Music gives a certain style to life that nothing else can seem to capture. It captivates souls and encourages people to really be who they are. All of the things music does, though, starts with the writer, the person who picks up the pen in the middle of the night and writes and writes until the song is beautiful and perfect and will captivate souls of the whole audience. Recently, I’ve come across several songs that have really cool backstories. I have probably a million “favorite” songs, so once I have listened to them enough I often research the heck out of them to see what the writer was feeling when he/she wrote it to produce such a powerful impact on listeners. These are my favorites.

1. “Born To Run” - Bruce Springsteen

Okay, I know everyone knows this song, and everyone knows Springsteen is a musical genius. If you don’t think so, you’re wrong. This song, though, I’ve heard over the course of my lifetime so many times. Believe it or not, “Born To Run” was actually Bruce Springsteen’s last attempt at becoming famous. He had previously written two albums that didn’t get too much publicity, but after writing this one, he sure took off and hasn’t stopped since. The State Legislature of New Jersey actually declared this song THE “unofficial youth rock anthem” in 1979 since it represented Jersey life so well. Pretty cool stuff.

2. “Landslide” - Fleetwood Mac

What would a list of great songs be if Fleetwood Mac didn’t make the list? Stevie Nicks is my music idol, but no one can argue that the way she writes songs is just more incredible than anyone else I know. She takes something so simple and moving and makes it into a work of pure, timeless art. See, when asked about the writing of “Landslide,” Nicks has told the public two different stories. Sometimes, she tells the story of her time on the road with Lindsey Buckingham, the love of her life and her all-time greatest music partner. She wasn’t used to the life of fame and huge recording studios; she had been a waitress in her previous job — it was a drastic change! She wrote “Landslide” to tell about the changing world around her; she says it was her decision to keep on going with her music, which is such a powerful thing knowing who she is today. She also tells people that the song is about a relationship between her and her father, saying that she wrote the song the day before her dad went into surgery. It focuses on drastic change and building a life for herself, yet she admits her fears for the future.

3. “Fifteen” - Taylor Swift

Everyone knows that all of Taylor’s songs are about some sort of heartbreak, or life experience that literally every single girl in the world can relate to; we all know everything about her relationships and which song was about which boy. “Fifteen” is probably my favorite story from the ones I know about her life. She tells the story of her freshman year of high school. She shares her nerves of the first day, the ambitions she has, the naive nature of falling for boys, and the friendships she makes along the way. She makes a friendship with a friend named Abigail that’s so cool and powerful; this girl gives her virginity to a guy who didn’t love her back … ”And we both cried!” writes Taylor. I mean, my 15-year-old self definitely couldn’t relate to this song, even though I desperately tried to back in the day, but I relate to it so much now that I’m in college and am experiencing new relationships and am seeing such new, scary, beautiful things. This song just is the best.

4. “Babel” - Mumford and Sons

Mumford & Sons graciously puts the Biblical story of Babel into beautiful, poetic lyrics. This powerful story follows the people from Genesis who try to build a huge tower, a sort of stairway to heaven. They all spoke the same language and wanted to make a name for themselves to better themselves for God, almost one-upping each other. But God, of course, thwarted their plans since it was not His way of doing things and scattered them all so they all spoke different languages. They were making something man-made, not God-made, so God helped them turn back towards Him and away from themselves. Mumford and Sons is known for putting together good words that have a sort of underlying Biblical reference, and “Babel” definitely strips down the human condition and provides deep humility to God.

5. “Follow Your Arrow” - Kacey Musgraves

Kacey definitely wins the title of country girl badass. She has an air about her that seems to say, “I couldn’t care less what you think of me.” It’s so freeing. While her song “Follow Your Arrow” gained a little bit of controversy, it’s pretty safe to say that audiences everywhere appreciate what she’s trying to say. The whole song seems to shrug its shoulders in almost an existential manner, encouraging the freedom of choices and going after whatever you want. She wrote the song in the form of a poem for her friend who was going off to a foreign country for awhile; she gave her an arrow necklace and the poem, and sent her on her way, then later developed the song into something deeper and more entertaining for her audience.

