Today, influencers and self-help gurus seem to have become the new prophets. So, it’s almost quaint to consider that our deepest truths might be found in the lyrics of a rock song. Yes, the greatest wisdom of our era isn’t delivered from a mountaintop or between the pages of a bestselling novel. It can come through the raspy voice of a South African frontman screaming about faking it till you make it.
Seether’s “Fake It” might not seem like a philosophical treatise at first glance. It’s more like the anthem for your local disillusioned bar crowd. Dig a little deeper, though and you’ll find that this three-minute grunge ballad offers more insight into the human condition than a week’s worth of scrolling through motivational Instagram quotes. Released in 2007, this song rings just as true today, if not even more so.
In our age of curated personas and digital façades, the real sages aren’t the ones selling you mindfulness apps. They’re the ones strumming guitars and writing lyrics that call out our collective charade. While contemporary literature still offers its fair share of existential crises and moral quandaries, it’s the immediacy and rawness of music that cuts through the noise of our daily lives. Unlike a novel you can put down, a song sticks with you, infiltrating your consciousness with catchy hooks and uncomfortable truths.
So, if you’re searching for meaning in this absurd world, skip the self-help section of your bookstore and head straight to your favorite streaming music service. In a world where everyone is faking it, true wisdom can be found in the one place where honesty still thrives — in the unapologetic, angst-filled anthems of our time.
The Role of Songwriters as Modern Sages
Calling a rock star a “sage” might sound as ridiculous as calling a reality TV star a role model. Yet, the most profound observations about life, love, and the general absurdity of existence are more likely to come from a guy in ripped jeans and a band tee than from a New York Times bestseller. Sure, Shakespeare had his moments, but how often do you see people quoting Hamlet while nursing a broken heart? You don’t. Now, try going a day without hearing someone mumble lyrics from a song that perfectly sums up their latest crisis. Most likely, you can’t.
Historically, we’ve often looked to musicians to make sense of the madness around us — long before Bob Dylan decided to croon about how the times are a-changin’. Bards, minstrels, and overly dramatic court jesters knew the secret millennia ago: wrap your truth in a melody, and people will eat it up like it’s the latest TikTok trend. Fast forward to today, and not much has changed, except now we’ve traded lutes for electric guitars and ballads for bass drops. While the form has evolved, the function remains the same. From protest singers to punk rockers to soft rock vibe extraordinaires, musicians are still the ones calling out society’s BS, just with a bit more volume.
Now, if we’re comparing songwriters to traditional literary figures, it’s almost unfair. After all, literature might make you ponder the meaning of life over several hundred pages. But a song can hit you with a truth bomb in under three minutes — probably while you’re stuck in traffic or scrolling through memes.It’s the immediacy that makes music so powerful; there’s no escaping the emotion when it’s tied to a killer riff or a haunting melody. Where literature offers a slow burn, music delivers a sucker punch to the gut. Sometimes that’s exactly what we need.
Let’s return to Seether’s “Fake It,” as our example. This track doesn’t shy away from pointing out the hypocrisy of playing pretend in a world obsessed with appearances. It’s no T.S. Eliot, but Eliot never gave us a soundtrack for when we’re forced to smile through gritted teeth at the latest office meeting that could’ve been an email. The song’s cynical take on the performative nature of modern life strikes a chord, quite literally, with anyone who’s ever had to put on a facade just to get through the day. It reminds us that while we’re all busy pretending everything’s fine, there’s someone out there turning that collective frustration into a headbanger.
Philosophically speaking, songwriters have an edge over their literary counterparts. They can bypass any pretense and get straight to the raw, unfiltered truth.Where a novel might spend chapters building up to a revelation, a song can just blurt it out, consequences be damned. So, maybe that’s why we keep coming back to music when we need to make sense of the world’s absurdities. It’s as if deep down, we know that while we’re all just faking it.
