(photo: Shervin Lainez)
It’s thought of as a cliche to say “music saved my life,” but it’s only a cliche because it’s true for so many. There is a cathartic release to listening to a song that feels like it was written about you. Sure, it probably wasn’t. In all honesty, the pain people go through on the daily is never just their own, even though it always feels that way. There is no pain that is rare, only avoidable, and sometimes more avoidable with the privilege you are born with and given.

Music is the easiest and quickest way to instantly feel like your pain is not only your own, and that someone else in the world has lived through what you’re going through. With a simple press of a button, you can feel at ease. With the drop of 14 dollars you can feel this way in a crowd of people, as the musical healer that goes by Field Mouse sings you to a cathartic happy.

Field Mouse is one of those bands that understand that music is not only for themselves, but that it can have an effect on those that listen. Music, at its core, is selfish, but when you understand that it’s selfish for all involved, it can be selfless. Writing about situations that were hard for you and giving other people the chance to feel understood in their pain. Writing music that can be interpreted in so many ways, but so that each way is helpful for the one involved.

It’s no surprise that Rachel Browne of Field Mouse, is an unbelievably talented writer who not only writes music and other types of creative writing but writes about being chronically ill.

On the weekend, where so many musical artists who have “saved” so many come to the Bay. You can catch Browne’s friends and favorite current musical act Hop Along for free the day before at Hardly Strictly, then be saved again at Swedish American Hall by Field Mouse.

Cymbals Eat Guitars, Field Mouse, Wildhoney
Swedish American Hall
October 1, 2016
8:30pm, $14 (21+)