I often find myself going back to songs I heavily enjoyed when I was seriously depressed.
For those who don’t know, I was clinically depressed for years and also diagnosed with social anxiety disorder.
This made it hard to leave the house and even get up out of bed some mornings.
Alone in my bedroom I gravitated towards songs that matched the energy I felt at the time. Artists like Lil Peep, Lil Tracy, Lil NARNIA and Lil Lotus. A whole array of Lil’s and other various artists.
What all these artists have in common is their songs have lyrics with bleak undertones about relationships, break-ups, love itself and even death. And some millenial struggles like not getting a text back or simply not getting any likes on your social media page made it all oddly relatable.
In many of Lil Peep’s songs he talks about his own death over and over to the point where you become desensitized to it. Now looking back in retrospect, it’s sort of haunting.
In a moment where suicidal thoughts plagued my mind constantly, I would take refuge among the many artists who sang about these very internal struggles I was dealing with.
My fanaticism for “emo rap” even led me to attend a concert in November of 2018. Finally getting me outside of my comfort zone and interacting with strangers. I found that once you had a common ground, conversation flowed naturally. That was my first sort of epiphany where I realized social anxiety did not have to hold me back. That if I wanted to, I could overcome it. If only for the time being.
That night I had also made a major decision that would change the course of my life.
Fast forward to now and I have a job where I deal with tons of people day in and day out and I sometimes go out and have fun of my own volition. You can say I’ve sort of mastered socializing. And my depression seems to be a thing of the past. I even stopped listening to some of my favorite artists because their music was too dark for me.
But still I go back sometimes and listen to these songs. Why is that? Is it just for nostalgic reasons specifically? Is it to feed my ego? Or can I just relate to the music on a non-superficial level because I’ve been there and done that?
Anytime I hear someone sing or rap about something that’s real and raw with emotion, I can’t help but to listen. You don’t find that in the vast majority of today’s music. If you listen to popular music, everything is fine and we are here to have a good time. But not with “emo” music. Everything is not fine and they are adamant about that. Sometimes even wearing their sadness as a badge of honor like some sort of identity. It’s just different from a lot of what’s out there.
Sometimes it’s refreshing just to hear someone say “I’m not fine, everything is not fine,” for a change. We all wear masks in this society, very few are true to who they are.
That’s why I will never forget these artists for their contribution. They weren’t afraid to be raw and vulnerable with their emotions.
I hope to put this same type of vulnerability and honesty into my own music and hope someday someone will listen. Truly listen.
Artistic Apathy 