Music as a Mirror of Cultural and Societal Absurdity
If you want to understand the true absurdity of the world, forget about reading the news or following politics. Just turn on the radio.Music has always been the ultimate mirror, reflecting the highs, lows, and downright bizarre realities of our cultural landscape.It’s how our collective insanity isn’t just acknowledged but often celebrated, set to a beat that makes the madness just a little bit more bearable. If you think that sounds bleak, well, welcome to the show.
Different musical genres have their own unique way of holding up this mirror. The reflections they offer can be both hilarious and horrifying. For instance,punk rock is a genre that’s basically a middle finger in musical form.It’s been flipping off the establishment for decades, turning the anger and frustration of disaffected youth into three-chord anthems, catchy as they are confrontational. If the world’s going to hell in a handbasket, then punk bands might as well write the soundtrack.Honestly, they’re not wrong.
Then there’s hip-hop, which has a knack for cutting through the nonsense and delivering cold, hard truths about social injustice, systemic inequality, and the everyday struggles of life in a way that’s both poetic and unflinchingly real. While politicians and pundits are busy talking in circles, rappers are out here spitting rhymes that lay it all bare.Sure, you can get a degree in sociology, or you can listen to a Kendrick Lamar album and get the same education in half the time — plus enjoy a better beat.
On the flip side, you have pop music, which often seems like it’s trapped in a perpetual state of superficiality.But even the most bubblegum of pop songs can’t help but reflect the absurdity of a culture that’s obsessed with fame, beauty, and the latest viral challenge. Ironically, while pop music might seem all shiny and shallow, it’s often the genre that most accurately captures the ridiculousness of our modern obsession with image. When a pop star sings about living your best life while surrounded by luxury cars and designer clothes, it’s a commentary on a society that values style over substance, even if it’s wrapped in a catchy chorus.
So, then there’s “Fake It” by Seether, a song that might as well be the anthem for our current era of curated personas and Instagram-perfect lives. It has a direct, blunt message about the performance of identity — how we’re all just playing a part, faking our way through the day with a smile that doesn’t quite reach our eyes. Looking back, it’s both hilarious and depressing in its accuracy. This rock group from South Africa took one look at our modern world, shrugged, and said, “Yeah, we see what you’re doing, and we’re calling it out.” This song is a perfect example of how music doesn’t just mirror our cultural absurdities; it magnifies them, cranks up the volume, and dares us to look away at the train wreck that’s now obvious.
So, the next time you’re trying to make sense of the world’s insanity, don’t bother looking for answers in a politician’s speech or a think piece in some highbrow magazine. Just turn on the radio, find a song that speaks to you, and let the music do the talking.
Coming to a Better Understanding of Popular Music
Is it sheer absurdity trying to fully comprehend the human experience through something as inherently irrational as music? Here we are, attempting to layer meaning upon meaning, as if adding complexity to our analysis will somehow make sense of the fact that we’re all just hairless apes banging on drums and yelling into microphones. So, to understand what’s happening here, let’s get interdisciplinary. For example, sociology tells us that music reflects societal norms and values, psychology assures us that it’s a window into the soul, and philosophy insists that it’s a medium for expressing the ineffable.
Music is like a cultural onion — peel back one layer, and you find another, each one making you tear up just a little bit more as you realize how deeply it all cuts. At the most superficial level, we have music as entertainment, something to tap your foot to while you wait at the drive-through for your overpriced fast-food combo meal. But scratch beyond the surface, and you find that every genre and song is embedded with cultural, psychological, and philosophical threads that tie into the broader human experience.
From a scientific perspective, the reason music can capture the absurdity of life so effectively is simple: it taps directly into our emotions. Neuroscientists will tell you that music has a direct line to the brain’s pleasure centers, which is why a song can make you feel something before you even understand what it’s about. It’s a form of communication that bypasses logic and goes straight for the gut, which is why it can so perfectly encapsulate the paradoxes and contradictions of the human experience. After all, what could be more absurd than feeling a deep emotional connection to a song about faking your way through life?
