This has been a difficult year for a lot of people I am close with. I never really know how to approach the topic of mental health as it impacts people in such a variety of different ways, and everyone has their own mechanisms for coping with the impact of it. But one way or another with some recent devastating losses within the local comedy scene, it feels pertinent to address it.
I cannot speak for what specifically what or how anyone felt and what may have been impacting that, but more and more, particularly queer people are facing more scary and hostile environments, with either callous disregard or actual explicitly aimed to push people over the edge. We’re becoming increasingly used as a propaganda tool to divide progressives and push far right agendas. We are seeing our rights and spaces systemically dismantled in front of our eyes. We are watching our friends and loved ones being murdered day in day out. It’s fucking hard to be queer right now.
Hell, it’s fucking hard to be basically anyone that isn’t a rich corporate white man lately. Life is getting harder and harder to afford. While it’s largely the queers and non-white communities who are the overt target of the far right’s hate campaigns, they don’t really care about anyone who gets caught in the crossfire, and they have no value to human lives outside of their own.
This stuff isn’t the root cause of mental health issues for the most part, but it damn sure doesn’t make it easier to cope with when there is surrounding pressure directed against your very existence.
And I’m fucking tired of it. I’m tired of everyday hearing about more and more people not making it, whether I knew them personally or not. I’m tired that nobody seems to care that young queer people are statistically unlikely to make it past 30. I’m tired that when there is care it’s emphasised on what an unavoidable tragedy it is and that the victims were beyond help, when they continue to spread and perpetuate anti queer rhetoric uncritically with their very next breath.
I’m not blaming any one person or factor for the recent losses any of us may have had in our communities. It’s a complicated mesh of internal and external factors. But speaking from experience, the internal factors are much easier to deal with when externally there are safe and caring spaces to help work through any impacting factors, or even just live out the chemical imbalances leaving you more predisposed to these horribly low feelings.
I don’t want this to come across as an answer to anyone’s mental health struggles. Lord knows I’m not qualified for that, I can’t manage my own. More an outlet for my frustration that as a society we seem determined to pay lip service to the importance of mental health, whilst actively making the contributing factors harder to deal with.
So, this playlist… I don’t know, it’s mental health themed, but kind of all over the place (appropriately, much like my mental health). As this is a playlist for a comedy show, I wanted to keep things at least mostly towards the uplifting side, but not the shallow lip service that is unfortunately common in songs about mental health *cough* looking at you Logic *cough*.
Songs that really spoke to me and others and felt like cathartic expressions we could relate to – not songs that are necessarily trying to help anyone. But songs that by their existence help you feel less hopeless and alone as an outlet for your hardest internal struggles. I think that’s really what I’m looking for here, songs that make you feel like you’re not alone – none of this toxic positivity “everything will be okay” emptiness.
But songs that comfort you through the pain, and hopefully allow your brain to soft reset into making some of the correct fucking chemicals for a change.
That being said massive content warnings for mental health in this playlist – I have done my best to steer clear of anything that explicitly depicts or talks about suicide, but there will be some allusions.
You can listen to this playlist below:
- Deezer: https://deezer.page.link/pWS8NimJZqGCbN8y6
- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0mIlvvVxfrhH00IbbiZRM0?si=bd5a49c6df7e49f5
- Tidal: https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/a3705ad0-8640-4e22-a0be-09331a749c41
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLGv_OFvoeqQsbDi_1w8F55NC7H1_26Amz
And for more information on why I find these songs are comforting to listen to when you’re struggling with mental health, read on…
1: Papercut – Linkin Park
Hybrid Theory – 2000 – Alternative Rock
“It’s like I’m paranoid lookin’ over my back
It’s like a whirlwind inside of my head
It’s like I can’t stop what I’m hearing within
It’s like the face inside is right beneath the skin”
A band who needs no introduction who were a shoo-in for this playlist. Lots of Linkin Park songs touch on mental health and depression from a whole host of different tones and angles. From the melancholic hope for One More Light, right back to the tight chaos of Hybrid Theory.
This could easily have been 5 or 6 different Linkin Park songs, but in the end, I settled for the very first track of their very first album Papercut. I absolutely love the title as a metaphor for mental anguish and struggles. How can such a mundane everyday substance cause such deceptively deep pain? It’s a perfect descriptor of how various mental illnesses can feel and manifest, and that chorus describing and echoing the overwhelming noise of a brain that seems like it’s trying to destroy you from the inside.
