The day I understood that music is simply a veil, a lens, a perspective through which one can look at life? My mind shifted, and something profound happened to me.

Think about it. When an artist is writing a song, when they are putting words together and singing them into existence, what exactly are they doing?

They are creating a perspective. They are curating a thought, giving shape to an emotion, and telling a story that someone else might one day need to tell.

I am an artist. And for a long time, I struggled with writing lyrics because I was in a relationship.

I would find myself wondering: if I wrote this song and sang it, would my wife think it was about her?

Or, back when I was younger and had a girlfriend, would she listen to my music and assume that every lyric was a confession, every emotion an admission, every story a reflection of something happening between us?

Would she understand that I was simply creating a lens through which someone else could look at life?

Would she appreciate that I had created a perspective through storytelling and music, one that another person could borrow to express what they had always wanted to say but perhaps never found the words for?

Not fully understanding the power that lay within this creative freedom made me struggle a lot.

But of recent, I have been learning to see things differently.

When someone says, “Sing me a song,” what are they really asking for? Sometimes, they are asking you to curate a thought that captures how they feel in that moment.

They want you to find the words for an emotion they cannot articulate, to give melody to a memory, to tell a story that feels so much like theirs that they can inhabit it for a little while.

And this is where the beauty of artistry lies.

For the person creating the song, it is not always about the lyrics as a literal account of their life. It is not always about the artist’s personality, private relationships, or personal convictions.

Sometimes, inspiration comes from personal experiences, yes. Sometimes, it comes from observation, imagination, conversations, or the simple ability to wonder what it must feel like to be someone else.

But in the end, when an artist creates a verse, a character, an emotion, or an entire world through music, they have offered us a perspective.

They have made something that can exist beyond them, something that can mean one thing to the creator and something entirely different to the person listening.

That, to me, is the power of music. It allows a thought to outgrow the person who first conceived it.

A song can be born from one person’s imagination and become another person’s testimony. A lyric can be written without a particular individual in mind and still become the soundtrack to someone’s love story, heartbreak, ambition, regret, or healing.

The artist does not have to have lived every story they tell.

Sometimes, the gift is in their ability to imagine it, understand it, embody it, and communicate it so convincingly that someone else recognises themselves in it.

And I think this is something we must learn to appreciate and celebrate about the people who create music.

Artists must have the liberty to explore the full range of human experience without assuming that everything they write is a personal declaration.

We must allow them to be storytellers, observers, philosophers, lovers, rebels, villains, and even people they would never choose to be in their everyday lives.

They should give young artists, especially, the freedom to let their minds wander.

The freedom to create a pseudonym, become a villain in their imagination, explore the mind of a heartbreaker, write from the perspective of someone who has lost everything, or inhabit the consciousness of a character whose choices are entirely different from their own.

Let them explore the dynamics of human nature.

Let them experiment with emotions, identities, contradictions, and uncomfortable truths. Let them create characters who are not them, sing stories that are not theirs, and give expression to perspectives they may not even agree with.

Because imagination is not an admission of guilt. Storytelling is not necessarily autobiography. And artistic expression should not always have to defend itself as a reflection of the creator’s personal life.

Truth be told, our experiences will always find their way into our art. We are human, after all. But we must not reduce the entirety of an artist’s imagination to the boundaries of their personal experiences.

An artist’s life may inspire the art, but the art is allowed to become a life of its own.

Perhaps that is what I am beginning to understand: music is not merely a collection of lyrics arranged to a melody. It is a way of seeing. A way of feeling. A way of entering a world that might otherwise remain inaccessible to us.

And if someone can listen to a song and find the words for what they feel, if they can borrow a verse to tell their story, if a melody can help them understand themselves or someone else a little better, then the artist has done something remarkable.

They have created more than a song. They have created a vessel for human expression.

And that is what we should celebrate.

Not just the person who sings the song, but the imagination that made it possible for so many other people to sing it as their own.

NiA

Niabari Fakae