The Stories We Listen To: What Musicians Are Really Singing About
How music forms out of its performers' emotions.
Music often becomes genuine therapy for artists, letting them turn pain, disappointment, or traumatic experience into art. Lyrics and melody help artists 'voice' feelings that are hard to put into ordinary words.
Approaches like these echo the concept of music therapy, where creative work serves as a way of expressing inner emotion. How artists turn personal experience into music — read on in this DeTalks article.
Olivia Rodrigo, Joshua Bassett, and Sabrina Carpenter
Olivia was 17 when she first got behind the wheel with a brand-new driver's license — and a freshly broken heart. She opened her journal and wrote the lines that became the opening of the song 'Drivers License,' capturing that exact moment.
The singer addressed her breakup with Joshua Bassett directly in the song.
“«Cause how could I ever love someone else?»” / “Guess you didn't mean what you wrote in that song about me”
These lines echoed Bassett's own earlier song 'Anyone Else,' where he'd sung the following.
“How am I supposed to think about anything else?”
'Drivers License' became the most successful debut of 2021, but for Sabrina Carpenter, that popularity turned into a different reality altogether. At the time, the singer and Joshua were dating.
“You’re probably with that blonde girl / She’s so much older than me…”.
Social media cast Sabrina as the 'guilty party,' calling her a 'homewrecker' and the 'villain' of someone else's story.
Carpenter later released the song 'Skin,' which came out almost two weeks after Olivia's song went viral. Listeners took it as a response, given how closely the details lined up.
“Maybe we could’ve been friends / There's no gravity in the words we write / Maybe you didn't mean it / Maybe "blonde" was the only rhyme”
The real story behind her traumatic experience came later — in the song 'Because I Liked a Boy,' which opened the album 'Emails I Can't Send.'
“Now I’m a homewrecker, I’m a slut / I'm a rebound gettin' 'round, stealin' from the young”
Today, the two singers show no signs of rivalry — they were even spotted chatting together in photos from the 2022 Met Gala.
Billie Eilish
Over several years, the singer experienced a series of stalking incidents, including attempts to breach her private property. She described that traumatic experience in the song 'The Diner,' sung from a first-person perspective — not as the victim, but as the stalker himself.
“I waited on the corner 'til I saw the sitter leave” / “Was easy getting over and I landed on my feet”
The first person to stalk her was Prenell Rousseau, who during the pandemic circled the singer's house seven times. John Hearle, meanwhile, went further than simply lingering by the fence and peering through windows — he left threatening letters suggesting she wouldn't get what she wanted unless she wanted to die for him.
Christopher Anderson, in 2023, tried to enter Billie's home uninvited after leaving love letters and gifts at her door.
“Bet I could change your life” / “You could be my wife”
Raymond Black was caught on security cameras standing beneath her living room window, and reportedly even used the outdoor shower on her property on one occasion.
“The cops around the corner stopped me when I tried to leave”
In interviews and court statements, Billie has repeatedly said that these situations affected her mental health. The singer moved and strengthened her home security system.
Lana Del Rey
Part of Lana Del Rey's creative work is also interpreted as a reflection of personal experience. When her album 'Ultraviolence' came out, for instance, she spoke in one interview about having once belonged to a group she herself described as an 'underground cult.'
According to Lana, this group was led by a charismatic leader who surrounded himself with young women and promoted control and psychological submission. The singer noted, though, that she eventually realized the leader's methods were harmful and left the community.
In the title track 'Ultraviolence,' Lana addresses that dynamic directly.
“Cause I’m your jazz singer” / “And you’re my cult leader …”
“Jim told me that / He hit me and it felt like a kiss”
In the song 'Cruel World,' the singer references a young man and the women around him, echoing her earlier account of the cult leader.
“And I like my candy and your women" / "I'm finally happy now that you're gone”
Lady Gaga
In one of her songs, Lady Gaga revealed that she was raped by a music producer at age 19. According to her, he threatened to destroy her music if she refused him.
In the documentary series 'The Me You Can't See,' Gaga shared that the experience led to a 'total psychotic break.' The singer said that her song 'Swine' became a way to release that trauma and anger.
“I know you want me" / “You're just a pig inside a human body" / “Squealer, squealer, squeal out, you're so disgusting”
Gaga has described the song as being about rape, about rage and passion, and about demoralization, saying she had a great deal of pain that she wanted to release, she said. Through 'Swine' and other candid statements, the singer turned a personal tragedy into a public act of healing.
d4vd
Singer d4vd (David Anthony Burke) won over the world with the hit 'Romantic Homicide,' which metaphorically explores themes of jealousy, death, and the end of a relationship. In the lyrics, he describes an imagined act of violence against a former partner, delivered without any apparent remorse.
“In the back of my mind, I killed you" / And I didn’t even regret it”
But this artistic image took on troubling new weight in September 2025. That's when, in a Tesla registered to the singer, was found the body of 15-year-old Celeste Rivas Hernandez. Police classified the case as a homicide investigation.
In other words, d4vd had released a track with the word 'Homicide' already in its title, and the appearance of the girl in the accompanying music video shared similarities with the real victim. The singer explained that 'Romantic Homicide' was purely a creative metaphor, and that the song had come out long before the teenager's disappearance.
The investigation is ongoing, and no formal charges have been filed so far, though searches have been conducted at the artist's address.
Music becomes a way to talk about what sometimes can't be said out loud. Each of these artists, in their own way, turns personal experience into a story that resonates with millions of listeners.