That beautiful moment when a song captures your thoughts exactly.

When you're listening to a song and you feel like someone's seen your daydreams and set them to piano, to guitar, to bloody ukulele.

Please tell me someone gets that.

One of absolute favourite things about music (also about book and films and poems too) is this, when you think you're alone in your weird habits, your frustrations and joys, your dreams and your insecurities.

Then you put on a CD or open a page and find someone else articulating something you've tried and failed to many times before.

For me, it's with stuff like this.

"And in my mind
I imagine so many things
Things that aren’t really happening
And when they put me in the ground

I’ll start pounding the lid,
Saying, “I haven’t finished yet,
I still have a tattoo to get,
It says ‘I’m living in the moment’”.

And it’s funny how I imagined
That I could win this win-less fight
Maybe it isn’t all that funny
That I’ve been fighting all my life
But maybe I have to think it’s funny
If I want to live before I die
And maybe it’s funniest of all
To think I’ll die before I actually see
That I am exactly the person that I want to be.

F*ck yes.

I am exactly the person that I want to be."

From In My Mind (feat. Brian Viglione) by Amanda Palmer.

"Gravity keeps my head down, or is it maybe shame at being so young being so vain"

From If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next by Manic Street Preachers

"Times they aren't a-changing
Yeah, England's still sh*t and it's still raining.
And everybody's jaded and tired and bored
And no-one lifts a finger because it's just not in our culture.
Our culture is carrion and we're all vultures"

From Once We Were Anarchists by Frank Turner

"Let’s stop waiting around for someone to patronise us,
Let’s hammer out a sound that speaks of where we’ve been.
Forget about the haircuts, the stupid skinny jeans,
The stampedes and the irony of the media fed scene.

‘Cause we write love songs in C and we do politics in G,
We sing songs about our friends in E Minor.
So tear down the stars yeah and take up your guitars.
And come on folks and try this at home

Because the only thing that punk rock should ever really mean
Is not sitting round and waiting for the lights to go green
And not think that you’re better ‘cause you’re stood up on a stage.
If you’re oh so f*cking different then who cares what you have to say?

Because there’s no such thing as rock stars there’s just people who play music
And some of them are just like us and some of them are d*cks."

From Try This At Home by Frank Turner

"He found the bandages inside the pen and the stitches on the radio"

From Boxer by The Gaslight Anthem

"There is this think keeping everyone's lungs and lips locked.
It is called fear and it's seeing a great renaissance"

From Sing by The Dresden Dolls

"Jay is our Saint George, and he’s standing on a wooden chair. And he sings songs and he slays dragons, and he’s losing all his hair"

From I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous by Frank Turner

" I ain't nothing but tired.
Man, I'm just tired and bored with myself.
Hey there baby, I could use just a little help"

From Dancing In The Dark by Bruce Springsteen

"Sing for your sorrow, your wisdom, your rage, sing out. Sing for the records you played 'till they broke, for the parts you insisted that nobody spoke. Sing for the words that you knew bu they still made you choke"

From Pass It Along by Frank Turner

"Maybe this time we'll kiss and we'll not shake hands."

From Indian Summer by Manics again.

I could honestly go on and on for pages with these, but I have tried to contain myself.

But I just love the moments when I hear these lyrics and many other at just the right time and they more comforting and more inspiring than they've ever been.

So, I guess the point of this journal is to share some of these, and to ask you some of yours.

I'm honestly interested in the lyrics that speak to other people. Personally, I feel great lyrics make great songs, and I think it's fascinating how the same words can mean so many different things to different people.

Helen xx

PS. Please call me out if this is utter rambling and pretentious w*nk. It's been so long since I've made a proper journal on here, and I think it's changed a bit.