And all of that with some of the tightest Nu Metal riffs, rapping from Shinoda, and musical structure and arrangement that have made this song and indeed album a timeless classic. Ever more pertinent from a man who sadly lost his struggle with mental health less than 2 decades later.
Linkin Park and Chester Bennington were very much a band who it was cool to hate as I was growing up. But the last few years we’ve been re-evaluating their legacy and it is heartening to see people from such a diverse pool of subcultures and ages coming together connected by music from a band who have always been about pushing genre boundaries and mixing things together to create new and timeless sounds and songwriting that has defined a generation. This isn’t technically the song that kicked it all off as that’s not how albums work – but there’s definitely a significant number of people form whom this song was one of their first experiences of the band, and it perfectly sets the tone and standard for the art they would go on to create.
Linkin Park, and indeed Chester Bennington were an unfairly maligned musical force, and it is beyond tragic that it took the loss of him for people to realize and admit this.
2: SUN GOES DOWN – Lil Nas X
MONTERO – 2021 – Pop Rap
“I know that you want to cry
But it’s much more to life than dyin’
Over your past mistakes
And people who threw dirt on your name”
I’m not sure anyone expected one of the biggest musical trolls of the late 2010s and beyond to prove his chops in writing absolutely world class earnest pop music, as well as the hugely memed Old Town Road. But once he started releasing singles for MONTERO in 2021, he proved that first of all he had provocative artistry that rivals most modern Punk outfits, then that he could write some of the best dance music you’ve ever heard, and that he can sing unabashedly about gay love in an increasingly homophobic country and still make it to Number 1.
Lil Nas X isn’t just a class A troll, and he isn’t just a Pop legend – but a diverse songwriter and refreshing voice in a scene that was I think getting fairly monotonous and uncomfortable in the middle of the decade.
Sun Goes Down starts with a gorgeous soundscape enveloping you like a blanket made of outer space. It contains some of Lil Nas X’s most heartfelt lyrical work, as a praise to the online communities that made him feel safe and welcome as a gay black man in a world where it is not safe to be that.
The impact little things like a sense of belonging can have on mental health cannot be understated. It won’t cure your depression, but it does serve as a forceful counter balance against those in the world who deliberately try and bring you down. This song captures that feeling of sadness and isolation that I can only imagine what he would’ve felt as he first started breaking through and when he was outed in his early 20s – but also really pushes a hopeful overarching melody and vocal warmth that embraces and comforts you.
It’s such an immaculate vibe and really nails the feeling of those little things in life that reassure and comfort you without taking away the core sadness. These things don’t cure depression, but they make it a damn sight more manageable, and I don’t know how this track manages to so perfectly convey that in less than 3 minutes.
3: Dissatisfactions – Onsind
Anaesthesiology – 2013 – folk-punk
https://onsind.bandcamp.com/album/anaesthesiology
“So sick of fighting with your fickle fucking brain
This inner dialogue is driving you insane
But worst of all you feel mundane
A boring list of old complaints”
Have I mentioned how much I adore these lads? Onsind are a band who just make me happy through their sheer existence. Even when they’re not singing about mental health, their unashamedly North-Eastern singing accents, their wholesome approach to queer love and savage political songs in exactly the same tone of voice. They just make me happy.
I heard this song for the first time at the Manchester Punk Festival this year – and while on the surface this song uses a bunch of techniques that usually put me off the more poppy end of Punk rock – Onsind really make it work.
The main refrain of this track “Take it day by day” is weirdly motivational as it’s an achievable goal as far as mental health goes. One of the toughest things at least in my experience of mental illness is the endlessness and despair of it all. I am someone who overthinks things massively, and tries to plan about 3 lifetimes in advance, and panics if I don’t get everything I need to do done in the next 3 days.
The reminder that you can just focus on surviving day by day I find comforting – it grounds me, stops me from catastrophising so much.
It’s not applicable for all situations and living day by day because of economic struggles is a very different thing that is very much not beneficial for mental health. But on a purely abstract mental health level, this song really does it for me.
