The songs give us life, and also tear us apart

When you’re a passionate music fan in a pandemic, you look for consolation in the songs you love. As always, music is the shelter from the storm. But music is also the storm. The songs you love might promise you a safe refuge, a little peace of mind. But you already know the songs are going to mess you up, ravage your heart, remind you of faces you miss and loud times you’re not having and weird places you’d rather be. Living with music these days can be total agony. Living without it? Merely impossible - Rolling Stone's journalist writes in his essay about how he misses live music these days; and how he dreams live music - terrible live music - every night, and LOVES it.