8 Songs to Support Your Mental Health
At HeartSupport, we are all about the idea that music can shift your mindset, can support your mental health, can be part of connecting us to each other so we feel less alone. When we take the opportunity to pursue that connection and community, we heal the scene.
Here are eight songs that you can listen to today to support you in your own mental health journey — or that you can share with a friend who might be going through something similar.
“Behemoth” by August Burns Red
Jake Luhrs, HeartSupport founder and frontman of August Burns Red, wrote “Behemoth” about facing childhood trauma and surrendering to the healing process.
Jake Luhrs says:
“I was really struggling with my life due to some unhealed stuff from my past. That’s what prompted these lyrics. I was going on this journey of a season of surrender, having to submit the things that I held really close to my heart to God, to face those things. With “Behemoth,” the whole lyric is really about my trauma and all of the hurtful things that happened to me as a child. It was kind of like evil coming in and being my father. Evil took me and said, ‘I'm going to teach you how to live your life.’ The pain was directing me toward how I was going to live my life.
The middle section of the lyrics was when I gave that pain to God. I looked at that pain and realized what it was, and then I pursued healing so that I no longer am a son of the Behemoth. I'm no longer the son of this evil force in my life. Now I'm more who I was intended to be, and there's so much good in me. I'm going to live out of that place. So now, instead of becoming the son of death, I am the adversary of death.”
“The Living Dead” by Dayseeker
All of us have a tendency to suppress our difficult emotions sometimes, which is exactly the experience that inspired “The Living Dead” by Dayseeker.
Lead singer and lyricist Rory Rodriguez says:
“In therapy, I realized that I was compartmentalizing a lot of emotions that I felt. If something really traumatic or heavy would hit me, I would push it to the side and do a duct tape job on it. Then I I would try and forget about it. And I wasn't really processing how I felt.
I think when I was writing that song, it was interesting writing that situation into a metaphor where you're a zombie. It’s like you can walk around, and you can look like you're a human being, but on the inside, maybe you're not really fully feeling everything that you need to.”
“Murder Scene” by Eva Under Fire
“Murder Scene” voices vicious cycles of self-criticism while naming the fact that we don’t actually have to give them any weight — even if the criticism was reinforced by someone in our life.
Eva Under Fire lead singer Amanda Lyberg says:
“Being in a band and being a woman is very hyper-focused on my body. There was a lot of necessity to feel small, but strong, but meek — but this, but that, so many different things. I felt pressured by that until I gave myself permission to just be myself in those spaces and not really care about other people's expectations. Rather, what was true for me? Then I got to offload all of that.
“It’s the damage that we do ourselves, right? This pressure that I'm internalizing now becomes my problem. Because I am setting the expectations, and so now I'm failing.
I have been through things, and I know myself. And I have seen what I can do when I am empowered. It looks like taking all of the ‘shoulds’ and attributing them to self, utilizing yourself as the filter to say, ‘Well, this is what I'm told. But what do I think? Do I think that is real? Do I have to acknowledge that?’”
“half alive” by Charlotte Sands
“half alive” is a song for anyone who is battling with their own brain in an effort to be fully present.
Charlotte says:
“We wrote that song about this experience I have where I'm always one foot in the positive, or the present, and always one foot in the ‘what if’ negatives. Anytime something good would happen in my career, or if I was happy in a relationship, or anything like that, my brain would immediately be like ‘okay, the better this is now, the worse it's gonna be when it ends.’
Journaling really helped me to figure out those specific moments instead of just being overwhelmed by the feelings. That is what I would recommend to get out of those loops: figure out where it's coming from and figure out what the patterns are. What you need, what you're doing, why it's making you do that, and try to learn from yourself first.”
“Dead Doesn’t Hurt” by Hillhaven
“Dead Doesn’t Hurt” by Hillhaven is for anyone who is trying to process a deep betrayal.
Frontman and songwriter Chris Kelly says:
“When I have really been wronged by somebody else on a super deep level that stays with me for a long time, when it’s a traumatizing personal event, what I have found is that I don't wish death on that person because death is not something that is painful. Right? And so the tagline in the chorus is, ‘I don't want you dead because dead doesn't hurt.’
Then one of the lines is, ‘but I'm learning to let go because I know it would kill us both.’ That’s the cue that it’s time to take the high road, time to be the one that forgives first. Not only because it's the right thing to do, but oftentimes in those situations, you realize that it's very unlikely that you're going to get an apology or have any sort of meaningful conversation with whoever it is that has done something to you. So you realize that the only thing that you can do for yourself is to forgive them or move on in some way so that you're not harboring those negative feelings.
The feelings alone are enough to crush you. If it's something that you allow yourself to continue to carry for any sort of extended period of time, it shifts from someone having done some type of damage to you into you are now the one damaging yourself.”
“evermind” by idle threat
With “evermind,” idle threat offers solidarity and comfort to anyone who has lost someone in their life too young.
idle threat’s drummer Justin Jones says:
“The great equalizer and common denominator of humanity is death. Mourning and coping are part of the human experience, and, unfortunately, these can be done in a way that is detrimental to health. However, it is important to note that everyone experiences forms of this together and that no one is truly alone in it. The weight of any hardship can feel debilitating, but no man is an island (thank you, John Donne).”
I believe that we have accomplished something special by inviting the listener in to share this grief; arguably the most important thing about music is community, and idle threat just wants to connect with others. We want to meet you where you are, as we approach you with who we are.”
“Ten Toes Down” by CHNNR
CHNNR, former lead singer of Fire From the Gods, offers “Ten Toes Down” to anyone else who is trying to find their grounding through the challenges of life, addiction, and mental health struggles.
CHNNR says:
“I come from the rough and tumble in New York City and London. The concept of ‘ten toes down’ is something that I've always known and always heard. No matter what, you gotta stay ten toes down. Because when you face so much adversity in life, even from a socioeconomic standpoint, you gotta know that no matter what comes your way, you gotta stand firm, because if you lose it, the way I've ‘lost it’ at times, you'll lose yourself. And then you're not playing this game on life's terms. You're playing it on someone else's.
There's no way you can stand firm and stand resolute in the face of adversity if you don't have control of yourself. And that's what it's about, ‘Ten Toes Down:’ it's having control. It's about being grounded, about being solid, keeping that foundation firm so that no matter what comes your way, you don't get moved.”
“Keepsake” by Brotality
If you’ve ever been in a place of feeling the pain of a fractured relationship and desperately wanting it to mend, “Keepsake” by Brotality is for you.
Songwriter Reece Maopolski says:
“Separation does not have to be an absolute, final severing. Experiencing the pain of separation and longing to draw the other person back to you across that distance is a heavy burden, especially when you feel responsible for that separation. The song wrestles with guilt, shame, self-loathing — that dark headspace when the burden of your own failures blots out anything positive. That feeling extends beyond relationships as well, but I think the pain of shame cuts deepest when you feel you’ve wounded someone you love.
Healing is a constant, ever-changing process. Actually, it’s more the pursuit of healing than healing itself. The song ends with catharsis and affirmation, ‘We’ll meet in the clouds,’ as the instrumentals open and the guitar soars. Healing is a process, but committing to that process is the first step.”
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