The other day I caught up with my friend Lenise Bent over Zoom. We started with a simple catch-up—talking about plans for mentoring with SoundGirls and what we’ve both been working on lately. It turned into a wonderful and inspiring conversation, but one of the key things we discussed was the power of music and how it truly is the universal language.
Music does not recognize borders or language barriers. It reaches people emotionally before it ever reaches them intellectually.
In the United States, many citizens are denied meaningful opportunities to learn a second or third language. In much of the world, people grow up speaking two, three, sometimes four or five languages. While many people in the U.S. eventually learn additional languages, the opportunity for most students often isn’t presented until middle school—far later than it should be.
And evidently history education is lacking as well.
That might explain some of the uproar around Bad Bunny—a United States citizen—performing in Spanish during the Super Bowl halftime show.
Let me say this clearly: language was not a barrier to understanding his performance. Anyone watching could see that it was a celebration of Puerto Rican roots and culture. It was pure joy and happiness. Everyone I watched it with felt the same way—we simply smiled and took it in. It was magic, and it was beautiful.
Lenise also told me about a year-long project she worked on with an artist named Miist and a song called “Lend Me a Smile.”
Miist’s’s goal is to spark human connection through music, empathy, and intentional kindness—things that feel increasingly absent in a society built around constant streaming and digital consumption.
The project was inspired by a tragic story: a 20-year-old Japanese man who was found months after he had died alone in his apartment. This type of lonely death has been increasing across Asia and around the world. In Japan it is even referred to as kodokushi, or “lonely death.”
Here in the United States, the U.S. Surgeon General has warned about a growing loneliness epidemic, reporting that roughly half of adults say they experience loneliness at some point in their lives.
Miist was so moved by that story that she wrote “Lend Me a Smile.” The song has now been recorded in 15 languages across five continents, involving Grammy-winning artists, engineers, and producers. The goal is simple but powerful: help humans remember how to be human.
Imagine if someone had simply taken the time to acknowledge that young man. To smile. To say hello. To ask if he needed help—or even just a hug.
Pro Roadie Tip
I sometimes use the line “Do you need a hug?” or “Someone needs a hug.”
I use it when dealing with crew members who are being prickly on any given day. Instead of engaging with whatever slight they’re upset about, it often stops people in their tracks. They take a breath. Sometimes they actually take the hug. Sometimes they laugh.
More often than not it diffuses the situation completely. It allows people to regulate, apologize, or simply reset.
Connection matters.
Isolation
Society has become increasingly isolating—especially after the pandemic. Our lives are now dominated by streaming services, social media feeds, and devices that keep us connected digitally while separating us physically.
We’ve also lost many of the affordable public spaces where people used to gather and build community.
Humans are social creatures. We need connection. We need to touch, laugh, bond, and share experiences with one another.
Yet modern American culture increasingly pushes us toward isolation
We’re taught that success means having your own apartment, your own house, your own nuclear family. Two kids. Two cars. A house that looks like all the other houses. A vacation to Disneyland.
Our elders are placed in nursing homes, or—if they are fortunate enough to retire comfortably—they disappear onto cruise ships.
Generational households are rare in white middle-class America. The working class often maintains them out of necessity. The wealthy maintain isolation by protecting their mansions with gates and private security.
The middle class runs a treadmill: paying off one debt only to accumulate another, spending weekends catching up on errands and chores. Maybe there’s time for a movie night once in a while.
But that is not community
Our common spaces are disappearing. Property values and investor profits outweigh the value of shared cultural spaces.
When was the last time you could enjoy a free play or concert in a park or on a beach?
When was the last time you could easily afford to attend a concert?
Last weekend I went to see Flipper. I used to see them for $6. I know that was a long time ago, but even a $40 ticket today adds up quickly.
Parking: $40.
Dinner: about $80.
Drinks: another $60.
Suddenly you’ve spent nearly $200 to sit in a hot club. In this case, I say watching the band rather than hearing them—the sound was so terrible it was basically just noise.
Do I regret it?
No.
Because for a few hours I was part of a community.
Isolation out of necessity
Being an introvert, it’s easy for me to isolate. In fact, isolation is sometimes necessary just to function. An outing or event – even one I want to attend – can drain my energy for days.
But I still need connection.
