“Inner Demons” helps spark inner hope
We all have bad days. They’re inevitable. You can’t stop them, can’t wish them away, can’t close your eyes and pretend they don’t exist. And if you’re anything like me – sadness takes over your body and your depression kicks in and inhabits your entire being. Those bad days don’t ever seem to end.
And if that’s not bad enough you listen to sad music to egg it on. You find the saddest songs with the saddest words and somehow find a way to relate to all of it. You do this because for a little bit, as crazy as it sounds, you don’t feel so alone because someone felt the same way for long enough to write an entire song about it.
But again, only if you’re anything like me.
If you’ve been doing this for as long as I have, you have a running list of all the best songs to listen to in these times. But every once in awhile in your search for tragic music, you stumble upon a light. A melody that gives you a little bit of hope and allows you to believe that things will get better.
Julia Brennan’s “Inner Demons” does just that.
Brennan’s debut song, a slow piano ballad full of low notes, was inspired by Brennan’s own experiences during high school in Minnesota where she grew up, through a press release the artist expressed: “I think everyone has those times where you feel you don’t fit in; when you’re pushed out of your comfort zone.”
In the verses of the song, the pain is evident. Brennan addresses how the “inner demons’ come to you when you’re alone and have no one there to help you. They continuously fight against you and any sort of happiness you have leaving you feeling empty and exhausted. You can only fight against them for so long before it just doesn’t seem worth it anymore. No matter how hard you you try and how badly you want to get better and feel happy, they’re always there. They hide in the depths of your soul for a while and make you think you’ve beaten them, but they’re there. Brennan, the new 18-year-old artist, is addressing something pretty universal here.
Through her lyrics, and her soft, building vocals, she pleads for someone to fight for her, someone to protect her and help her win this battle. It seems like it is an unwinnable battle, the demons “cheat and lie and steal and break and bruise”, they are unbeatable – “the inner demons just won’t go away.” Through the building piano tempo and the increasing power of her voice toward the song’s chorus, Brennan breaks through the wall you’ve built and gives the listener an angel. She resigns herself to angels in the lyrics to help “take the pain, take the fear” in falsetto, asking “angels keep on fighting”, to “not give up on me today.” It is at this point where the songs beat comes in, a simple snare, a backbone like Brennan’s angels offering the song support.
An angel that will fight your demons for you. An angel that will watch over you. An angel that won’t give up on you. This is what Brennan offers the listener. She lets them, us, believe that there are angels out there who are protecting us and walking beside us, listening to our prayers and cries for help and coming to the rescue. Maybe these angels are the people we love and the ones who love us. Maybe they’ve been right in front of us the whole time, but we are in too much pain to notice. Maybe we can beat this. Maybe we will win. We always hear the sayings, “you’re not alone” and “everything will be okay”, but do we really believe them?
Listen to “Inner Demons” and get one step closer to finally taking those truths for what they are. Truth.