The research of expressive writing has shown that basic writing for just 15 minutes a day can produce significant improvement in well-being by supporting and enhancing motivation, self-efficacy, flow, and self-regulation (Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999). The other half of the definition of lyrics – that is, words – also have been shown to influence our emotional state. Music isn’t the only art that influences well-being. Music and lyrics support each other and work together to co-create one experience, an experience that would not be the same with one aspect missing. Take the popular Beatles song, “Here Comes The Sun.” The light-hearted music matches the hopeful lyrics, “Here comes the sun and I say, it’s alright.” Would this song be the same if the music were in a minor key, dark and forbidding? Or if the lyrics were “and dark remains and I say, burn it down”? Maybe one has more influence than the other, but what we can say for sure is that music on its own has a dynamic ability to influence emotion (Bharucha et al., 2006 Clark, 2013 Juslin, 2001 Juslin, 2003 Levitin, 2007, & Västjäll et al., 2012). Considering this definition, it would be impossible to talk about lyrics without talking about music. When I talk about lyrics, I am speaking of words in music. What if the music has words?Įnter lyrics. Victor Hugo said, “Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and cannot remain silent.” But music on its own is, for the most part, a combination of notes and spaces. ![]() Emotional response to music – both positive and negative – affects a large enough portion of the population that it might be harnessed as a public health intervention because music is so accessible (Västfjäll et al., 2012). Music accompanies (pun intended) events across cultures. Music is ubiquitous in any human society imaginable, music is most likely present (MacDonald et al., 2012), including every human gathering from celebration to grief and sporting events to weddings. If it seems impossible to imagine, that is because we have never, in the documented history of humanity, been without music (Levitin, 2006). Try to imagine a world with no music: no first dances at weddings, no stereo or iPod to accompany your commute to work, no soundtrack supporting a movie, no stadium concerts or coffee shop serenades, and definitely no singing around a campfire. One thing that can be said with confidence is that music is, and has always been, an integral part of any society. While I didn’t find countless studies confirming my hypothesis, I did find threads and overlapping research that makes me believe, now more than ever, that lyrics influence emotional health on an individual level and possibly a global one. ![]() ![]() In fact, I don’t really listen to lyrics.”Īnd so began my capstone journey of trying to figure out if what I thought was obvious was, in fact, not obvious - and maybe not even true at all. I knew how powerful a song could be to support emotional health and knew the answer to my capstone’s question: “Message in the music: Do lyrics influence well-being?” was, “Of course they do!” So imagine my shock when Pennebaker, a pioneer in the field of expressive writing and writing therapy, shrugged and said, “No, I don’t think lyrics influence well-being. The topic of the songs and the impact they had on children and their caregivers is what led me to apply to the MAPP program. The second reason that the impact of lyrics on well-being felt obvious to me was because I have worked with children in cancer treatment, end-of-life care, drug and alcohol recovery, and in juvenile detention centers to write and record their own songs. The first is that I am a singer-songwriter who not only performs and sings my own songs, but who has always listened to lyrics, written my own lyrics, and found comfort as the words on the radio influence my state of mind. ![]() I pressed the record button on my iPhone and decided to get the obvious question out of the way first: “Do you think lyrics impact well-being?” This question, and its answer, felt obvious to me for two reasons. I couldn’t wait for the conversation about his favorite lyrics, how artists could influence the world, and for all of the resources he could share that would support this hypothesis and set me up to start writing my capstone. Specifically, how lyrics, the words in a song, matter. I was excited and ready to talk about how words matter. On August 28th, 2015, a few months before graduating with my Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) degree from the University of Pennsylvania, I walked into the office of James Pennebaker, a leading researcher in language and emotional experiences.
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