This may be an odd post, but I know that music is a tool that people use to help cope with depression, or anything, really. I don't use it, myself, on a regular basis. But sometimes a song or album will somehow resonate with my feelings of depression, sometimes lifiting me up a little bit in the midst of it, sometimes just making me consider it a little.

Lately parts of the lyrics to "The Greatest Show" from the movie musical The Greatest Showman have been weirdly helpful. So here is the part I am referring to, followed by what it makes me think, in terms of my depression.

Don't fight it, it's coming for you, running at ya

It's only this moment, don't care what comes after

Your fever dream, can't you see it getting closer

Just surrender 'cause you feel the feeling taking over

It's fire, it's freedom, it's flooding open

It's a preacher in the pulpit and you'll find devotion

There's something breaking at the brick of every wall, it's holding

All that you know So tell me do you wanna go?


Where it's covered in all the colored lights

Where the runaways are running the night

Impossible comes true, it's taking over you

Oh, this is the greatest show

We light it up, we won't come down

And the sun can't stop us now

Watching it come true, it's taking over you

Oh, this is the greatest show

So the "greatest show," for me, is the hope for and the attainment of feeling free from my depression. The happiness, Or joy. Or simple contentment, without the dark cloud of sadness, moodiness, irritability, etc. that I feel. I like to think of it in terms of the all the coolness that this section of lyrics presents the circus as - all the colored lights, the rush of feeling that can't be overtaken or stopped, where the weirdos like us mental health sufferers claim ownership and run with it. Sounds awesome, right?

So, there you go. My weird approach to a song lyric that is upbeat in sound and from which part of it I can impose an interpretation of hope.

Your turn.