To live or die, what’s the price on a life?
If there ain’t no price tag, I might take it right
Rest in peace to everyone that we lost in life.”
— Noah Cyrus, Live or Die
By: Amara Soleil
Finding comfort in the songs that stayed when everything else was quiet
I wasn’t looking for Noah Cyrus when I found her. I was listening to Miley Cyrus on Apple Music when one of her sister’s songs came on. Stay Together and Make Me Cry. They hit harder than I expected. Not in a dramatic way, but in a quiet, startling way, like realizing someone had been watching your life from the corner of the room and finally spoke.
Later, in the second season of Euphoria, her song Live or Die played, and it stayed with me. The title alone made me pause. It made me wonder if it really mattered if I lived. Not in a hopeless way, but in an honest one. Would it change anything? Would it make anyone cry? The song made me question whether we’re actually living or just moving through life like characters in a game, surviving levels without meaning.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I thought I was fine. I’m a homebody, so being inside felt safe. Comfortable, even. But coming back into the world afterward was harder than I expected. By then, I was in 11th grade, facing graduation, and quietly sinking into a depression I didn’t know how to name. That’s when I found myself returning to Noah’s album The End of Everything. Young & Sad. July. Lonely. Those songs didn’t try to cheer me up. They just told the truth.
Young & Sad hit especially hard. I’d look at my sisters and think of them as sunshine, while I felt like rain that never stopped pouring. Young & Sad put words to how I saw myself next to my sisters.
“My sister’s like sunshine, always bringing good light wherever she goes.
And I was born to rain clouds, when they blew the flame out, blessed in our shadows.”
It reminded me that being different doesn’t mean being broken. Sometimes it just means you carry the quieter weather.
Lonely felt too accurate. It captured the experience of being used to being by yourself without ever choosing it. My mom and sisters had lives to live, places to go. I stayed home. Watching TV. Filling time. Starting around sixteen, I learned what empty rooms sound like. Silence doesn’t scream. It waits. And sometimes you don’t realize how much it’s hurting you because you don’t feel allowed to say, “Don’t go.”
One memory stands out clearly. It was New Year’s Eve in 2019. My mom went to a friend’s house, and my sisters were out somewhere else. I remember locking the door after she left, the handle cold against my palm. The house went quiet in a way that felt heavier than usual. No countdown. No celebration. Just me, ending one year alone and stepping into the next the same way. Eventually, I put on music. Not party music. Just something that could sit with me when no one else was there.
Over time, I grew quieter and more inward. Being inside myself felt safer than trying to explain emotions I didn’t have language for. So I sat with it. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I didn’t talk about it much. Everyone else had their own lives, and I didn’t want to feel like an interruption.
Music became my safe space because it was always there. I could hold everything in until a song exposed it for me. My loneliness wasn’t because of me. It came from circumstances, from emotional absence, even though the feeling had existed throughout my childhood. As I got older, it just became clearer.
Staying home felt fun because I’m a homebody, but it still damaged me mentallly.The harm didn’t arrive loudly. It crept in slowly, like something invisible at first. You don’t notice it until it’s already wrapped around you. Music, though, never left. It helped me feel emotions I didn’t know how to name and reminded me that feeling deeply didn’t mean something was wrong with me.
There were moments when I wished I could disappear. Not because I truly wanted to die, but because I didn’t want to keep carrying so much emotion. Facing the reality of my loneliness felt unbearable. When you’re masking just to survive, admitting how sad you are feels like failure. You start believing something is wrong with you. What I learned is that avoiding those feelings doesn’t erase them. They wait. And if you don’t face them, you slowly sink deeper, until one day you realize you’re trapped inside your own mind and body. Climbing out takes time. Sometimes years. Sometimes music is the first rope you grab.
When I listened to July, it felt like permission to admit something I didn’t know how to say out loud.
“Feels like a lifetime, just trying to get by while we’re dying inside.
I’ve done a lot of things wrong, loving you being one, but I can’t move on.”
The song understands what it’s like to stay in something painful because leaving feels impossible. It sounds like loving your family, knowing it hurts, and still not being able to walk away.
That’s what Noah Cyrus’ songs were for me. Not answers. Not fixes. Just company. They didn’t rush me. They didn’t shame me. They reminded me that loneliness, sadness, and wanting distance from pain are shared human experiences.
I’m still learning what it means to truly live, but music reminds me that I am not alone. Sometimes, just sitting with a song is enough to keep going.
Reading and listening to these songs, I’ve realized that music doesn’t just mirror our pain; it meets us there. It reminds us that our feelings are valid, our struggles are shared, and that it’s okay to exist quietly while we figure out how to live. Even in the loneliest moments, a song can be a companion and a reminder that we are not invisible, and that staying with our own emotions doesn’t make us weak, it makes us human.
**Key Takeaway:**
It’s normal to feel lonely, sad, or out of place, and it’s okay to seek comfort in music that validates those feelings. You don’t need to force yourself to be happy or have all the answers. Sometimes, simply allowing yourself to feel and letting music keep you company is enough to get through the hardest times. Being gentle with yourself and accepting your emotions is an important part of healing and being human.