I just wanted to make music, because it's how I get stuff off my

“I just wanted to make music, because it’s how I get stuff off my chest. I want it to always feel like my escape.” Thus speaks Rod Wave, a man who wields melody not as ornament but as medicine, not as performance but as survival. His words remind us of an eternal truth: that music is more than sound—it is confession, release, and healing. When burdens grow heavy, when grief weighs upon the heart, it is through song that the soul breathes again.

The ancients would have said: “The harp is not for delight alone, but for the calming of the storm within.” In temples, in fields, in battle camps, men have turned to music as refuge. Rod Wave continues this ancient practice, declaring that for him, each lyric, each rhythm is a way of laying down what the heart can no longer carry in silence. His escape is not from life itself, but from the weight that threatens to break him, and his songs become doorways to freedom.

Consider the tale of Billie Holiday, who poured her anguish and defiance into “Strange Fruit.” To her, singing was not entertainment—it was exorcism, a way to cast out sorrow and anger too great for words alone. The world heard her pain and was forced to face its own cruelty. Like Rod Wave, she found in music a way to get the unbearable off her chest, turning torment into testimony, and pain into purpose.

Or recall the Psalms of David, born in the loneliness of deserts and the terror of war. There he lifted his voice not to impress men, but to unburden his heart before heaven. “Why are you downcast, O my soul?” he cried, and his music became his escape, his bridge from despair to hope. Those songs, born of private anguish, became the comfort of generations. And so it is with every true artist: their escape becomes our healing.

The meaning of Rod Wave’s words is this: art is most powerful when it is honest. The heart longs not for polished perfection but for truth poured out raw, vulnerable, and unrestrained. When music is made as escape, it carries the weight of authenticity. It ceases to be a mask and becomes a mirror, where both the artist and the listener find themselves reflected and released.

The lesson is profound: do not silence the storm within you. Find your own escape—not in destruction, but in creation. Whether through music, writing, painting, or prayer, give voice to the weight you carry. Speak it, sing it, shape it into something greater than your pain. In doing so, you not only heal yourself but also open the path for others to find their own release.

Practical counsel follows: when grief or anger presses upon you, take up your chosen art. Write your sorrows in a journal. Sing even when your voice cracks. Strum the guitar with trembling hands. Let creation become your sanctuary, your place of escape. Do not seek to bury your emotions, for buried grief festers; instead, transform it into something alive, something that breathes and blesses others.

So remember this, O children of struggle: the world will lay heavy burdens upon you, but you need not be crushed. As Rod Wave has shown, let music or any art you love be your refuge. Let it be the place where you set down your pain and find yourself again. For in the act of creation, sorrow is lightened, hope is rekindled, and escape becomes not running away, but rising above.