'Wasting Our Youth Is A Crime'

If you’ve never sat underneath the stars on a clear night and listened to a song that made your entire world stop its orbit and spin in the opposite direction, you haven’t truly experienced the magic of music.

This recently happened to me on a breezy night back in May; I was listening to a new EP that been released by an artist that I had come across on the internet a few months earlier. As I sat in the silence of the night with only this song playing through my headphones, I felt every word move through me and bring an entirely new meaning to my life. When I heard the track "Wasted Youth" from Roy English’s I’m Not Here Pt. 1 EP, my perspective and my vision, my hope and my passion all shifted and in that moment I was eternally effected by the power of music.

This song, for me, is about the magic of being young and the power that the youth actually hold on this planet. When the song opens there is a short build until the first line, “They say the youth is wasted on the young ones” sinks into your ears. Followed by the lyrics, “So let’s have our fun while we can, cuz only love will matter in the long run.” This is where my world began to slow and the realization that this part of my life, as a youth, matters. It matters, perhaps more than anything else ever will because in the end, love is the only thing that matters, not money or status or time that I can’t get back. The time to have fun and learn and experience life is right now, because this is the only time that I’m guaranteed to have. This is the chance that I have to love with everything I have to offer. The only thing that will matter in the end, is the love that we give.

Next comes the chorus that brought my entire planet to a stop, with the words, “We are invincible tonight, wasting our youth is a crime, we choose the lives we leave behind, wasting our youth is a crime.” As I sat under the stars with only the words of this song in my heart I realized the truth of how detrimental it is to waste one second of my youth, to waste one second of life. The notion that only I am responsible for the life that I leave behind hit me like a ton of bricks and sent my mind spinning. I couldn’t help but wonder why I’ve spent so much time wondering who I want to be and what kind of life it is that I want to leave behind instead of doing it. Why have I talked about the mark I want to leave on this world instead of setting out to actually do it? These words sank into my ears and into my soul and stopped my planet from spinning with their weight, and set my heart on fire for the magic that is inside myself and each and every human on this planet.

My world was set into motion again with the words, “In this moment here together, you and I will live forever.” How incredibly insane it is that our hearts have the potential to live forever? We have the potential to choose the life, the legacy, which we leave behind. We can live forever if we’re here in the moment and aware of the magic inside of us. We’re told that we’re young and insignificant, but we’re invincible and have the absolute gift of being here in this place, right now. What are we going to do with that? Do we waste our youth or do we go out and leave such a powerful story that we change the world for the youth to come?

Music is powerful, we are magical, and life is so important and worth truly living. This song truly changed my heart and my mind, and set in motion a passion inside of me to live so completely that my heart and the life I leave behind is invincible and earth changing for someone else.

If you would like to hear this song, you can listen here: