Author: Sophia Falco

“Everything’s Not Lost”, this wonderfully optimistic song, by Coldplay came into my life when I discovered I needed it while in the midst of a challenging depression. These lyrics spoke to me because of their duality of the rawness and the pain yet this is stated so eloquently, and then the comes the revival of hope. This poetically expressed revival is in a more so realistic manner, and definitely not over the top thus these thoughtful words make the sentiment of hope believable. Believable enough to be able to reclaim hope in life when I needed it the most—of course this is not the only thing that helped me persevere during that dark mood—and so this song was comforting when in a state of such turmoil. The lyrics include: “demons” and “hoping” so if I am to use similar language, I’d say that in that song something is trying to demonize hope whereas they prevail. This song is the final song in their album: Parachutes that was released in 2000. I would give this song a rating of 4 out of 5.

The lyric that is really poignant and powerful in the beginning that also heavily resonated with me: “If you think all is lost”. During that depression in which I came out the other side stronger, I felt like my hope was unraveling. My hope was unraveling like a ball of yarn that not even a kitten would want to play with. This hope was becoming lost in exhausting emotions of negativity, and despair becoming more and more elusive. I was hanging onto threads that I eventually knitted back together during my road of recovery. To get through this depression, I completed a partial hospitalization program, regularly met with my therapist and psychiatrist who manages my medications, wrote a lot of poetry, went to the park to play basketball (even when I didn’t feel like it, but typically had fun when I was there), and went to the ocean to be in its powerful presence.

I also enjoyed the lyric: “Don’t let it drag you down”. In my situation, this was the depression trying to drag me down, and I liked this lyric which felt like it was directly speaking to my situation. I am indeed a resilient person so I persevered. If it were possible to bottle up hope—at first thought I probably would—and then I would place it on my desk for easy access, however I came to the realization that I wouldn’t want to. Life it not that easy, and that would be a form of pretending. Furthermore, I wouldn’t have been able to write some of my best poems if that hope were a constant force easily accessible to me all the time. From despair, some of my best poems have been born, and from hope some of my best poems have been born. In my life I realize this intangible entity hope can ebb and flow like waves. Sometimes I must fiercely fight for hope. When that is the case, I first look for hope outside myself that is around me such as in nature. I take walks, and hope is illustrated by innocent, beautiful, and vibrantly colored flowers, and the singing birds in the eucalyptus trees. Then after I witness this, I try to foster this hope internally. In addition, I am grateful that I have the opportunity to hear birds singing outside my window.

The outro of this song is so powerful: “Singing out/Oh oh oh yeah, oh oh yeah, oh oh yeah/Everything’s not lost” because of the proud declaration that: “Everything is not lost”. I also enjoyed that in a way, these lyrics are meta at their core because this is self-reflecting—a song reflecting on the act of singing—thus this is philosophical in a sense. I came to realize that I didn’t lose all hope, and I still had my wise mind on my side during that depression. However, I just had to carefully listen more to it to hear it because at times my wise mind was almost just at the volume of whispering. Bipolar disorder can be indeed scary at times. Yet in regards to those moods, I try to remind myself that this too shall pass, and that each day I am given an opportunity to be on this planet Earth. In conclusion, I would like to demonstrate that there is hope for recovery with the right support, and dedication to the road of recovery.