"I want to impact the world but I can't do it alone"

I just watched The Rocket Summer’s new video for ‘Do You Feel’. If you haven’t seen it you can find it here but for now, please feel free to read this article. In 2005 To Write Love on Her Arms was established. TWLOHA is a non-profit organisation working to fight against depression, suicide, addiction and self harm; it has gotten a lot of bad press about it being for “emo kids” (even though they have helped people of all ages), and people generally not taking the problem seriously; but the world is slowly breaking apart, and there’s only a few people left who are trying to keep it together. While TWLOHA are doing an amazing job, they wouldn’t be reaching half the people they get through to every day if it wasn’t for the bands who support them – Paramore, Anberlin, The Rocket Summer, Between the Trees, Switchfoot, Copeland, Underoath and Hawthorne Heights (who greatly appreciated the help that TWLOHA gave them when their guitarist, Casey Calvert, sadly passed away earlier this year), to name a few.

If you know anything about TWLOHA, you’ll know it all started with one girl called Renee (her story can be found here ) - Between the Trees wrote a song about her story called ‘The Way She Feels’ and have also made a video for it. The impact of this song has been crazy – it’s honest and doesn’t try to hide what she went through. Because of TWLOHA people are becoming less afraid to talk about things like self harm, depression and suicide and this song makes it clear it’s something that happens daily.

But back to the start of the article – The Rocket Summer’s new video. Just like ‘The Way She Feels’ this song is true and honest with lyrics like, “I can’t help it, I got too many issues I own, so I cannot help I’m afraid. But keep on preachin’, preachin’ and healing the world, lip service makes us look great.” Bryce Avery admits to the selfishness that he is a part of while being blunt to the rest of the world, reminding us no one is perfect and that we’re “all talk and no action”. The video includes many people from different bands such as Paramore, Jack’s Mannequin and All Time Low, and also a few people you won’t recognise – these are the people with the stories – a girl who grew up with an alcoholic, a man who has lived in a van for 97 days, a young man who is the first in his whole family to go to college and a woman who beat cancer eight years ago – her smile brings a tear to the eye.

At the end of the video six hands are held up separately and they read, “I want to impact the world but I can’t do it alone.” Right now something is telling me this article is important, this music is important, this song and it’s video are important. This isn’t your average Belfast Calling blog entry and I’m not afraid to write these things. If you want to impact the world it’s easy to do – support TWLOHA, buy a t-shirt, tell your friends about them, add them to your friends on myspace. Don’t be afraid to talk about things, share The Rocket Summer’s video with your friends. There’s plenty of organisations such as Invisible Children and Keep a Breast who are working to make the world a happier place, to give hope in the dark times. Just listen to Paramore’s song, ‘We Are Broken’, share it with your friends as well.

The world is a broken, dark place, but music can change that – everyday, songs change people’s lives. This ‘every man for himself’ attitude that so many people have these days has got to stop. It’s true, we can’t impact the world alone – but you’re not alone anymore.


You can check out The Rocket Summer at www.myspace.com/therocketsummer
And you can find out more about To Write Love on Her Arms and get in contact with them at www.myspace.com/towriteloveonherarms