If you were going to try and save someone's life, what song would you play?

I went to see Deliver Me From Nowhere this week, the new film about Springsteen’s making of the Nebraska album and his experience of depression and suicidality at the time. There’s a quiet and beautiful scene late on in the film, where Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, played by Jeremy Strong, sits down with a struggling Springsteen and puts a tape on; a Sam Cooke cover of The Last Mile of the Day. They listen to the song in silence, close and in contact with each other.

The day before filming the scene, Jeremy Strong messaged Bruce Springsteen and asked him that question: ‘if you were going to try and save someone’s life, what song would you play?’ Springsteen took several hours and replied with the The Last Mile of the Day, which was then played to Jeremy Alan White, who played Springsteen, without him knowing what was coming.

It makes a beautiful moment all the more beautiful. It felt as though Springsteen was taking care of his younger self, and it made me consider that question for myself: What songs have I played to myself or to others when they are considering ending their lives? When I felt low in the past few years, I’ve found Burial Bleak by The Fife musician, King Creosote to speak to the part of me that will survive: ‘I’m thinking that maybe dying’s not for me. You’ll see how hard I can cling to my life’.

In my work as a therapist, I will sometimes use music in sessions. I wrote about my work improvising music with a suicidal young person a few years ago, and you can read it in my publications section.

Music can speak to the part of us that wants to survive, when we sometimes feel that the part that wishes to die is stronger. I remember learning REM’s Everybody Hurts as one of my first songs on the guitar, and been struck by that extraordinary crescendo of ‘Hold on’ over distortion and drums. I have others tell me of listening to David Bowie’s Rock’n’Roll Suicide’ and, in perhaps one of the greatest moments in modern music, being brought to tears in low moments by Bowie’s yelp of ‘You’re not alone’ which closes the album.

If you are struggling, perhaps there’s someone that you need to tell in your life, so that, as Bowie insisted, you’re not alone. There are some numbers on my crisis page to call if you need to get help right now. Maybe you need to listen to that favourite song or album again that helped before? Perhaps you need to find a therapist and speak to a professional so that you can come out the other side of this despair. I wish all the hope in the world for you.