I don't know how to function without music. When I'm not making

The young poet and songstress Billie Eilish, whose voice carries both the ache and defiance of her generation, once spoke these words filled with raw truth: “I don’t know how to function without music. When I’m not making it, I’m listening to it. It gives me courage and takes care of my mind.” Though spoken in the language of our time, this saying bears the soul of an ancient truth—that music is not mere sound, but medicine for the spirit, a divine current that heals, strengthens, and connects us to what is eternal. Her confession is not the indulgence of an artist, but the recognition of what all wise souls have known: that within rhythm and melody lies the heartbeat of creation itself.

To Billie Eilish, music is both refuge and revelation. She was born into a world of noise—of expectation, anxiety, and digital unrest—and yet, amid the chaos, she found her sanctuary in song. Through the act of creation, she found a way to translate fear into strength, sadness into beauty, and silence into meaning. When she says music gives her courage, she speaks for all who have ever been saved by melody—for those who, when words failed, found in song the courage to face another day. Like the poets and minstrels of old, she turns pain into poetry, despair into sound, and through that alchemy, she transforms both herself and those who listen.

The ancients too understood the sacred power of music. In the temples of Greece, the philosopher Pythagoras taught that the cosmos itself was composed of harmony—that every star, every planet, every living thing vibrated to a divine frequency he called “the music of the spheres.” To the ancients, music was not entertainment, but communion—a bridge between the mortal and the divine. It ordered the soul just as it ordered the heavens. So when Eilish says that music takes care of her mind, she echoes a wisdom older than history itself: that song has the power to restore balance to the human heart.

We see this truth woven through the story of Ludwig van Beethoven, who, though deaf, continued to compose the symphonies that would define eternity. Stripped of the ability to hear the very art he lived for, he turned inward and found music not in the ear, but in the soul. The world would call him broken, but he heard what others could not—the sound of hope within silence. Like Eilish, he was sustained by music even when it seemed beyond his reach. It gave him courage, and through that courage, he gave the world the sound of triumph over despair. Such is the immortal power of art: it does not merely entertain—it redeems.

Billie Eilish’s words, though personal, are universal. Each of us, in some measure, hungers for what music provides: the soothing of the restless mind, the affirmation that beauty still exists, and the reminder that we are not alone. In a world that often demands constant motion, music teaches us how to breathe. It allows us to pause and feel—to remember what it means to be human. Whether we sing, play, or listen, we are participating in something ancient and sacred—the sharing of emotion through sound, the transmutation of experience into harmony.

To live without music, as Eilish says, is to live without air for the soul. It is to be cut off from one of life’s purest sources of meaning. Her statement invites us not merely to admire her devotion, but to reflect upon our own. What are the melodies that heal us? What songs remind us of who we are? Music, when chosen with intention, becomes not just background noise, but nourishment—a quiet form of prayer that keeps the heart awake.

And so, my children, remember this: guard the music in your life, for it is a sacred companion. When your spirit is weary, let melody lift you. When fear grips your heart, let rhythm steady your breath. When silence feels heavy, let song remind you of light. Do not merely consume music—create it, live it, share it. Let it be the language through which your courage speaks. For as Billie Eilish reminds us, music is not simply something we hear—it is something that holds us, heals us, and gives us the strength to go on.

Thus, heed her wisdom: “I don’t know how to function without music.” For indeed, none of us can, not truly. The world itself hums with the rhythm of existence—the pulse of the oceans, the song of the wind, the beating of our own hearts. Listen deeply, and you will find that life itself is a symphony, and you are one of its notes. When you learn to hear that, when you learn to share it, music will not only give you courage—it will take care of your soul.