If you don’t have some part of you carrying an unfathomable anguish as you walk the path of your life, it’s okay to stop reading this blogpost. Maybe come back when you feel that weight. “Unfathomable.” Where does this word come from? Un.fathom.able. A fathom is a measure of depth. It is about six feet. Six feet is the traditional depth at which we bury our dead. One fathom. Why six feet? Fathom comes from an old word for outstretched arms. One source says the old word referred to “something which embraces” or grasps.

Sailors used to measure depth by dropping a line over the side of a boat with a weight at the end of it. After the weight hit bottom, they pulled the line up by stretching out their arms with each pull of the line. By counting the times they stretched out their arms, they could tell how many “fathoms” or arm-spans deep. So, we have the double entendre of fathoming as a plumbing of the depths and grasping something, to know how to navigate through it.

Music, like therapy, can help us find the bottom of what seems bottomless, and grasp what might feel ungraspable. The bottom—and the embrace—is where all the wailing and sorrow lie. (This kind of talk is why I say I’m not much fun at cocktail parties.)

Songwriters put our anguish—even unfathomable anguish—into song, and psychotherapy is where we go to fathom the pain we’ve been carrying for so long (we may be holding it so long that we’ve gone numb to the holding and do not even sense the toll it has taken—until we are reminded by a song). And sometimes we even are surprised to learn that we are carrying other people’s anguish for them, and we need to find a way to express that out loud so we can lay it down. Our grief may be deeply private, or we may be feeling it on behalf of an entire suffering people. Or both. Either way, this sort of pain is not something to be borne alone. It’s too much. Ultimately, we seek out someone to help us bear it and help us lay it down.

Here are a few songs that express some of this unfathomable pain. The list is probably endless; these are just a few recent songs from a few genres: pop, rap, R&B, and alternative.

Like Him – Tyler, the Creator

The anguish of never knowing your dad, and your mom not being able to take the pain away.

    Mama, I’m chasing a ghost
    I don’t know who he is
    Mama, I’m chasing a ghost
    I don’t know where he is
    Mama, I’m chasing a ghost
    Do I look like him? (Like what?)
    Like him (Like what?)

Stand – Yebba

The anguish of losing your mother to suicide, and the fear of not knowing how much heartache you can take.

    All that’s left is the matter of asking myself
    “Will you stand?
    Or will you falter?
    Will you lean into the timeless, bending,
    Never-ending strength in your heart?
    Oh, will you prosper?
    Will you recover after all the love you’ve lost and lost again?
    Will you stand?”

seven – Taylor Swift

The anguish of your innocent childhood darkened by the scary suffering of your young, abused friend.

    I think your house is haunted
    Your dad is always mad and that must be why
    And I think you should come live with
    Me and we can be pirates
    Then you won’t have to cry
    Or hide in the closet

Mother I Sober – Kendrick Lamar

The anguish of intergenerational trauma and sexual violence infecting your whole family, and distorting your sense of yourself, masculinity, and safety.

    Mother cried, put they hands on her, it was family ties
    I heard it all, I should’ve grabbed a gun, but I was only five
    I still feel it weighin’ on my heart, my first tough decision
    In the shadows clingin’ to my soul as my only critic

Fourth of July – Sufjan Stevens

The anguish of losing an extremely disturbed mother you never knew to cancer, and how complicated such grief is.

    Did you get enough love, my little dove
    Why do you cry?
    And I’m sorry I left, but it was for the best
    Though it never felt right
    My little Versailles.

If we can feel some of that same heartache and tears and let these songs crack us open (as one reviewer said of seven, it “made me cry in the middle of 4th Avenue in broad daylight”), we become helpers: helping the subject of the song bear it by holding some of it for them. And then we can better imagine a silent world of others witnessing and helping us hold our own sorrow and overwhelm. With our outstretched arms we can reach all the way down into the grave with one hand, and at the same time have our other hand open to our fellow mourners. And when we feel the weight hit the bottom, we can take its measure and recognize the earthy labor of that sounding in each other.