Your mileage my vary on this one, sometimes it hits for me and sometimes it doesn’t, but when it hits it has pulled me out of some pretty panicky depressive slumps, and belting along with that chorus in my worst Durham accent never fails to put a smile on my face. (Also applies to most of their songs to be fair, try it, it’s a serotonin hack.)
4: All My Nameless Friends – Call Me Malcolm
I Was Broken When You Got Here – 2018 – Ska Punk
https://callmemalcolm.bandcamp.com/album/i-was-broken-when-you-got-here
“I’m broken but I fucking love this scene
We got our friends
Count ’em 1, 2, 3, go!”
It’s not a Blizzard playlist without some Ska, fuck the lot of you.
Call Me Malcolm are an interesting band for me. Everything I’ve heard I’ve enjoyed, they scratch all the right itches, but there was never a song that really stuck in my head for long after the fact.
That was until I first heard All My Nameless Friends – this is the one. Similar to the Lil Nas X, track mentioned above. This song is seemingly about the sense of community and support from a particular subculture or scene – although is pretty transferable as a song celebrating the friends you have that are there for you in the good and the bad. Whether that’s literal friends or a wider social community, or whatever it is for you, this song is an anthem to love and friends and the joys of the mutual support you get from that community.
I’ve been in a number of friendship groups and less personal subcultures over my time – some massive, some much tighter knit. Some of them I still feel positively about, others I never want to set foot in again. But all of these had something in common, that while I was in a place when I needed them for passive emotional support, their presence in my life got me through some incredibly tough times. People grow and change, and that is something that is sad in its own right – but something doesn’t have to last forever to be a good thing in your life at that point.
I consider myself very lucky that I’ve most always had that support network. For others that isn’t always a reality, and I don’t want to downplay how much harder it can be when you don’t have that at a given time for whatever reason.
I sincerely hope and wish if that is you that you will find that for yourself too, in whatever shape. Doesn’t even necessarily need to be people if you’re not a people person, pets, houseplants, hell, music (that’s me saying “hell, even music,” not listing hell as one of the things that provides you that joy and motivation and sense of belonging, although I’m not gonna judge if you’d prefer to read it that way, up to you).
When depression hits hardest one of the worst buggers of it is that you have no drive or motivation to do the things or see the people that will give you that comfort. Wallowing is a tempting mistress, and I don’t even think exclusively a bad one either, a good wallow can be cathartic in its own right, and there’s a whole host of good music for that as well.
But this song as a celebration of really enjoying life in the moment with a bunch of people whose names you don’t even know but for the next hour or so are all your best friends. It’s a nice sentiment told wonderfully, and I think needs spreading more, and hopefully it’ll do as much for you as it does for me to remember and celebrate the people and things in my life that make me feel that same high and safety.
5: Float – Flogging Molly
Float – 2008 – Celtic Punk
“Singled out for who you are, it takes all types to judge a man
Feel, that’s all you can
Filthy suits with bigot ears hide behind their own worst fears
Live, that’s all you can”
This song actually kind of snuck up on me for this list. It’s a song I’ve loved for years now, but it never even occurred to me as a contender for this list. Maybe it’s a stretch, but the Celtic folk instrumentation, dreary yet hopeful vocals, and that timeless chorus feels more and more relevant the more I let it burrow in my head.
There’s always a degree of interpretation to my picks here, and there’s a strong chance that most of the artists would read my analysis of the tracks and be like “wtf are you on about this song is about spaghetti hoops, how have you turned it into a Marxist examination of the human condition?”
While I think this song has some specific details that aren’t necessarily applicable, the idea of not sinking the boat that’s keeping you floating, living when that’s all you can do, reminiscing on the bad and tough things in your life all throughout but triumphantly calling that you’re doing the best you can and that is more than good enough in this context.
I don’t know if many people will find this song as comforting as I do – but I would implore you to listen to it if you haven’t, as it truly is a gem from an absolute classic band.
6: Everything Turns Grey – Agent Orange
Living In Darkness – 1981 – Punk
“Things don’t seem to be as easy
As they used to be
It’s getting harder every day
To think of better things to say
About what’s going on around you
And what’s happening inside you”
This is a track that is more about the steady decline and regressive nature of society and quality of life more than it is specifically mental health. But as a short snappy punk song with ambiguous lyrics, it’s one of my go-tos for a feeling of solidarity and company when life and factors outside of my control are really getting me down.
