Cart
0
The Music Room
What is “Levels” actually about?
Almost nothing, in words — it is a riff and a sampled vocal. Avicii released it in 2011, when he was twenty-two.
Does it help on a hard day?
Yes, for one specific job: getting a body that does not want to move, moving. There is no story in it to follow and nothing to interpret. It is momentum in audio form, and on a morning where the obstacle is physical rather than emotional, that is the right tool.
It is also the song most likely to get a teenager out of a room, which on some days is the entire objective.
What it is
A house record produced by Tim Bergling, who worked as Avicii, released in 2011. It is built on a sampled vocal line and a synth riff that became one of the defining sounds of the decade.
Who this is wrong for, and when
Avicii died in 2018, at twenty-eight, and this record became a memorial anthem afterwards. It is played at tributes and vigils, and for a lot of listeners under forty it now carries his death with it.
If you lost somebody young, a song that a generation uses to mourn somebody young may not be the neutral piece of momentum it looks like on paper.
Why it is on this list
Because almost nothing else on the page does pure, wordless propulsion this well, and because the music research is consistent that tempo moves arousal — the ability to get up and do something — even when it does not touch mood. Some days the problem is not sadness. It is inertia.
If this one is not right for you
Rhapsody in Blue is also wordless, with no association attached. Jerusalema for movement with other people in it. Here Comes the Sun if momentum is not what today needs.
Where to hear it
Streaming on every major service. Read about it on Wikipedia · Find the credits on AllMusic.
We make nothing from these links. There are no affiliate links anywhere on this page and there never will be.
Back to the room
The Music Room — one hundred songs, sorted by what the moment needs.
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We publish the test we use on ourselves, including the parts we do not pass yet. Read it here.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988. Crisis Text Line — text HOME to 741741. Never behind a form on this site.
Before you give to anyone
How to tell if a charity deserves your money
We wrote down the checklist we use. Before we send a dollar anywhere, we run the organization through CharityWatch, the BBB Wise Giving Alliance, Charity Navigator and Candid. It is one page, and it works on any charity — including this one.
Read the checklist — freeOn the site, right now. Nothing to fill in and no email needed.
Start here — free, no sign-up
Guide one · 7 pages
A Reason to Get Up
Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning, and what that book can and cannot do for you after somebody dies. Who Frankl actually was, what he actually argued, and the famous quote that is not his.
Download the guide — freePDF, 7 pages. Nothing to fill in, no email, no ask attached to it.
Three more, if you want them
These are the books we read and the things we did after we lost Austin. Not advice and not therapy — an honest account of what helped us, and what the research actually says about each of it. Every statistic in them carries a source and a year.
Guide two · 9 pages
The Circling
The Power of Now, and what is actually happening when you cannot stop going over it. Includes the part no grief guide prints: meditation is not risk-free, and who should be careful.
Guide three · 11 pages
Give It Away
Why doing something for somebody else, expecting nothing back, appears to do something for you. With a verified list of places that will take you this week, and the ones that will ask you to wait a year.
Guide four · 16 pages
The First Year
The practical one. What actually has to be done, what the months afterward really look like, and fifty things that might help — each one labeled for whether there is evidence behind it.
If tonight is bad
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org. Free, confidential, 24 hours a day, anywhere in the US. You do not have to be in immediate danger to use it.
Crisis Text Line. Text HOME to 741741.
Veterans Crisis Line. Dial 988 then press 1, or text 838255.
If there is an immediate danger to life, call 911.