As an introverted, awkward, easily bored kid, music and books literally saved my life.
I never really connected with the kids at school. I was relentlessly bullied in elementary school. Middle School friendships were fleeting. High School included a toxic romantic relationship.
Eventually I landed at a continuation school where I could finish my school work in four-hour days, without all the drama. That environment became a community.
We were basically the The Breakfast Club every day.
And we could afford to go to shows.
Los Angeles had a vibrant and welcoming punk scene, and I saw an incredible range of bands—from clubs to arenas:
X
Black Flag
Redd Kross
Joe Walsh
David Lindley
KISS
Scorpions
Iron Maiden
the legendary US Festival
and even Mötley Crüe when they were still playing 2,000-seat venues.
And I always had a Kurt Vonnegut book in my bag.
Pro Roadie Tip
Never leave the house without a book.
Some days you’re going to sit around all day doing nothing. A book will save you.
All of those shows created release and connection—connection between the band and the audience, and between everyone in the room.
I have been fortunate enough to spend my entire adult life working in live sound. That career exposed me to countless artists, bands, and genres. And every night when the doors open at 6 PM, something special happens.
For a few hours, a community forms.
Sadly, many people today can only afford to attend one concert a year. Some opt for massive festivals like Coachella to get the biggest spectacle for their money. Ticket prices have skyrocketed. Sometimes it’s corporate greed—companies like Live Nation Entertainment certainly play a role – but audiences also expect spectacle now. Modern shows often resemble Broadway productions. Spectacle costs money.
Two of the most incredible shows I’ve seen represent opposite ends of that spectrum:
The Formation World Tour by Beyoncé – a stunning spectacle.
And Fugazi, whom I was fortunate enough to tour with: three work lights, no theatrics, just pure musical muscle.
Both were intense. Both created community.
Both were powerful.
So back to music as the universal language
Music has the power to heal.
It provides the soundtrack to our lives.
It can be used as a force for good, like the Miist project.
It can combat loneliness.
Help us heal emotionally.
Regulate our nervous systems.
Create safety and connection.
Research has even shown that music can reconnect memory in people living with Alzheimer’s disease.
That’s powerful.
The Most Isolated Groups
Now let’s talk about one of the most isolated groups of people in our society: people who are incarcerated.
They are isolated from society, communication, movement, and community. Some endure the most extreme form of isolation imaginable—solitary confinement—for months, years, even decades.
These individuals are cut off not only from other people but often from meaningful sensory experience.
For those living in isolation, music can become a lifeline. It offers connection, emotional release, and mental escape. It can help alleviate trauma, reduce aggression, and maintain sanity. Solitary confinement is widely recognized as one of the most severe forms of psychological torture.
Music Used to Torture
Ironically, music has also been used as a tool of torture. The United States has used loud music played continuously—sometimes 24 hours a day—against prisoners and detainees. I remember once laughing when I heard that some band I didn’t like was used in those interrogations. But it’s not funny. It’s cruel.
Artists including Tom Morello and Skinny Puppy have publicly condemned the practice, while others including James Hetfield—have spoken out and embraced it.
That contrast shows just how powerful music really is.
Personally, I strongly oppose the use of music as torture, the use of solitary confinement, and the entire structure of the Prison Industrial Complex. I became an activist because of the power of music. In the late 1980s I worked a protest benefit concert opposing U.S. support for the Contras in Nicaragua. The final performer of the day was Jackson Browne. He walked on stage with nothing but an acoustic guitar and sang a song in Spanish. I didn’t understand a single word.
But I was reduced to tears
That four-minute performance touched me so deeply that I could never again turn my back on people suffering – whether from war, poverty, nuclear threats, genocide, militarism, or the Prison Industrial Complex.
That is the power of music.
Use it for good.
Side note: I volunteer with Critical Resistance and participate in a program called Circle of Solidarity.
Recently we visited San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, where I met two musicians and aspiring sound engineers named Tan and Brian. Tan’s wife immediately sent me music he recorded while incarcerated there.
SoundGirls is also working with The Last Mile, which runs programs in video and audio editing inside prisons. Last year I visited California Institute for Women and met with some of students, it was an amazing experience.
We’re excited that students inside will soon be editing episodes of the SoundGirls Podcast.