Why do people sing? Why is it so vital that we would go to great lengths to do it, even under oppression? Linda Ronstadt offers a perspective that mirrors the birds’ impulse: “They sing for a mate, to stake their claim on territory, or simply to utter the joy of being alive on a bright day. They sing so that the next generations won’t forget what the current one endured, or dreamed, or delighted in.”
We commemorate countless moments with song: we sing in classrooms, on birthdays, and during worship; we sing to grieve, to express sorrow, to protest, to impress, to connect with others. Some people adore singing, others avoid it; some believe they cannot and shrink away from trying, while some think they might manage but fear attempting. Some of us simply cannot stop singing, regardless of skill—and may it be so blessed.
No matter where we land among these diverse (and by no means exhaustive) tendencies, we all sing, or at least must navigate situations that demand it. Our singing voices are our least socialized voices, and therefore the most susceptible; even the most well-trained singer carries a private everyday voice—the one that surfaces while doing dishes or changing the sheets. (What a pure, earnest sound—the voice singing for its own sake.) Singing can forge solidarity, weave individuals into a community, and serve as a mode of protest and hope.
Singing occupies a central place in my life, not as essential as eating or breathing, but certainly on par with showering or sipping coffee.
Most of us have felt the extraordinary joy of joining our voice with another’s, even if it’s just the voice on the radio, and it turns out there’s a reason it feels so good—because, quite literally, it is good for our bodies. Scientific research has shown that singing, particularly in a group setting, yields a range of benefits—from stabilizing mental health to easing stress hormones, strengthening the immune system, expanding lung capacity, aiding postpartum depression, and stimulating memories in people living with dementia. Singing is reparative. We ought to keep singing!
Yet we humans “are the animal with a difficult relationship to corporeality,” as my philosopher friend Emily Laurent-Monaghan recently observed, and this gives us a singular capacity to brood over how our bodies are produced, torturing ourselves in pursuit of perfection. When Kiri Te Kanawa retired in 2016, the New Zealand soprano could point to no single ideal performance. “I never truly left the stage thinking, ‘I’ve nailed it,’” she told the BBC. “Never. I always felt there was a mistake somewhere in it.” It seems healthy, both for singing and for art-making in general, to be able to walk away from such mistakes without wishing for a redo; to practice a gentle regard for the imperfect voice, the imperfect body. Our imperfect selves! Forever aiming for excellence, painfully aware that we fall short of our ambitions.
Singing is a crucial part of my life, not as necessary as eating or breathing, but certainly as showering or drinking coffee. It functions as a physical and emotional necessity, a hygiene and cleansing ritual as much as a creative outlet. I sing while tidying the house, while slipping on my contact lenses. In the afternoons, when the house is quiet, I sit at the piano and lose track of time until the doorbell rings and the afternoon mail arrives, jolting me back to reality, pleasantly dazed yet fulfilled. For me, singing feels like scratching an itch: a tangible, satisfying sensation. It resonates with my experience as a writer, when the right words finally align, and the passage snaps into place.
However, unlike writing, which at least partly serves others, I don’t sing to be heard. In fact, I’d rather not be. The shame I feel in admitting this longing, making it so audible and public, is heavy—singing carries a more visceral sense of failure than a paragraph that misses the mark.
I was born singing: I sang before I learned to speak. I would return from nursery, perform for my mother with the corresponding hand and foot motions, the songs we’d learned that day. If I truly loved a tune I heard on the radio, I’d hurry to the piano and play it by ear. I wasn’t some prodigy, improvising Bach fugues before I could read, but music came to me naturally, more than anything else. There is no time prior to music for me; my earliest childhood memories are saturated with music. Music still holds the purest thrill—the intensity and intent behind it, its rhythm and its disruptions, its power to surprise and to shock. I feel more connected to music than to language, and sometimes worry I am a fraud as a writer because I am essentially a musician who turned to prose.
Pursuing a career in theatre eventually began to feel too exposing.
By sixteen I was commuting forty minutes to a performing arts high school called the Cultural Arts Center, spending half the day there and then returning to my own school to study English and French in the afternoons. I dropped math and science after tenth grade because I had no plan to attend a traditional university: I wanted to major in musical theatre, and the theatre programs cared only that you were talented, not that your transcripts showed a certain curriculum.
My voice might have been a form of nakedness, but musical theatre came uncomfortably close. I look back in astonishment at some of the performances we did then; I wore revealing outfits more often than not. How many times did I portray a prostitute or an exotic dancer? (What is it about musical theatre and sex workers?) When we tackled Sweet Charity in my senior year, we sported glittery leotards, high heels, and danced to suggestive lines for an audience full of parents and relatives. We were seventeen, unaware of our own beauty, and we bared it for the world to see.
As the years passed and I entered theatre beyond the confines of a suburban high school, adults began commenting on my appearance. I heard it suggested I should have my nose done and lose ten pounds to be more competitive. I cannot recall every person who said such things; the feedback was so commonplace that it faded into the background. Of course I loathed certain parts of my body—my nose, for instance, and the slight curve of my stomach—but I recognized they were wrong about my weight, and it felt insane to tell a slender seventeen-year-old to shed ten pounds. I had the clarity to know I was fine as I was, and I needed that strength to support my voice, this sometimes enormous instrument that could wobble if I didn’t stand firm in its resonance.
Looking back, I am disappointed in how I handled it. I should have fought to stay in the field. There are many singers and actors on Broadway who refused to tailor their bodies to match what casting directors demanded, including some women my age who faced the same body-shaming. Why didn’t I hold onto my principles and persevere? Singing still felt good, but the constant corporeal competition overshadowed the joy, and I did not want to live in that pressure indefinitely.
Since leaving the theatre, I have often reflected on why I chose writing over music. Among trained singers, many voices sound good, and one well-executed voice isn’t radically distinct from another; truly irreplaceable talents are scarce. It seems to me that today, many of the women you hear on Broadway possess interchangeable voices. Somewhere in college I discovered the liberating blank page, where I could say whatever I wanted, in whatever way, with a freedom that meant there was no competition. Writing embraced me as I was and did not demand that I shed parts of myself. In writing, I could be judged for what I produced—the substance of my ideas—rather than being measured solely by sound. In music, the judgment is only as fair as everyone else’s, and I eventually fell quiet.
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From Vocal Break by Lauren Elkin. Used with the permission of the publisher, Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Copyright © 2026 by Lauren Elkin
