Why do the people sing?

There's a catchy song in the musical version of 'Les Miserables' that asks if you can hear the people sing, lately I've been wondering why the people sing?  In the musical, besides for the bawdy and uncouth 'Master of the House,' most of the singing reflects the title of the show: the miserable.  The people sing because they are dying, thwarted in love, left to rot in chains, denied justice, are cold and hungry, are overlooked and lonely, or have watched their dreams wither and die.  But despite the overwhelming darkness, evil, injustice, and misery, there is a theme of redemption, hope, and love undying that runs through the whole saga like a lifeline, giving meaning to their despair and comfort in their angst; their songs and prayers do not go unheard nor unanswered.  While watching the cast interviews on the 'extras' of the movie version of the musical, no one was untouched by the story, and they couldn't say enough good things of how 'Occupy Wall Street' and 'Lee's Miserables' were just such touching examples of the barricade scene and its high but crushed hopes of oppressed humanity.

I found it vastly amusing, but also rather horrifying that they all missed the point entirely.  Lee's Miserables?  Disheartened Confederate soldiers of the American Civil War (they were the pro-slavery side, by the way!).  Occupy Wall Street?  A now forgotten uprising of dissatisfied hipsters, really?  The barricade scene was a plot point, not the whole point of the story!  The theme is redemption and hope not born of this world, not a celebration of the crushed but immortal dreams of humanity.  The people sing because they hope, know, want, need, desire something beyond the mere human cruelty and indifference all around them, they are prayers set to music, not because they think someone will hear their song and have mercy but because they are expressing the deepest longings, yearnings, and needs of the human heart and the answer does not lie within the purview of our fellow men, if it did, we should have already established a utopia somewhere or somewhen upon this mortal earth, but that Kingdom has not yet and will never arise, at least without a change of management.

The other day I ran across a 'song list for PTSD' and curious, I followed the link and was given 32 secular songs that are supposed to help you make it through your darkest night.  I was depressed just reading the list so I'm not sure how it is supposed to help you in the midst of a traumatic attack of your darkest nightmares made real, ugh!  Why do the people sing?  This was a list of 32 famous songs spanning decades of musical invention but there was nary a hint of hope or light amongst them.  You can sing about being happy, but why are you happy?  If the nihilistic nightmare of modern culture is real, why are you singing?  If all comes from nothing and to nothing it will go, if you will die and everything you were and did means nothing, why are you singing?  Children will sing when they are excited or happy, they enjoy many a mindless and nonsensical ditty, but those are not the songs I question: they are mere nonsense and fun and quite at home in a pointless universe.  But why do Men sing, grown adults whose minds are troubled or whose hearts are moved by some grandiose feeling of joy or horror?

Our modern popular music seems nothing more than those childish ditties turned to darkness, infant joys turned to ash by an indifferent and pleasure seeking world; 'Master of the House' is our only anthem though sung in a million variations.  Like our philosophy, there is nothing behind our music, it has no heart, it means nothing and to nothing it shall return.  But we need not go tuneless through the twilit world, for there is real music, songs that mean something and connect us to a larger world, a world beyond our own, where there is One who hears, and like the benighted folk of the musical, when we have no more tears or words or hope, only a dismal song in the night, He has promised joy in the morning.  Unless we miss the point entirely, like the cast of the movie, and mistake one short act for the entire show.  Why do you sing?  What is your inspiration?