I’ve been noticing (and have heard others comment on this) that the song lyrics in pop culture today are increasingly dealing with despair, anguish, and pain, as opposed to in decades past, when songs of love and hope were much more common.
This is not to say that songs dealing with both sides of the coin were not written in different eras; they are and were.
It’s just that the trend, lately, has shifted more strongly towards the negative.
Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing.
We must face our pain if we want to grow from it, and, writing a deeply personal song about mental wellness is a good step in that direction.
However, I do have a concern when the music does not provide our young people a path forward. From all darkness, there is a path towards the light.
It’s not up to any one songwriter to do this.
It is up to us, to you, and to me.
To point our children, who do listen to this music, and who are deeply influenced by it, whether they admit it or not, towards the light.
Matt Fried 