Music also has a major impact on shaping our personal identities. We all have one song — or maybe an entire playlist — that we turn to when we need to feel understood, when we’re trying to figure out who we are in this mad world. Music becomes a part of us, a way to externalize what’s going on in our heads when we can’t quite put it into words. It’s both a mirror and a megaphone, amplifying the internal dissonance we all experience but rarely admit.
Music can also serve as a collective memory, the soundtrack to our shared experiences. A single song can instantly transport you back to a specific moment in time. It might be a summer road trip, a first kiss, or even that awkward middle school dance where you first realized that life is basically one big embarrassment after another. These songs, beyond their specific notes and lyrics, are embedded with the essence of our past. While almost everything else changes, the music we once cherished remains constant.
On a societal level, music has a sneaky way of driving change. Sure, it’s easy to dismiss pop songs as fluff, but even the most cotton-candy of pop can carry a subversive message. Whether it’s a protest song disguised as a love ballad or a dance track that subtly undermines the status quo, music has always been a tool for pushing boundaries and challenging the norm. The best part is it can do all this while making you want to dance, proving that even revolution can have a killer beat.
Now, when you pile all these layers together — personal identity, collective memory, calling out societal BS — you start to see how multifaceted and textured music really is. It’s like a Picasso painting: a jumble of perspectives and angles that, when viewed from just the right distance, actually makes sense. Just like with Picasso, you might not fully understand what the hell is going on with it. But you can’t deny that it makes you feel something — confusion, awe, and maybe even a little nausea. Still, that’s pretty much life in a nutshell.
So, the next time you’re jamming out to your favorite tune, remember you’re engaging in a multi-layered, interdisciplinary exploration of the human condition, whether you realize it or not. Heck, sometimes even the performers don’t always realize it in the moment. Sure, that might sound a bit pretentious, but who cares? At least you’re having fun while enjoying it.
Actionable Advice: How to Engage with Music as Modern Wisdom
Now that we’ve established that music is basically the surprisingly educative soundtrack of our lives, let’s talk about how you can put this wisdom to use. After all, what’s the point of understanding that the world is a dumpster fire if you can’t at least roast a marshmallow or two over the flames? So, here’s some advice for engaging with music in a way that might just make sense of the madness, or at least give you a good laugh at how nonsensical it all is.
Practice Critical Listening—Without Overthinking It
Just because music is layered with meaning doesn’t mean you need to sit there like you’re trying to decipher hieroglyphics. Critical listening isn’t cramming for a pop culture exam. It’s more like people-watching, but with your ears. Just tune in, let the music wash over you, and notice what sticks with you. Is that punk rock anthem speaking to your inner rebel, or is it just making you want to smash something (preferably not your expensive smartphone)? Either way, you’re doing it right.
Curate a Personal Soundtrack
Next up, mindfully curate your personal soundtrack. If you think of life as a movie, which helps immensely in playlist crafting, you might as well have a killer score. Your soundtrack doesn’t have to be deep or sophisticated. There’s no need to impress anyone with your musical taste. In fact, throw in a cheesy pop song you secretly love or that angry metal track that helps you survive rush hour traffic. Your playlist should be as eclectic and contradictory as you are. After all, variety is the spice of life. Some days, that soundtrack could possibly be the only thing keeping you from throwing your hands up in despair.
Use Music as a Tool for Reflection or Just a Distraction — Whatever Works for You
Sometimes, reflection is overrated. Sure, you could sit in a dark room, contemplating the meaning of life with a melancholy ballad playing in the background. Or you could blast something loud and ridiculous, drowning out the noise of your thoughts for a few precious minutes. Both approaches are valid, because sometimes the best way to deal with the absurdity of life is to not think about it too hard.
