Music is everywhere. It is one of the deepest, most ancient, and most mysterious aspects of human life. It’s not just sound, it is woven into everyday life, it wakes us up, we feel through it, we act under its influence. It has the power to define one’s life, and it helps us discover and inhabit a world where we actually belong. It has been this way forever, throughout history, cultures, generations, ethnicities, globally.

Music is something else — no other form of expression travels as fast, cuts as deep, or lasts as long. It does not just accompany life — it drives it

It is a human necessity, as essential as storytelling, ritual, or language.

Anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists have all tried to capture this truth. Plato argued that music forms character before logic does. Schopenhauer saw it as the most direct expression of our inner drive, the “will.” Nietzsche called it the purest Dionysian force, a raw surge of energy running through existence. Durkheim and Weber explained music as ritual glue and social marker, shaping solidarity, identity, and meaning. Bourdieu described how taste in music signals cultural capital and distinction. Across all these perspectives, one fact holds: music is never neutral.

In this recognition—and for some of us, music is fully integrated into our lives by choice and by necessity—we can truly understand what Nietzsche meant when he said, “Without music, life would be a mistake.”