In Common Light

Phoebe Bridgers’ “Scott Street” is a particular song that stirs up strong emotions in me. I first listened to it one night during my second year of college. As I hit play for the first time, it brought up a lot of emotions. With its reminiscent tone, conversational lyrics, and bike bells in the outro, it precisely captured the feeling of nostalgia for your childhood among the rapid change that comes with emerging adulthood. The song gave me some relief, relief in my feelings of loneliness, lostness, and nostalgia. 

Other songs act in a similar way. Upon listening, they allow me to really embrace what I feel. They turn confusion and turmoil into relief and clarity. All mediums of art — movies, books, poems — have the potential to stir up and resolve emotions. We typically see expression as the best way to process our emotions effectively, but consumption can also serve that purpose. Though we do not know the creator, and though we are not expressing our problems to them, their art can still provide us with relief. How can art be so powerful in this way?

All of us humans are trying to make sense of this mystery of a thing we call life. In doing so, we stumble across similar problems and experiences, and I see art as a means to communicate them. 

Connecting with the Artist’s Subconscious

When we connect with art, we connect with the artist’s most deep, sometimes subconscious experiences.

The best art comes from the heart. By this I mean that the artist needed to create. There was some force inside of them, needing to be let out – whether this be deep pain, confusion, grief, or deep joy or passion for something. This means that their art reflects their deepest, most subconscious, most human experiences.

We hear a lot of artists describe how they had to make their art, how it wasn’t  a choice but a necessity. Poet Rupi Kaur describes this process of art pouring out in one of her poems from her latest book, Home Body. 

“Why do you think you’re in control
didn’t the words come spilling
out of you the first time
pouring without permission.”

Additionally, Tate McRae, in describing her writing process for her song Green Light, says, “I had no idea what I was writing about or where I was at in this relationship… I was literally just writing and my subconscious was talking, and I figured out exactly how I was feeling about this relationship and this person after I wrote this song,” (Tate McRae, 2025).

These two artists describe how pieces of their art, written poetry and songs, were created from a subconscious experience. We connect with this subconscious experience when we connect with art. We connect with humans when we connect with art.

Evaluations of Art

Not all art out there embodies a deep part of the human experience. At least, not parts that we cannot communicate easily. We hear songs about superficial topics all the time (partying, drugs, etc.). The best art, I argue, is the art that acts as a means for processing the more difficult emotions, because it is only art that can do this.

Why is the art that is fueled by a deep emotion considered the best? Because it embodies, represents the deepest parts of The Human Experience that we all share. There is nothing objective or natural about art’s beauty – us humans evaluate its beauty. The evaluation comes from the receiver – another human who has the capacity to feel the same things that the artist felt while they were creating it.

You may be thinking, not everyone who has a lot of emotions can sing well. Yes, there is a discipline component to art. You must learn about pitch, notes and breathing techniques in singing. In poetry, you must learn about rhythm, tempo and rhyme. In writing, you must learn rhetorical devices. This all, though, is teachable. What is not teachable is the foundational “feltness”– the emotion, the driving force, the humanness. 

 This goes back to the idea of media, the thing created from peoples’ sense-making of life. Creating good art requires living. Poet Rupi Kaur again describes this. She too said that you must get out there and live.

If you want to be creative
you need to learn how to 
do stuff that has no purpose
art isn't made by 
working all the time 
first you've got to 
go out and live

Art’s Beauty Lies in Human Connection

Sad songs captivate us not because we like sadness but because we share the sadness. Maybe, then, it’s actually the connection, our relatability to it, not the art itself, that is what’s beautiful. Art would be nothing without the human experience, and nothing without the connection. 

The fact that something can change my feelings so quickly is amazing.

I, the listener, am not fond of pain, but the song is beautiful because you, the artist, feel it too. I am able to better feel and move through my pain upon your sharing of it.

 So, I’ve come to find that it is all about connection. We often forget this, miss sight of this. We are all connected to one another, this is where the beauty lies. 

References

Kaur, R. (2021). Home body. Andrews McMeel Publishing.

McRae, T. (2025, February 24). Tate McRae – Inside the Making of Greenlight (Amex Story of my Song). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JAmGSq7B8w