6. “How To Save A Life” - The Fray

This is probably one of the most powerful songs I’ve ever heard. I’ve listened to it countless times in the past, but it wasn’t until recently that I figured out what it was all about. Lead singer Isaac Slade worked as a counselor and mentor at a camp for troubled teens. While he was there, one boy in particular stood out to him.

“One of the youngsters I was paired up with was a musician. Here I was, a protected suburbanite, and he was just 17 and had all these problems. And no one could write a manual on how to save him.”

Slade wrote the song for everyone who tried and failed to help this poor kid. Often, people feel that they can just tell someone how to solve their problems and that’s all there is to it. But there’s no direct guide for curing someone. Slade thought about all the relationships the boy had hurt by his bad decisions and related them to his own relationships ruined to create such a powerful song that really seems to understand people going through a tough time.

7. “Afire Love” - Ed Sheeran

Once you know what this song is about, it will most definitely become a tear-jerker for you. It tells the story of his grandfather’s 20-year battle with Alzheimer’s; apparently Sheeran finished writing the song at his grandfather’s funeral. He describes the slow process of his grandfather slowly forgetting who he was while the disease took over, but he also focuses on the powerful love of his grandparents that inspire him. The ending blends together a beautiful echo of “hallelujahs" that seem to mimic a funeral song. This song is so beautiful and powerful.

8. “The Men That Drive Me Places” - Ben Rector

Ben Rector most definitely writes some of the most beautifully insightful songs that focus on the events of his life that have gotten him to where he is today. This song, “The Men That Drive Me Places,” focuses in on the stories most people don’t really pay attention to. Being a traveling musician, he gets driven around all the time in innumerable cabs, and this song really shows that he has listened to his drivers’ stories. They are so passionate and use every circumstance that has been given to them to pursue a life they believe their families deserve. They work so hard to provide the best for the people they love, and hearing these stories and seeing this dedication inspired and humbled Ben, since he is under completely different circumstances where for him, everything seems to be going his way exactly how he has wanted it. It’s a humbling song from a humbling guy; gotta love this one.

9. “Silver Springs” - Fleetwood Mac

Okay, okay. I’m sorry for including another one, but Stevie Nicks just rocks so there’s no way I couldn’t put this one on here too. The story behind “Silver Springs” is so amazing. No one could put the story into better words than Stevie herself:

“I wrote Silver Springs uh, about Lindsey. And I ~ we were in Maryland somewhere driving under a freeway sign that said Silver Spring, Maryland. And I loved the name. ...Silver Springs sounded like a pretty fabulous place to me. And uh, 'You could be my silver springs...' that's just a whole symbolic thing of what you could have been to me.”

Whoa, right?!

10. “Where The Streets Have No Name” - U2

Bono’s music genius is perhaps most widely recognized through this powerful song. He loves to explore Christianity and help the poor, and this endeavor has inspired many of his greatest U2 hits. “Where The Streets Have No Name” is really about a combination of events that impacted him in his travels around the world. He saw the harsh reality of the poverty in Africa after working for six weeks onsite; “I want to run, I want to hide” was Bono’s way of expressing his own frustration for his inability to help all of the wonderful people he met, while he also can describe the way these starving Africans felt about their frustrations.

Bono also describes the song as having to do with the social situation in Belfast. The city is so prevalent to discrimination based on wealth, to the point that you were able to tell a whole lot about people and could judge them by what street they lived on in the city. Bono loves Ireland, so the song acts as a wish for the streets to just have no name and for everyone to respect each other and get along as he would see fit. The streets in this perfect world cannot exist on this imperfect Earth; Bono’s strong faith in Jesus makes me believe this world he dreams of is heaven, and whenever I’ve listened to the song, heaven is the place I imagine, too. It’s pretty cool to be able to imagine things for yourself about a song that lines up perfectly with what the writer was intending when he wrote it. So basically I’m Bono … (just kidding).

Music is such a powerful thing, and the stories of common life experiences that writers endure inspires them to create the most beautiful pieces that their audience can relate to. Now, these were just ten of the coolest backstories behind songs, but every song has a story, and every story is beautiful and full of life, power and inspiration. I’m just glad we live in a world with such incredible expression and emotion that people share with each other; it’s a connection we can’t really explain, but it’s such a beautiful one.