By no means an uplifting song, sometimes that’s not always productive during worst bouts of depression, this song instead serves to make you feel like you’re not alone and actually there’s a shared feeling of dissatisfaction, fear, depression and despair about the world. And, sure, that in itself doesn’t fix anything, but it’s so much nicer to face a problem when you don’t feel like you’re doing it alone.
Things are actually getting harder every day. Things are bad, internally and externally. And that’s okay. Well, no, it’s not okay it’s fucking shit. But what I mean is, it’s okay to feel frustrated and depressed about it, and it’s okay to rant and rave and wallow if you need to. You’re doing so well, and you’ve earned a lil bit of Nihilism, for a treat. (I know that isn’t exactly what Nihilism means, but fuck it, you know what I meant, and I cba to think of a better synonym.)
7: I Want To Wanna Wake Up – Huntress
Static – 2015 – Heavy Metal
https://huntress.bandcamp.com/album/static
“I want revenge on my head
I’m packing it up
I want to wanna wake up”
It’s not often I get to talk about one of my favourite bands of the 2010s. I ummed and ahhed about this one, as, much like One More Light by Linkin Park, this album and this song in particular can be recontextualized as a suicide note from incredible singers who were really not well.
Jill Janus was a phenomenal performer I was very lucky to see on two occasions – once supporting Lamb of God in London, and the second time just before this album was released supporting Amon Amarth in Manchester. She has incredible range, incredible power – reminiscent of a Dio or even a Bruce Dickinson. Soaring over crushing metal riffs, bringing that Power Metal… power to more traditional riff-based Metal and Thrash compositions.
This track came along at a tough time in my own life and was an incredible source of catharsis in my biggest mental struggles of 2016-17. The sentiment of wanting to be better hits me so much harder than a lot of depression ballads. There’s something so powerful about saying that you want to want to wake up, rather than just saying you don’t want to wake up. That is in the subtext, but there’s still something in it, a glimmer, a drive, and as a sentiment to really illustrate how more severe depression can grind you down is absolutely on point.
This song isn’t hopeful, but it wants to be. And that very specific tone just hits different. It’s not a “everything will be okay” song, it’s not a “I want to die” song – but “I want everything to be okay” song – and that just pushes my buttons.
I am so sad Jill’s life was cut so tragically short by these struggles. Huntress were a phenomenal band and were going toe to toe with bands who had more than a decade on them in experience. Her voice lives on through their music. If just one other person gets the same cathartic support through this song as I did, then I will keep on shouting this song and this band’s praises forever. She deserved better and was so much more loved than I think she knew.
I don’t say that bands saved my life lightly – and I wouldn’t even go that far with this song – but did their authentic depiction of depression and satisfying outlet through distorted crunchy guitar riffs and soaring vocals give me an outlet for some incredibly negative emotions I was experiencing at the time? Yes, 100%.
And that I think is a message I want to impart, that curing depression or saving a life aren’t the goals to strive for, the little things can help so much more than is evident, and they are manageable and achievable. I love you all. You are loved.
8: Phoenix – TesseracT
Polaris – 2015 – Djent
https://kscopemusic.bandcamp.com/album/polaris
“You exist and you’re a friend of mine
Will we even live in harmony
You’re alive, it’s not the end of the line”
I always like asking for recommendations from friends and fans before I compile these playlists. Particularly with this theme, I really wanted to hear what people listened to in order to process mental anguish. Knowing full well that I might not have the same experience of the song, but still wanting to learn a little bit more about the person who suggested it based on their choice of comfort music.
This song hit me immediately and I saw it. That refrain, opening with “You exist, and you’re a friend of mine” is such a simple statement, and yet in those first few words and musical backing, I got a feeling in my very soul. It touched me, it grounded me. As the song went on, it was just more and more uplifting.
Uplifting songs when I’m feeling particularly bad don’t often help, but this one kind of transcends that whole genre and speaks directly to you, the listener, with an earnestness and understanding that I don’t think many bands who try similar really quite manage.
