The 4 Most Life-Affirming Lyrics in Popular Music

Warning: Can Produce Ambiguous Tears

Photo by Dawid Zawiła on Unsplash

A couple of years ago, I wrote an article about the saddest lyrics in popular music. While tears and heartbreak are cathartic at times, sometimes we need our music to lift us and inspire us for a new day. I have different subjects and themes that speak to me, and you may have other themes that speak to you. I don’t find the most life-affirming lyrics to be ones that offer simple platitudes or overly sentimental drivel. Rather, the ones that hit me the most are the lyrics that capture the harshness and reality of life, but offer us something for our souls.

The lyrics I have chosen for this list may not speak to you in the way they do to me, but I think each of them has a universal appeal that can warm any heart. This is not an exhaustive list, but simply words that have made me appreciate life and given me the “feels”, as the kids call it these days… Alright, let’s get to it.

From the Song “Both Sides Now” by Joni Mitchell

Oh, but now old friends, they’re acting strange And they shake their heads and they tell me that I’ve changed Well, something’s lost, but something’s gained In living every day

I’ve looked at life from both sides now From win and lose and still somehow It’s life’s illusions I recall I really don’t know life at all

Joni Mitchell starts the song by reflecting on clouds. Clouds can be seen as “rows and floes of angel hair” or “ice cream castles in the air”, but they can also be seen as obstacles that “only block the sun” and “rain and snow on everyone”. She plays with these comparisons throughout the songs before landing on my favorite grouping of lines that I selected above.

The simple example of lifelong friends not connecting in the same way, and of how both time and circumstances can change relationships. Most people can relate to this pain. Not only friendships that change in adolescent years, but relationships that change as adults. As the Buddhists would observe, life is change, thus life is suffering.

Joni notes that every day, something is lost, but something is also gained. I don’t think Joni is doing the power of positive thinking. She’s not exhorting us to only think about the beautiful parts of life or only look at the beautiful parts of clouds. Rather, reality and change introduce both sides, loss and gain, beauty and pain, life-giving and life-taking. We may feel lost in life’s illusions, but look at life from both sides now.

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From the Song “Life Like Weeds” by Modest Mouse

In this life like weeds, in this life like weeds

Eyes need us to see, hearts need us to bleed

In this life like weeds, you’re a rock to me

I know where you’re from, but where do you belong?

In this life like weeds, you’re the dirt I’ll breathe

In this life like weeds, you’re a rock to me

I love this song. I love these lyrics. Whenever I tear up to this song, I don’t know if it’s sadness or joy. At the beginning of the song, Isaac Brock, the lead singer of Modest Mouse, says, “in this life like weeds, you’re just a rock to me.” It’s unclear if he views the person(s) as a nuisance or something blocking his growth. The very image of a weed can be seen in a negative light, so my first impression was that a rock in weeds was an anchor or a positive and stable force. At the same time, Brock seems to imply that the rock is an obstacle to growth.

However, by the end of the song, the rock does signify something life-giving and life-raising. Something or someone that the writer cannot live without. In the same way that eyes need us to see and hearts need us to bleed, the rock is that which sustains the writer. Again, it’s such perceptive songwriting because the images themselves are so ambiguous. For instance, how should we understand the line “you’re the dirt I’ll breathe”? It doesn’t sound like a compliment! However, the words may sound negative, but Brock uses them to both highlight the harshness of the world and those life-giving people that make it livable.

Again, I’m not sure I have it right, and the lyrics could be going way over my head. Yet every time I hear the line “In this life like weeds, you’re a rock to me,” it always gives me this immense gratitude for life and for others. It has almost a spiritual effect on me. And whoever is your rock, give them a hug or a prayer after listening to some Modest Mouse.

From the Song “Everything is Everything” by Lauryn Hill

Sometimes it seems We’ll touch that dream But things come slow or not at all And the ones on top Won’t make it stop So convinced that they might fall Let’s love ourselves and we can’t fail To make a better situation (better situation, uh-uh) Tomorrow (tomorrow) our seeds will grow (our seeds will grow) All we need is dedication (yo) Let me tell ya that (everybody, uh)

Kendrick Lamar, in his song “Now or Never,” expresses the youthful dreams of being rich and famous. He writes about his dreams of winning the Grammys, everyone shouting his name, and accolades and riches falling on him from his natural talent. He wrote that song before his career exploded, and it is not the song I chose for this lift. Why? Because after Kenrick became famous and won Grammys, he talked about fame as if it were another form of the projects. It was a cycle of disappointment.

There is a phrase in social theory called “Cruel Optimism”, and it's the idea that the goals and dreams that are sold to us actually hinder us from achieving those dreams. Lamar’s dream of fame was a type of cruel optimism that promised him a lifestyle that had its own trappings and cyclic cruelty.

What does this have to do with Lauryn Hill’s lyrics in “Everything is Everything”? Hill gives a powerful antidote to cruel optimism in that she doesn’t sugarcoat reality or rely on simple platitudes to give life-affirming principles. Rather, your dream may come slowly or not at all, and often, there are people actively keeping the status quo that makes better situations impossible. Hill doesn’t promise you that you will reach your dreams, but that love and dedication can plant small seeds that will eventually grow. In other words, Hill offers hope, but she doesn’t promise a false future that will actively harm us when we don’t reach it. Or when we reach it, but it actively harms us!

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From the Song “Come On Up to the House” by Tom Waits

Does life seem nasty, brutish and short Come on up to the house The seas are stormy and you can’t find no port Got to come on up to the house, yeah

All your crying don’t do no good Come on up to the house Come down off the cross, we can use the wood You gotta come on up to the house

Waits likes to play with spiritual images and symbols, but never in an obvious or easily perceptible way. I often wonder if “the house” in this song is a divine home. Is it the Waits’ street dog version of The Shack? Maybe… Even if you don’t take that spiritual interpretation, the song will get you in the feels.

Life often does seem nasty, brutish, and short. The seas are often stormy, and you can’t find a port. As with my other choices for life-affirming songs, Waits captures life’s suffering. He doesn’t try to convince you that everything is peachy, and it's only your perspective that needs to change. Rather, buck up, stop crying, and come on up to the house.

This song, more than all the others on this list, has line after line of brilliance, and it was hard to choose my favorite. I can’t put the whole entire song on this list, but here is a sampling of the human mix of real suffering and fabricated self-pity.

There’s no light in the tunnel, no irons in the fire And you’re singing lead soprano in a junkman’s choir Well, the moon is broken and the sky is cracked The only things that you can see is all that you lack Come on up to the house

There’s nothing in the world that you can do And you been whipped by the forces that are inside you Gotta come on up to the house

I don’t know if I’ve ever made it through this song without tearing up. If others may look in the mirror and sing “Titanium” or “We Will Rock You”, I’ll get out of my funk with “Come On Up to the House”.

Photo by Simon Waelti on Unsplash

Honorable mentions go to choice lyrics from U2’s “One” and J Cole’s “Love Yourz”. If you need some hope or some energy to face life, these songs are for you! Enjoy and let me know what you think!

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