Singer-songwriter Lauren Jauregui has long been open about her own mental health, and now she’s channeling that journey into her music in a powerful new way. Jauregui, along with three other musical artists, has partnered with Sound It Out, a national campaign that uses music to help middle school kids and their caregivers have open, honest conversations about mental health. The artists — Jauregui, KAMAUU, Tobe Nwigwe, and Empress Of — each had a personal conversation with one middle schooler and their caregiver, facilitated by a mental health expert. They then created songs inspired by those conversations, and the result is an EP with mental health at its core.
Jauregui’s song is “Temporary,” a slow, soulful, English-Spanish ballad she sings in tribute to her conversation with a middle schooler named Ana. The song speaks to the ups and downs of mental health (“Sometimes the noise is just too much to ignore,” Jauregui sings in the first verse) and how fleeting your life can feel at any age, and especially as a teenager. “It’s all temporary anyways, no one ever stays, good or bad,” Jauregui sings in the chorus.
“The entire initiative is amazing,” Jauregui said during an Instagram Live to announce the song on April 28. “They’re really just . . . harnessing the power of music to help us talk about our feelings. It was such a perfect alignment. That’s literally why I do music . . . it’s how I transmute my feelings.”
The goal of Sound It Out is to help parents and kids find a common language to talk about mental health, and that language is music, said Renee Wittemyer, director of program strategy and investment for Pivotal Ventures (which produced the campaign alongside the Ad Council) said in a statement. “Innovative efforts like this one are essential to helping more young people get the support they need.”
The campaign also emphasizes reaching out to Black and Latinx communities, with resources and songs, like Jauregui’s, in Spanish as well as English. The EP will be available to stream across platforms soon, including Spotify and Apple Music, and you can listen to Jauregui’s moving new single now on the Sound It Out website.