Whatever you do, let music guide you. Whether it’s helping you process a breakup or making sense of your latest quarter-life crisis, there’s a song out there that’s already gone through the same crap and come out the other side with a catchy chorus.
Remember That Music Is Therapy—But Cheaper and With a Better Soundtrack
Who needs a therapist when you’ve got a pair of headphones and a playlist that understands you better than anyone else? Music has the power to heal, or at least to make you feel like you’re not the only one losing your mind. So, when the world gets too absurd to handle, plug in, tune out, and let the music do its thing. It’s cheaper than therapy, doesn’t require an appointment, and the only side effect is getting a song stuck in your head for days. Honestly, that’s a small price to pay for a little sanity.
Don’t Take Music Too Seriously
Finally, don’t take any of this too seriously. Yes, music can be profound, insightful, and all that jazz. But it’s also supposed to be fun. Life is absurd enough without turning every song into a philosophical debate. Sometimes, a song is just a song — a bit of noise to fill the silence, a beat to make you move, or a chorus to shout along to when you’re feeling particularly melodramatic. If you’re not having fun, what’s the point?
Music is whatever you need it to be—a sage whispering truths in your ear, a friend who gets your struggles, or just a distraction from the fact that the world makes no sense. So, crank up the volume, lose yourself in the sound, and remember: if life’s going to be absurd, you might as well enjoy a killer soundtrack.
Closing Thoughts
So, after digging through the layers of meaning in music, after finding wisdom in the strangest of places (like a grunge anthem about faking it), we’ve reached the end of our journey. What have we learned? Well, music is the perfect mirror for our absurd lives, and sometimes the best way to navigate the chaos is to crank up the volume and sing along — even if you’re out of tune and completely off-key.
At its core, music is perhaps the best reminder that we’re all in this together, flailing around in the dark, trying to make sense of a world that often seems like it’s running on autopilot. Whether it’s a song about love, loss, or just pretending you have your shit together, music connects us in a way that nothing else can — except maybe a collective groan at the latest news headline in an election year.
Still, let’s not get too sentimental. Music is just as flawed, messy, and inconsistent as us. It doesn’t have all the answers. Sometimes it’s more likely to leave you with a catchy earworm than with any sudden insight. But that’s okay. If there’s one thing to take away from all this, it’s that life doesn’t have to make sense to be enjoyed. It’s often absurd contradictions and sheer unpredictability of life that make it worth living and worth singing about.
So, it would seem, songwriters are indeed the sages of our time. Sure, they might not wear robes or sit atop mountains dispensing wisdom — although some of them probably wish they did. But they do give voice to the absurdity of our existence, turning our collective confusion, frustration, and fleeting moments of clarity into something we can all nod along to and enjoy.
When the world feels like it’s spinning out of control, music offers a semblance of order, a way to make sense of the senseless, even if only for a few minutes. It captures the zeitgeist of an era, distilling the complexities of life into verses and choruses that speak to us on a level that no motivational tweet or TED Talk ever could. So, in that sense, music doesn’t just reflect our world — it shapes it, challenges it, and, sometimes, even changes it.
So, the next time you find yourself questioning the meaning of everything, remember this: maybe there is no meaning. Maybe we’re all just faking it, going through the motions, and hoping that no one notices we have no idea what we’re doing. Maybe, that’s enough. As long as there’s a song playing in the background, a melody to hum along to, and a beat to keep us moving forward, we’ll be just fine. After all, if life’s a joke, we might as well laugh.
The takeaway from all this is simple: don’t just listen to music — engage with it. No matter how absurd life gets, there’s always a song out there that gets it. When you find that one song that speaks to you, hold on to it, and blast it on repeat. Let it be your constant reminder that even in the midst of all the nonsense, there’s still beauty, truth, and, most importantly, a damn good beat. When life gives you lemons, turn up the music and dance like no one’s watching. Let’s be honest, they’re probably too busy faking it themselves to care.
~ Amelia Desertsong, February 22, 2025