When we’re teenagers, even for the kids who don’t notice it at the time, music seems to play a vital role in our developing psychological landscape.

I have friends with no connections to music as adults but who’ll jump up at a party when something from their youth comes on.

And I have friends for whom their teenage musical crush remains forever powerful.

Seriously powerful!

So, here’s a song about the music of our teens and the places of safety and possibility it brought us when we really couldn’t see forward.

A Better Day

Kylie van Dam

You take me back to a time,

When life was so unsure.

I couldn’t see which way was up then,

My world was insecure.

You take me back to a time,

When I couldn’t know the way

To stand my own ground,

Use my own voice,

Have something I believed in to say.

And it breaks my heart, to see me all alone.

It breaks my heart, I wanna call back on the telephone and say…

Believe it,

What you think you can hear,

In those songs you run to,

Where you’re futures so clear.

Believe it,

Who you think you can be,

Far away from the days when life doesn’t make sense

And you can’t see.

Those songs are yours to keep.

Those songs are where we dreamed

Of a better day.