Music is subjective to everyone's unique experience.

Host: The night was heavy with humidity, the city humming like a restless machine. In a small studio perched above the empty streets, the walls pulsed with faint bass, the air thick with the scent of coffee, dust, and the ghost of old melodies. A single lamp glowed over a cluttered table—half-covered sheet music, tangled headphones, an unfinished guitar riff frozen in the air like a thought interrupted.

Jack sat by the mixing board, his fingers resting on a knob he’d turned a thousand times before. His eyes, grey and sharp, reflected the wavering light of the computer screen. Jeeny, barefoot and wrapped in an oversized sweater, leaned against the wall, holding a cup of cold tea. The room was silent now—except for the faint hiss of static, the heartbeat of something waiting to be born.

Jeeny: “You ever think about what Jared Leto said? ‘Music is subjective to everyone’s unique experience.’ I believe that. Every song sounds different depending on who you are, what you’ve lived through.”

Jack: “That’s poetic, sure. But it’s also lazy.”

Host: His voice carried a kind of fatigue, not of body, but of belief. He didn’t look at her when he spoke, just at the soundwave on the screen—a flat, unfeeling line that refused to come alive.

Jack: “Saying ‘music is subjective’ is like saying ‘truth depends on the listener.’ It sounds deep, but it’s just an excuse for mediocrity. A good song isn’t about who’s listening. It’s about craft, structure, the laws of sound. Music is mathematics before it’s emotion.”

Jeeny: “You think Bach wrote equations? He wrote feelings, Jack. You can measure frequencies, not souls.”

Host: The lamp flickered. Jeeny’s eyes glimmered with something between tenderness and fire.

Jeeny: “You hear that melody and count the beats. I hear it and remember the night my mother cried in the kitchen, and I didn’t know what to say—so I hummed. And for that one minute, she stopped crying. Tell me that’s mathematics.”

Jack: “It’s coincidence. You attached your memory to the sound. The song didn’t heal her—you did.”

Jeeny: “Then why did the humming matter? Why do we all turn to music when words fall apart?”

Host: A faint rumble of thunder rolled outside, and the windowpane shivered. Jack lit a cigarette, the tip burning orange, briefly illuminating the lines under his eyes.

Jack: “Because silence is terrifying. Music fills it. That’s all.”

Jeeny: “You don’t really believe that.”

Jack: “I do. It’s biology, Jeeny. The brain responds to patterns. You think you love the music—but really, your neurons just love predictability dressed in novelty.”

Jeeny: “So when a soldier listens to a song before battle, or a widow clings to one after a funeral—it’s just dopamine?”

Jack: “Exactly.”

Jeeny: “You sound like someone who stopped listening a long time ago.”

Host: The room went still. Jack’s hand froze midair, the cigarette trembling between his fingers. A small ash fell, like a white snowflake dying before it touched the ground.

Jack: “Maybe I did. Maybe that’s what happens when you’ve heard too many songs that meant everything to someone else—and nothing to you.”

Jeeny: “That’s not music’s fault, Jack. That’s grief talking.”

Host: Her words landed softly, like the touch of rain on an open wound. Jack turned to her now, the usual cynicism in his gaze replaced by something quieter.

Jack: “You ever notice how every love song sounds the same? The same chords, the same words. I’ve mixed hundreds of them. People call them ‘personal.’ But they’re just copies of the same ache.”

Jeeny: “Because pain repeats itself, Jack. Just like joy. Just like breathing. But each one still feels different when it’s yours. That’s what makes it subjective.”

Jack: “So you’re saying originality doesn’t matter? That as long as someone feels something, the song has done its job?”

Jeeny: “Yes. That’s the whole point. Music isn’t about originality—it’s about recognition. You don’t love a song because it’s new; you love it because it reminds you of something ancient in you.”

Host: Jack stared at her for a long moment. His eyes flickered toward the old guitar leaning against the corner—its strings slightly rusted, its wood scarred with years of use.

Jack: “You sound like my father. He used to play that guitar when he was drunk. Said music was the only thing that forgave him.”

Jeeny: “Did you believe him?”

Jack: “Back then? No. Now... maybe.”

Jeeny: “Then you understand more than you admit.”

Host: The rain began to fall, slow and rhythmic, a gentle drumming that blended with the faint hum of electricity in the room. Jack set down his cigarette, pressed a button on the console, and a soft melody filled the air—a simple piano line, delicate and unfinished.

Jeeny closed her eyes.

Jeeny: “What’s this?”

Jack: “Something I’ve been working on. I can’t finish it.”

Jeeny: “Why not?”

Jack: “Because I don’t know what it’s supposed to mean.”

Jeeny: “Then stop trying to make it mean something. Just let it be. Maybe it already says what words can’t.”

Host: The melody drifted through the room like a small confession. Jeeny’s eyes shimmered; Jack looked down, pretending not to notice.

Jeeny: “It’s beautiful.”

Jack: “It’s incomplete.”

Jeeny: “So are we.”

Host: The silence between them deepened—but it wasn’t empty anymore. It was full of unspoken echoes. The kind of quiet that listens.

Jack: “You really think everyone hears the same song differently?”

Jeeny: “Yes. Every note filters through a different memory, a different heart. To you, this melody might sound sad. To me, it sounds like forgiveness.”

Jack: “Then maybe that’s the only objective thing about music—it reminds us we’re not objective at all.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. It’s the one language that forgives our subjectivity.”

Host: The lamplight glowed softer now, casting amber halos around them. The rain had found its rhythm—steady, patient, alive. Jack leaned forward, his hands hovering over the keys.

Jack: “Then let’s try it again. You play, I’ll listen.”

Jeeny: “And if it doesn’t sound right?”

Jack: “Then maybe it’s not supposed to.”

Host: Jeeny smiled—quiet, tender, certain. She picked up the guitar, her fingers tracing the old scars on the wood. Then, softly, she began to play—a fragile melody, trembling but true. Jack closed his eyes, letting the sound wash over him like a long-forgotten rain.

The music filled the room, stretching into the cracks of old memories, into the corners of things unsaid. For a moment, it didn’t matter who was right. It didn’t matter what the song meant.

It only mattered that it was.

Host: The rain faded. The lamp buzzed one last time before dying, leaving only the echo of the last chord hanging in the darkness.

And in that darkness, there was something more than sound—something beyond reason or theory. Something human.

Host: “Perhaps music isn’t meant to be understood,” the Host whispered, “only felt. Because every note, like every soul, finds its own meaning in the silence it leaves behind.”