“Ain’t No Life”
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It’s a song about starting over. It’s telling someone that they deserve better. I’ve heard it with myself in mind, and I’ve heard it for other people. I heard it for a friend who told me that her marriage was ending. Her husband said he was still fighting to save their relationship, but he didn’t bother to get her anything for their anniversary or her birthday. I’m sitting across from her thinking she’s a dream and it was hard to fathom how someone could have that place in her life, claim to be trying and just totally blow it like that. I sent her the song, perhaps to say some things I didn’t know it was my place to say. (Songs are brave things.)

It’s a simple song. The drums march and the line “This ain’t no life for us, my brother” repeats over and over. There’s not a lot of flash to it. Maybe hope comes simple at times. Maybe as simple as believing that it’s possible to start again. That we’re allowed to turn the page. And we don’t have to go there alone.

This line in the bridge always stands out to me: “The depth you’ve found is a trick of the mind.” That line really challenged me when I first heard it. I was waking up to the fact that I was living a story I didn’t believe in. I had been chasing something for a long time, but basically living a lie to get there.

And then “So free up the shame in your pain.” My friend Aaron talks a lot about the difference between guilt and shame. He says that guilt is the feeling of “I did something wrong,” but shame is a deeper thing. Shame is the feeling of “I AM something wrong.” There are all sorts of lies that come with shame. I love the simple suggestion in that line—I feel like it’s saying, “You don’t have to believe the lies that come with your pain.”

The very next thing you hear is “and let it rise up, let it rise up …”

I used to, until very recently, think my biggest fear was a life without love or being alone. But now I think my biggest fear would be to live a lie, to settle for living a story I don’t believe in. For me, this song says there’s still hope. You don’t have to settle. You can start again. And you deserve it.

—jamie
TWLOHA Founder