I like as well that the song doesn’t try to dismiss the quantifiably real shitting things that are exacerbating mental illness in the world – but always brining back to that core message of “You exist, and you’re a friend of mine”. I’m tearing up just writing about it (in a good way.) This is good shit.
9: An Ode to Lost Jigsaw Pieces – Enter Shikari
The Spark – 2017 – Alternative Rock
“We all cope somehow
We’ll cope somehow”
The Spark is a fairly controversial album from Electronicore titans Enter Shikari – kind of like what Living Things or One More Light was to Linkin Park. A band known for their heavy electro industrial rap metal hybrids going full on synth power pop is bound to both alienate some of the narrower minded listeners but remain inaccessible to a more mainstream pop audience.
That being said, I think the album has its moments, and An Ode to Lost Jigsaw Pieces is a huge stand-out track that really showcases the mental space Rou Reynolds was when writing this album.
The Spark, released in 2017 is full of frustrations about the political chaos and destruction of the previous years, although this track takes a much more introspective look at the impact of loss and drastic unwanted change in your life and mental state. Inspired by leaving a long-term relationship as he goes into his 30s and the death of his Nan, the lost Jigsaw Pieces metaphor can really apply to any part of life’s routine and sense of self identity that has been ripped away from you, for better or for worse.
The song starts as a mournful dirge about missing an ex-lover, which, while cliché, can absolutely leave you lost, confused, despairing and even manic – before moving onto the second movement examining death and the loss of a role model, and the cruel reality of life and death sinking in and permanently replacing the lens you see the whole of the world through.
If you’ve ever suffered a familial loss, the world changes overnight and you never really go back to viewing things the same way again. It leaves you empty, and with time you learn to adjust to this and learn how to feel again, but there’s always something missing. You won’t notice it as often the more time passes, but it’s always there.
Then as the song concludes with the message “We’ll all cope somehow, we all cope somehow” – with a kind of realistic hopefulness, that it’s going to suck for a long time, but we can get through it. You don’t know how, but you’ll get through it, no matter what’s happened, and I find that comforting in a way that I usually don’t with that message.
Often the “It’ll be okay” message feels empty and almost shaming like “come on mate, get over yourself, you’ll be reet” and that never works with me. But this one is sung with such genuine pain, not quite sarcastic, but with some clear questioning in that statement that it just feels real, and unpatronizing. More a mantra to repeat to yourself. Things might not be okay, but we will find a way to cope, and process.
It’s that continued theme of achievable goals that really helps me. Rather than getting more stressed that you can’t do anything to cure any mental struggles you are having, focus on the little things that progress can be made on, and even if all you’ve done is get out of bed and kept yourself fed and alive, that’s a huge achievement, and every day you do that is progress.
There’s no timescale for this – like Onsind said, take it day by day.
10: I Feel Okay Today – eevie echoes ft. she/her/hers
Self Care – 2022 – Indie Punk
https://eevieechoes.bandcamp.com/album/self-care
“I couldn’t see the future
But things are looking up today”
A slight tonal shift here as we move into this acoustic ode to self-care by eevie echoes and she/her/hers. This minimalist indie punk song reminds me of the joy brought to me by The Moldy Peaches, kinda jangly, minimal production and polish that makes you feel like you’re listening to musicians just jamming and singing together for their own benefit more than for an audience, which gives it an authentic intimacy that works really well for this subject matter.
This is a song about those respite days in-between the bad ones where you are still depressed, you’re still hyper aware of how bad everything is, but the little things have tipped your mood in your favour, and you’re just feeling okay, and celebrating that small but significant win.
I particularly like (and this is a common theme in this playlist) when they reference just how draining protesting and fighting for revolution is. Sometimes you do need a break where you can introspect, focus on your own feelings and things that are in your immediate control. It’s fucking easy to let the revolution swallow you whole, and that is not good for you, and by extension the cause. What is the point in socialist revolution if you’re enforcing capitalist rules onto it by working yourself to the bone and prioritising that over your own mental health.
It is so important to give yourself you days if you can. Something I in particular need to remember is days spent on yourself and your mental health, maybe playing video games all day, eating junk food, giving yourself little treats, masturbating the day away, whatever it may be – those aren’t wasted days. You’re fulfilling your needs, you’re resting, you’re relaxing, you’re giving yourself a break from a scary and exhausting world.
