Bassett’s single cover for his new song, “Just Love.” Photo Credit: Genius.com
It’s not often that songs expressing universal love, crisis awareness and prevention, and unity end up being chart-toppers in our current society. In fact, none of the top ten songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for the week of September 23 address these themes. This isn’t to say the top ten songs aren’t deserving of their successes. However, songs with deeper, universal messaging for change and awareness do exist, even though they may not receive significant attention.
On September 22, 2023, pop-singer Joshua Bassett released a new single called, “Just Love.” The song promotes saving lives through spreading love to all, including oneself and one’s community. The self-directed music video captures the personal struggles of three main characters, ranging from what appears to be a kid to a teengager to a young adult. At the beginning of the video, Bassett confirmed the scenes with the parents fighting were fictional. However, the musical interest of the child and the curly brown-haired appearance of the other two male characters can make a viewer wonder if this portrays Bassett at different points in his own life.
The characters undergo evident loneliness, depression, substance abuse, and life with domestic abuse between parents. In his song, Bassett raises the question, “what if we just love?” He implies how we can save those souls and support the people who need it the most through love. One set of lyrics that stands out in the song and promotes this theme is, “too many havе lost their lives and too many tears wе’ve cried ’cause we couldn’t seem to see the light.”
Towards the end of the music video, there is a unity between people from different backgrounds, experiences, identities, and struggles inside of a Church, reflecting Bassett’s religious background and motivation. The soulful sound of the song also reflects his Christian religion. Bassett enters the Church with the three main characters, which can symbolize his self-discovery and/or how he wished he felt welcomed during his youth.
The music video also gives attention to soldiers. When Bassett sings, “in the black ties they fight, ’bout who’s wrong or right, while the innocent die,” a mother looks at a remembrance photo of her veteran son who passed away. This could imply he passed away fighting in a loveless war or that the veteran was a suicide victim. Bassett listed statistics at the end of the video, writing, “More veterans die from suicide than at war.”
Among these statistics includes additional facts about suicide, varying types of abuse, trafficking, hunger, and poverty in hopes to raise awareness and encourage his viewers to be the change. One statistic displayed is, “A report of child abuse is made every ten seconds in the United States. (25 times since the start of this video).” He then concluded the video with another written remark, saying, “It ends with us. It ends with love.”
The harrowing statistics may seem to reach a broader demographic and may not hit close to home. However, mental health, specifically depression and suicide, ranked as the top health concern for Nassau and Suffolk Counties, according to a press release from the Long Island Health Collaborative on March 29, 2023. Concerns about drug and alcohol abuse followed.
The Interagency Task Force on Human Trafficking’s 2021 Annual Report said, “Human trafficking referrals continued to spike in 2021, with 344 cases referred to New York State –more than in any prior year since the referral process was started in 2007.” 295 of these referrals were confirmed and 52 were from the Long Island and lower Hudson Valley regions.
The State of New York reported that the suicide mortality rate per 100,000 people from 2018 to 2020 was 640 people on Long Island alone. 248 of these deaths were in Nassau County and 392 were in Suffolk County. In December of 2022, “suicide rates among veterans [were] twice as high as among the civilian population,” according to the New York Health Foundation, with veterans ages 18-54 “experienc[ing] the highest rates of suicide.”
Resources are available to help with these crises. The Long Island Crisis Center (LICC), a non-profit organization that specializes in confidential short-term crisis counseling, can be reached at (516)679-1111. SUNY Old Westbury offers resources, as well. The Student Health Center and Counseling & Psychological Wellness Services are located in the I-Wing of the Campus Center, also known as the “Wellness Wing.” Their respective phone numbers are (516) 876-3053 and (516) 876-3250. Additional information is available on their websites. Resources that Bassett listed in his music video description are as follows:
“Suicide and Crisis Lifeline – 988
National Domestic Violence Hotline – 1-800-799-7233
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service – 1-800-662-4357
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children – 1-800-843-5678
National Call Center for Homeless Veterans – 1-877-424-3838 and Press 1
National Human Trafficking Hotline – 1-888-373-7888”
You are not alone.
