she really does is crying for help (“kamia fora anti na klaiei xorevei/kai einai san a leei spaste tin porta an den anoiksei” – “sometimes instead of crying she’s dancing/it’s like she’s asking us to break the door if the door won’t open”). Sometimes she pulls her hair back, looking older and stares into his soul; he admits that he reminds him of someone but cannot recall her name. (“allazei prosopa i thlipsi, ena koritsi me koitaei/mazevei piso ta mallia tis/thimizei mia mikri kyria pou den thimamai to onoma tis”“sorrow with the changing faces, a girl looks at me/she wears a ponytail/reminding me of a young lady but I cannot remember her name”). These lyrics could be interpreted as a situation where one loses him/herself and forgets about everything he/she used to be; it’s like they are unable to recognize themselves anymore.
Title: Head above water
Name and year of the Album: Head Above Water (2019)
Singer: Avril Lavigne
Songwriters: Avril Lavigne
Short description of the song: In 2015, Avril was diagnosed with Lyme disease. Lyme disease can invade any cell of the body; therefore, besides the physical implications, it can also affect the nervous system, in terms of cognitive, emotional, and physiological functioning. Avril decided to share what she was going through with the pubic, in order to increase awareness and show her support to all those who also live with Lyme disease. Avril released her latest album in 2019, describing it as an emotional journey that helped her “sing past the pain”. All the album songs are inspired by her personal struggle. In a letter to her fans, she stated: “Thank you for waiting so patiently as I fought through and still continue to fight, the battle of my lifetime. The first song I am choosing to release is called “Head Above Water.” It is also the first song I wrote from my bed during one of the scariest moments of my life.”