It’s so important to do, and this song captures that feeling of those days perfectly. The bad is still there, but taking joy in the little things like your own smile is such an amazing thing, and should be treasured, not something you need to beat yourself up over.
11: The Old Witch Sleep and the Good Man Grace – The Amazing Devil
Ruin – 2021 – Folk
https://theamazingdevil.bandcamp.com/album/ruin
“You’re not a coward cos you cower
You brave because they broke you
Yet broken still you breathe.”
This was another new discovery for me, this 9-minute folk epic by the Amazing Devil.
I’ve already written thousands of words for songs less than half the length of this one. There is so much to unpack here, and most of you have probably already clicked off this page so I’ll try not to bore you with the details.
More to the point there’s so much imagery and metaphor in this that you can read it in hundreds of ways – the Genius page has broken it down line by line for the first 2/3 of it, there is so much juicy subtext in this poetry (no I won’t take back that phrase, deal with it).
The Old Witch Sleep character being a fairly useful device to represent mental health struggles, imposter syndrome, anxiety, depression, or really anything that can be characterised by a desire to sleep life away. This song is an epic journey of the narrator’s struggle and back and forth with the Witch – concluding by letting her into his brain but not giving up control, accepting that she is a part of him and working with that part of him in all that he is.
It’s a fantastic metaphor for how mental illness isn’t something you can cure in most cases. There are treatments, and there are mechanisms, you can maybe even shrink it. But very little will make it go away completely. And that’s okay. Learning to live with it as you are is still a huge triumph.
This song is full of throwaway lines and verses that confide the whole range of internal struggles and successes one can have when struggling to find this balance, and it is such an epic and powerful personification and narrative that I found incredibly motivational and cathartic in my harder days.
Incredible piece of art, and well worth a listen. You may come away with an entirely different message, and that’s part of the beauty of it, but whatever it is, it draws from a myriad of mental health tropes and experiences and paints them with such determination and character, to some timeless folk songwriting and progressions. Arguably a masterpiece. (Although don’t argue with me, ‘cause I’m right when I say it is.)
12: A Better Son/Daughter – Rilo Kiley
The Execution of All Things – 2002 – Indie
https://rilokiley.bandcamp.com/album/the-execution-of-all-things
“And sometimes when you’re on
You’re really fucking on
And your friends, they sing along and they love you
But the lows are so extreme
That the good seems fucking cheap
And it teases you for weeks in its absence.”
This song evokes such strong My Chemical Romance Black Parade vibes and is so cleanly produced that I genuinely thought this was a new song when I first heard it. But no, this predates that album by half a decade, and MCR sounded incredibly different when this was made.
This song would not be out of place on that and shares a lot of the same Queen influences in songwriting and guitar work. I would not be surprised if this song served as influence for MCR when writing their Magnum Opus.
The marching drums, gradual increase in volume and intensity with instrumentation, yet still minimal melody drawing attention to the vocals and the lyrics. The track has been likened to a prayer with its thematic mood swings and deeply personal expressions that remain touching and near universally relatable to anyone who struggles with mental health issues.
It’s another track that straddles the tonal balance of hope and pleading for help, celebrating the highs and despairing the lows. Such a good track, and if the rest of their work is anything like this, I need to listen to it, scratches the itches I like in the more Indie side of rock perfectly.
13: Everybody Hurts – R.E.M.
Automatic for the People – 1992 – Alternative Rock
“Sometimes everything is wrong
Now it’s time to sing along”
I always thought this was a dead depressing song, but it’s actually much more uplifting than I realized when I first heard this when I was younger.
R.E.M. are one of the few bands I remember my Mum really liking. My Dad was always the music nerd, where my Mum appreciated the odd track but never really made it her entire personality like me and my Dad did. Their greatest hits album was something I always treasure fondly because of this familial association, while never loving any of the tracks particularly.
So, while always being relegated to “Mum Rock” for me, I have since found a new appreciation for REM – being one of the few pre-Grunge alternative rock bands to have held their own and stayed relevant through that massive musical revolution.
There’s a lot of stuff this band did that was a precursor to grunge in its own way, albeit a much tamer and accessible version of it. But the emotive lyrical themes, the slightly less complex musical structures, and memorable chorus hooks are all there.
