We are not living in the time of afterschool specials, radio dedications, and songs that reached through the static to touch a hurting child’s heart.
We are not living in the time of afterschool specials, radio dedications, and songs that reached through the static to touch a hurting child’s heart.
So sometimes we have to borrow from the past.
We have to go back to songs like Billy Joel’s “You’re Only Human,” not because the past was perfect, but because some things were done with intention. That song did not talk down to young people. It did not pretend sadness was weakness. It met them in the hard place and reminded them that shame is not a life sentence.
There was a time when music, television, and radio sometimes took young people seriously enough to interrupt the entertainment and say: hold on. Your life is still here. Your future is still breathing. You are allowed to make mistakes and still live to see yourself become someone stronger.
We need more of that now.
Not empty nostalgia. Not pretending the old days were safer than they were. But a willingness to reclaim the kind of art that reached for the lonely, the embarrassed, the overwhelmed, and the quietly breaking.
Because some young people will never tell an adult everything. Some will not have the words. Some will not trust the room. But a song can become a hand on the shoulder. A voice in the night. A small light saying, “Don’t leave yet. You are only human.”
Some songs are bigger than their chart position.
In this episode Tonya GJ Prince gets personal with a look at Billy Joel’s “You’re Only Human (Second Wind)” and the little-known purpose behind the song: a message of hope for young people facing shame, despair, and thoughts of self-harm.
We also revisit the spirit of Casey Kasem’s radio era, when countdowns were not only about numbers, but about listener stories, dedications, memory, and the human lives attached to music. This is part music history, part cultural reflection, and part love letter to young people who are growing up in a world that measures almost everything by numbers: followers, streams, likes, rankings, relevance, and reach.
But like human beings, music was never meant to be only a scoreboard. Music is an art form that can become the voice in the night. It can say what hurting people may not yet know how to say out loud: “I hear you. I see you. There is a way through.”
This episode invites listeners to remember the soul of music, the power of songs that help people hold on, and the truth that a life does not have to be popular to be precious.