Why Lord Huron's Frozen Pines is a healing song about life changes

Lord Huron has made many songs that can emanate a place of peace with the songs they create, they have created interesting stories to relate to. They have made songs about revenge, scorn, and rendezvous, and then there is Frozen Pines, which is a song for the soul.

I've never heard a song like Frozen Pines convey a message about being lost in life and assuring that it'll be OK. Of the songs I've heard to relay a message of hope usually comes off as too melancholy or too sugarcoated, so it wouldn't give a sense of comfort. Frozen Pines is a song about acceptance of an outcome and going into uncertain territory in your evolution.

This song came into my life as I was getting help for my depression. I found this song by accident when it was mentioned in fanfiction, and I decided to give this song a shot. I normally don't listen to soft songs like this, but this ended up being a gamble to play that I credit for having a part in my continuing metamorphosis and my mental health progress. I played this song for weeks on repeat, I played it on my way to therapy appointments, I played it on my walks in the forest, and I played it when I went to sleep. This is a song that I can rely on to help me maintain my mindset.

I'll be explaining throughout this analysis how I related to the song in certain frames or my interpretation of it. This song might just be what you're looking for in a remedy for clarity. I would encourage you to press play on the video to listen to it as your read to piece together what I'm going to be explaining.

Lyric Breakdown

Its ethereal beginning helps calm the soul as the singer begins the song about the start of the trail into the forest-

Deep into the night

With the moonlight as my guide

I will wander through the pines and make my way to nature's shrines

He describes the beginning of his travels in a dark and cold forest with just the moonlight, thinking on that lyric, that does describe what it feels like to wander a new path of life and leave the old life behind. That is the spot-on metaphorical way to relate to describe the clarity and melancholy emotions while still feeling lost in your path. We all make this journey to clarity lost in the cold darkness.

There is peace within the topic of this song about navigating a trail we don't know because it's leaving the old life behind and it's just time to move on.

Looking at the next frame of lyrics-

And I look up to the sky

And I know you're still alive

But I wonder where you are, I call your name into the dark

He's still unsure of where this trail will lead him, he knows in his soul that there is someone else out there waiting for him.

This frame in particular automatically makes me feel at peace to identify with a singer that doesn't know where life will take him and navigating a lost path in life. There's a moment in everyone's life where we feel we have no idea where to go. We can't stay in the same place even if we don't know where it is we are going but we know somehow, someway, somewhere there is a path that does lead to a better life.

There's an uplifting message that gives hope that something or someone is out there and there is a better life than the one that caused strife and grief. To accept that life will change for the better and a chapter has to close for another to begin.

"And it feels like I've been away for an era, but nothing has changed at all

And it feels like I've been with you but, oh, what did you do and where have you gone?"

There's a lesson to be said about leaving behind the ones we knew in our previous way of life, and unfortunately, they won't be on for the journey. I can interpret this part as moving on from friends that we have outgrown or we have to let go-

"I don't want to be the only one living and all my friends are gone"

The part that hit me in my soul gave me the relief to my mind to accept what happened with some friends. I identified with it as letting go of the friends in my former circle as I have closed that chapter with them and it's time to move on. I was in a critical part of my life when I felt alone because of the continual loss of friendships or constant letdowns from friends in my life. We have our paths in life and sometimes the people in your life just won't be present for your evolution. It might be that new people are going to be in the next chapter of your life that you can hold onto.

The Balance

If you mixed the happiness of Go Your Own Way by Fleetwood Mac and the somber nature of California Dreamin' by the Mamas & The Papas. That is the best way to explain the balance that Frozen Pines has to be a song for the soul. A song with a message of clarity in the beginning. Most of the songs are about moving on or wanting to go somewhere else. Most of them don't talk about that travel, the emotional clarity, and how you got lost on your path to figuring it out on your own.

Some songs offer the clarity of moving on from the pain of the past, no matter what it was that was dwelling and sullying the soul. Frozen Pines felt more genuine, I mentioned earlier that I liked the fact that it didn't have a happy sound so I could have a song on the emotional level I was at, but it wasn't too melancholy that it couldn't give me relief and make me sink further into a depressive state.

It's always great to have a song that can lift your spirits or have a song that can sum up exactly how you are feeling about your mental health. However, you use music for your coping mechanisms or positive strengths is accepted and acknowledged for how we use music. There is no right or wrong way to use music for therapeutic reasons.

Frozen Pines may or may not be a song that you would particularly gravitate towards in music taste and that's OK. I've shared this song with some friends to offer as a therapeutic song, some of them liked it, and some of them didn't. It was just a song I knew that had a somber sound to share with others to listen to and open for interpretation to have their insertion to relate.

We turn to music to have something that can take us away from the moment of melancholy feelings for the period of that song. Lord Huron has done different songs on their discography that can help you ruminate on the pain you feel in a way that can begin your healing process. You can think of your situation differently with this kind of song that provides the slice of life advice.

After listening to this song, I could ruminate about my placement in life and be content with the acceptance of the outcome. When I was getting help for depression, this was something that resonate and relieved my soul of what I was going through, the loss of friendship, feelings of being unwanted, and the feeling of being lost. We don't know where we are going in life, but there is a destination that we know of despite being lost and we don't know what, where, or who we are looking for. There is peace in our unknown destination that we know will be a better life. Sometimes it just means wandering for a while until we get to where we know we belong and who we belong with.