Everybody Hurts is a bit of a cliché – and I won’t blame you if you find the “Hey everybody’s sad btw” message kind of invalidating when the world is crushing around you specifically. But the way this song speaks to me isn’t patronising, isn’t deliberately invalidating, it’s providing that sense of community and battling that isolating feeling. Not just that everything will be better, but that a lot of people feel similar to you and have similar struggles, and you’re not alone with it.
Not the most nuanced take on mental health, but a comforting one for me nonetheless, and a song that has maintained relevance throughout the decades of mental health being a stable topic for alternative and indie rock, and that deserves recognition I feel.
14: Shit – Bo Burnham
INSIDE – 2021 – Comedy
“Staring at the ceiling and waiting for this feeling to go away
But it won’t go away”
If this playlist was getting a bit to dreary and cliché for you, here’s a little palette cleanser that I almost took out but couldn’t bring myself to. I set out to create this playlist to be songs with at least some kind of hope or positivity ingrained in it and avoid anything too wallowy – but at the end of the day, sometimes a wallow is nice. Bo Burnham’s anthem to depression here is so jarringly upbeat in composition that the lyrical depression is both complimented and offset with what is a genuinely funky dance track underneath it.
Shit by Bo Burnham is a no-holds-barred expression of feeling crappy and the symptoms of that in day-to-day life and is cathartic for that reason. The content of the lyrics is not something that is going to make you feel better, but it does make you feel seen and have a slightly morbid laugh at what is, when you dissect it, a fucking silly illness.
Oh, my brain has some of the wrong levels of specific juices and therefore I now feel bad. It’s a fucking weird condition when you break it down, and this song kind of delights in the absurdity of it and genuinely singing along to the outro might be the closest cure to immediate depression on this playlist.
Sometimes the best treatment is taking the piss out of your own depression and sadness, refusing to take it seriously and getting a bit manic with it. Wallowy though its lyrics may be, I think this song has a lot more going for it than you’d guess just reading the lyrics.
15: Dysmorphia – Girli
Damsel in Distress – 2021 – Pop
“Don’t tell me to love myself more
I wish that it was that simple
Can’t live without her approval
‘Cause she warps my reflection and makes me obsessive”
Most of these songs are fairly applicable to a wide range of mental illnesses, this one is much more specifically about bodily dysmorphia. I’ve covered this in a previous playlist I believe and this is already one of my longer blogs, but to summarise, if you’ve ever had body image issues, struggled with what you should look like, what you do look like and what you think you look like – this song cuts right to the point with that chorus debunking the lazy nothing help of “You should love yourself more”.
That’s really not how it works. In fact, speaking for myself, I often know that logically these things are true, but mental illness doesn’t play by logic unfortunately.
This song speaks to me deeply, and I’m allowed to have a self-indulgent pick, even if a bit less broad than some of these.
16: Marvel – Spanish Love Songs
No Joy – 2023 – Alternative Rock
https://spanishlovesongs.bandcamp.com/album/no-joy
“Stay alive out of spite”
The most recent song on this playlist, and I absolutely adore this one for the chorus alone.
The repeated refrain of “Stay alive out of spite” is incredibly motivating for me whenever ideation starts to get to me. Not sure it’ll work for everyone, but certainly for me it kind of switches the direction of my thoughts to “Everyone would be better off if I was dead” to “fuck it, I’m gonna piss people off by staying alive.”
It’s a clever way to manipulate the way these thoughts intrude in me without doing the impossible task of changing the worst parts of what my mental illness tells me. Logically neither is true – but this reminder to look at things from that angle is just incredibly satisfying and cathartic for me. I hope this message helps someone, just any one person.
17: There’s A Bar At the End Of the World – Jess Silk ft. Lottie Caldwell
Blitz Spirit – 2021 – Folk Punk
https://jesssilk.bandcamp.com/album/blitz-spirit
“There’s a hand in the dark that’ll guide you if only you take it
Some wise words to be heard even over the roar of the crowd
I can offer a song if it helps you believe you can make it
Well, I know it’s not much but it’s all that I’m good for right now”
We’re getting close to the end of this playlist now, and I always save my absolute favourite hard hitters for the end. This song has done more to ground my catastrophising and depressive episodes these last few months than nearly any other.
