Remember when the therapist was a mix tape?

Back then our friends didn’t know any better, so one found life lessons in song lyrics. We said, what the hell… when it hurts, better the Spice Girls than Old Spice. These are not just lyrics; these are the right words coming together in a sublime way to help us understand the world a little better.

Each of us finds this hope and solace in different songs. One woman’s In The End is another man’s Last Christmas. Which only shows that words by themselves have little power. But when we connect with it emotionally, then we invest it with its magical power. And this we do – unconsciously – when we sift lyrics for meaning.

Admit it, at some point we have all found comfort and encouragement in lyrics. Let they who have never cranked up I will survive in their bedroom and sung along, throw the first stone. Or drumstick.?

Consider: Crooner of Choice Billy Joel’s companion for the unjustly heartbroken: Some people stay far away from the door, if there’s a chance of it opening up. They hear a voice in the hall outside and hope that it just passes by.?

Behold your therapist in flowing blond hair, painfully tight leather pants, and make up. The Archbishop of Anthem Rock, Bon Jovi, made a career by mining singed hearts for inspiration. Shot through the heart and you’re to blame, darling you give love a bad name, is what we hum as we go into our quiet space. And hopefully we emerge to Ms. Gaynor’s eternal hymn of courage and fortitude, Go on go, walk out the door, you’re not welcome any more.?

Sartre, Husserl, Heidegger, and other stalwarts of existentialist philosophy looked deep into our hearts and masterfully mapped the landscape of human angst. ‘Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom,’ Kierkegaard wrote. But this simply doesn’t capture – or help – the unbearable agony of a teenager (or a man-child), torn by the forces of retaliation and expectation.?

In the hands of Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins (the erstwhile high priests of teenage-existentialism), the same angst is a thunderstorm of helpless flailing: Despite all my rage, I’m still just a rat in a cage. Word; high-five, Billy.

Words have the power to heal when we give them meaning. And this healing can arrive in different guises. Lyrics of songs are no less powerful than those that arrive as positive affirmations, in beautifully photoshopped WhatsApp forwards. For every mix tape featuring Nothing’s Gonna Change My Love For You, everyone needs a Total Eclipse Of The Heart. For every I Live My Life For You, everyone needs a Dancing Queen. For every Please Forgive Me, one needs Slayer’s, Feed me all your hatred, empty all your thoughts to me; I can fill your emptiness with immortality.

Ouch! We need a doctor in here.