The songs that hold us

In the eerie space where words fail, music finds a way to reach us if we let it. In their book Burnout, Emily and Amelia Nagoski discuss how emotions have a beginning, a middle, and an end. But in modern life, we often get stuck in the middle. We quash grief and uncomfortable feelings, cut short sorrow, and distract ourselves before the wave has fully moved through us. But there is no escape; emotions need completion, and if we do not complete them, they can sit in us and come up in various ways, including future autoimmune problems. Read The Body Keeps The Score for more on this.

Like a song that has to play its final chord, or else a player and listener feel dissatisfied, emotions ask to be carried through to their resolution. If they don’t resolve, they fester. Music has always understood this simple logic. For example, some songs vibrate at the exact frequency of sorrow, and when we hear them, they feel like an understanding – a hand holding us in our sadness until we’re ready to go back outside. Some songs can carry confusion or anger. Sitting in the song helps the emotion move through us, guiding us towards a greater internal peace we can rarely see or understand until we get there.

Things rarely make any sense until we are out the other side.

When feeling rage, grief, and exasperation from life's events, I have learnt to allow myself to sit in songs that hold that feeling without trying to fix it. The longing and quiet devotion Cleo Sol’s Why Don’t You. The haunting empowering loneliness of James Blake’s Retrograde. The heartbreak of Try Not To Breathe by R.E.M.

Listening to these types of songs - and the many you have in your own song chest - is not about wallowing but witnessing a feeling and sitting with it rather than turning away.

Most of us never learnt how to process our emotions, so they got tucked away and forgotten. As we now know, however, our body does not forget,

We have so much available to distract us - the moment we feel sad, we can watch a funny video. When we feel hurt, we can listen to an upbeat podcast. When we experience loss, we can find comfort in our to-do list of endless tasks. The moment we feel lonely, we can like a few photos on social media or swipe on a dating app.

People rarely call their friends anymore; instead, we have endless threads of snaps or WhatsApp messages. I recently discussed with my close friends that from this point on, I’d rather just have a brief call every couple of weeks. We can spend hours replying to (shallow) message threads and busying ourselves with social activity.

Most of us have very little that entices us to stop and let the emotion resonate within us and transform us. Usually, people who go through suffering and take the time needed to process it fully become different afterwards, have a greater sense of awareness or have unlocked some aspect of clarity. That is one of the benefits of feeling the emotions that are present within us and not pushing them away, even if they feel unbearable.

Music is one of the greatest tools to hold us during these times, both in stillness and when we are ready to move forward. Sometimes, I need to listen to a song that reminds me I am still here and that life continues. Hiatus Kaiyote’s Molasses is one song that does that for me. So does Burial’s Archangel; its fragmented echos mirror disorientation and navigating onward through the dark.

We all have songs tied to memories, pieces of music that carry a moment so vividly that hearing it again feels like stepping back in time. Sometimes, I physically feel different when listening to a song with a distinct memory, or I start to crave something, like a particular food or drink I’d have had a lot back then.

It’s super weird and feels random; the songs have that intense effect.

As an experiment, I went through some playlists over the years and picked songs that brought back vivid memories throughout the last 15-odd years.

Usher’s Confessions and Flowers by Sweet Female Attitude takes me right back to school in Essex. Foster The People’s Pumped Up Kicks and Adele’s Someone Like You take me to moments doing my undergrad in Bristol. El Perdon by Nicky Jam and My Head Is a Jungle by Wanklemut give me flashbacks of moments when I lived in New York. Drake’s Nice For What and Erykah Badu’s Out My Mind, Just in Time, ring those years of building my first business. Then, I have hundreds of songs from the years that expanded my awareness in the space of healing and mental health, along with growing SPOKE and doing my masters at Cambridge, including YellowStraps - Slowdown, Hyme of Healing by Beautiful Chorus, Dave & Central Cee’s Sprinter and Chosen by Blxst (trust me, my list is a mix, Lol!).

Then I also have songs for people. Nearly everyone I’m close with can be energetically summarised with a few songs; sometimes, they don’t even know or like the song.

I highly recommend carving out 30 minutes to review some of your old playlists and listen to songs that bring back memories of times, places or people. It’s like a time capsule for feelings that resonate from past moments. Maybe there was a time you felt particularly confident, creative, or carefree; songs from those times can evoke similar feelings.

Healing like this with music can and should be for all types of feelings, not just the painful ones.

What songs were playing during key moments in your life?

Our feelings are not linear. They loop, circle back and surprise us when we think we have passed through the worst. Some days, I need music that allows me to fall apart. On other days, I need music that holds out a hand and says, Let’s go.

Little Dragon’s Twice does this – offering nostalgia but also the quiet possibility of something beyond loss. Oumou Sangaré’s Yala carries a weight of disconnection and a reluctant hope that life continues. And Sampha’s (No One Knows Me) Like the Piano reminds me that movement, even when slow, is still movement.

There is a comment on YouTube under Sampha’s song that really stood out to me, and I wanted to share it:

@ItsRabiid - I'm a 36 year old man who has never really shown emotion, i don't know why. ive had my share of misfortune just like anyone, health scares, funerals, weddings and even my own mothers death. I just sort of felt numb. Very few things have brought me to tears. Every single time this song plays my eyes well up and I cry like a baby. It's beautiful how some music can bring you to a moment in your own personal life.

Music does not erase grief or pain. It does not fix the unfixable. But it does something else: it makes space. It creates room for sorrow to be held, witnessed, and eventually carried forward in a way that is less sharp and less heavy.

If you are reading this and are walking through any kind of loss, pain, or uncomfortable feelings of your own, I hope you find the songs that hold you. The ones that resonate at your exact frequency, help you move through, and remind you that you are not alone in the silence.

And when you are ready, I hope you find the songs that lift you back to life.

At SPOKE, we created an audio system that allows you to heal and build confidence through music and lyricism. We designed music that can sit with you when needed and take you on a healing journey. Try it now with 3 months free.