This 5-minute heartfelt folk song by Jess Silk comes from the voice of a friend who desperately wants to help someone struggling. If you are close friends with people who have particularly rough times with mental health, whether or not you also do yourself, it is genuinely hard to know what to do. It’s a really hard balance to get right, and if you’re anything like me you’ll always want to do more than is realistically possible.
What I love about this song is Jess is so impassioned, really wearing her heart on her sleeve here, singing about all the things she wishes she could do, and all the things can do. The verses are dreary and full of sadness and despair, and that chorus, oh that chorus is a thing of beauty. Triumphant singing about singing a song for the target of the song, which in this moment is you, offering you a pint in a warm bar, knowing that she can’t fix all the things wrong. But, at the end of the day, she is always there with a pint to keep you company, sing songs, and listen to you.
I’m tearing up just writing this – as with all of these songs your mileage may vary how much the specific sentiment works for your own needs and nuances with your mental health, but for me this one is as close to perfect as it is to be for a song of this vibe.
18: Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today – YUNGBLUD
YUNGBLUD – 2022 – Pop Punk
“So I don’t wanna go out today
I wanna lie in my bed so that I run away
From what the internet says, all the playground games
Don’t feel like feelin’ sad today”
Our penultimate song is this lovely, short and sweet ditty by Yungblud, defiantly refusing to be sad and hiding from the hostility of the world. It’s less than 2 minutes long, but it’s such tight and upbeat pop punk that absolutely doesn’t outstay its welcome, complete with an anthemic chorus that begs to be sung along to.
The notion of “I don’t feel like feeling sad today” is kind of like the more hopeful version of “I want to wanna wake up” from earlier. I love it as a sentiment, like yeah here’s all the bad things, but I’ve had enough, I refuse to be sad today, depression can eat my entire ass today.
This unfortunately is not a zone you can deliberately manifest, but if you’ve ever gotten into that zone of thinking where you’re just more frustrated than depressed and just for the day have the strength to be like “no fuck off, today is a day for me” – this song speaks to that vibe perfectly.
19: I Beg To Differ (This Will Get Better) – Billy Talent
Crisis of Faith – 2022 – Punk
https://billytalentband.bandcamp.com/album/crisis-of-faith
“When you feel so lost, that you don’t belong
Well, I beg to differ
As time goes on, this will get better”
And closing off the playlist with this absolute banger from Billy Talent’s 2022 album Crisis of Faith. This I think serves as a great punctuation mark to this playlist. The slightly indie guitar sustains, slow pop punk chord progressions, uplifting lyrics, and a feeling of melancholy juxtaposed with the lyrical tone.
This is probably one of my most listened to songs of the last couple of years. I know I’ve decried songs that have an empty “It’ll get better” lyrical conceit – but I really do think it works here, as it feels completely genuine. It’s not telling you you’re wrong for feeling bad, but that they disagree with whatever shit your brain is saying to and about you.
Saying things will get better in this context isn’t intended to invalidate your struggles, more a sense of solidarity from someone who’s clearly felt this way before, recognizing your sadness, and is going to stand by you until it does get better, however long it takes.
Billy Talent lyrics do occasionally come across as disingenuous – “Judged” on the same album feels a tad try-hard. But this one has enormous authenticity, and the musical structure, guitar riffs and chord progression enhances the theme and tone to a god like level for me. It’s an all-time favourite song, and I’m so glad it’s in the world.
And that’s the list! I had a lot more to say about these songs than I thought I would, and it was pretty cathartic writing it.
There is no one size fits all when it comes to mental health. However well or badly you’re managing to cope with your mental health is no reflection on you as a person. I hope that some or all of these songs can provide you some comfort at the very least.
You are loved, I’m so glad you’re here, and you deserve so much better hands than what life is dealing you, and anything you are managing to do is a testament to how fucking amazing you are.
Feels weird flipping between that and self-promotion – but I have just written 16 pages of shit, so if you have made it this far, you probably don’t hate my writing and will enjoy our upcoming live shows here: https://www.outsavvy.com/organiser/blizzard-comedy
And Follow us on Twitch.tv/blizzardcomedy and @BlizzardComedyChannel on YouTube to see our past, present and future Live streams.
