I spent much of my summer outside listening to music. I guess truthfully, I spend much of any season of my life listening to music, but under the prison of quarantine guidelines, I often found myself sneaking outside with a playlist to accompany me on my back-porch swing, just to get some air. My brain can get a lot louder alone in my room for months on end with limited human contact, the same brain that is already loud enough. Swinging on the porch swing outside breathing in the summer air and watching the cloudless sky, music cradles me in its arms and quiets the never-ending Brain Noise, if even for just a moment.
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One day while my grandma was visiting, her and I were sitting quietly at the table outside with my mom. A random playlist played softly from the speakers overhead as we chatted. I recognized the song playing as “everything i wanted” by Billie Eilish and sang along. My mom, recognizing the tune as well, asked me what the lyrics meant, curiosity evident in her eyes and the crinkle of her brow. I explained to her what I had learned from reading up on the song the night it was released, that it was about a dream Eilish had where she committed suicide and nobody cared, and about her relationship with her brother and how he pulls her out of her head when it’s most needed.
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My grandma’s own eyebrows furrowed in displeasure as she shook her head disapprovingly, wondering aloud how many children listening to music like Eilish’s felt compelled to take their own lives because of the lyrics. I thought that just the opposite was true. That hearing someone else echoing your thoughts proves that your feelings are not alien; that knowing that someone else out there, no matter how far, struggles just the way you do can be a comfort.
The co-songwriters of indie band Tarmac Adam, Matt O'Donnell and Steve Paix, wrote about music and its connection to mental health in 2016. "We’ve experienced the power of the creative process to help process emotion; and we’ve ended up doing a lot of work in the area of mental health," they wrote. "Not only through writing music, but also sharing music and reaching out to people through song can help ease someone’s pain." In their article, they discuss the power of music and the capability songwriters have of positively affecting one's life when they are honest in their songs, writing with empathy in mind. "Songwriters have some other unique ways they can make positive contributions to the lives of others. A song can help externalize an inner struggle."
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My grandma’s perception of the issue is exactly what has been a problem in the past: that by not talking about suicide or depression or other mental health issues, by treating these feelings as taboo and telling adolescents that they cannot have them or do not have them, is dismissive enough to become a bigger problem in itself. Music has become an avenue that has allowed mental illness to be less of a hushed subject. Musicians in recent years have made leaps and bounds to talk about it in their music in hopes that they may reach someone. These musicians are Billie Eilish, Twenty One Pilots, NF, Juice WRLD, RM and Aimee Mann just to name a few.
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Tyler Joseph, frontman and sole songwriter of Twenty One Pilots took a very big risk in submitting the song “Neon Gravestones” to his label prior to the release of the band’s fourth studio album Trench. The project as a whole is a concept album that tells the story of Joseph attempting to escape a fictional city he calls DEMA, which is essentially a metaphor for depression. Joseph told fans in an interview that his label warned him and bandmate Josh Dun that releasing “Neon Gravestones,” a song about the glorification of suicide that challenges the listener to choose life, could ultimately lead them to losing their jobs and strongly encouraged them not to put it on the album. Joseph and Dun knew it could be a controversial move. But they wanted to provide a perspective on the topic of suicide that hadn't often been talked about. They wanted to provide a challenge. “I think at some point, ‘We hear you and we are here for you and we understand you’…” Joseph told Alternative Press. “There’s a point where that doesn’t help. And what’s the opposite of that? That’s a challenge to step up and defeat something. To win.” Joseph stood strong in his convictions, telling his label that what "Neon Gravestones" covered was a conversation that needed to be had and a message he wanted the public to receive. If releasing the song put his career on the line, then so be it.
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“Neon Gravestones,” although just one song of the many that discuss mental health in their discography, is a standout on the Twenty One Pilots album for its unapologetic way of bringing the topic of suicide into not just the music conversation, but into public discourse as a whole. It’s affected people. I know it has, even without the knowledge of the band’s dedicated following claiming such, because it’s affected me.
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This song, along with countless others (and in many ways, music as a whole), has helped people to combat the prison that can be a mean brain. Music is powerful. Music is healing, for both the listener and the artist. It can be an outlet for songwriters to express and confront their feelings while also a relief filled with understanding for listeners. The connection forged between an artist and empathetic fans in need of someone who gets them can be extremely strong. And it is much needed now more than ever.
