CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Music is a way for people to express themselves. Many of us have a song we identify with and that relates to us on a personal level.  

• Hallie Day, a singer/songwriter and American Idol alumni, wrote a song to raise awareness about domestic violence
• Hallie says a friend and domestic violence survivor inspired her to write the song
• You can listen to the song on Hallie's YouTube channel

Hallie Day is a singer/songwriter that appeared on "American Idol" season 11, and she is using her talents to raise awareness about domestic violence.

Hallie says her close friend is a survivor of domestic violence, but hid her abuse for years. 

"She'd never spoken a word of this to anyone. Not her parents, not her friends, no one," Hallie says. "She was very tight-lipped with me for a long time, until an incident happened where she was actually hospitalized."

To honor her friend, Hallie wrote a song called "So Much Life" and released it earlier this month. 

"This was the first time I wrote a song for someone who had gone through something traumatic," Hallie says. 

Her hope is that other survivors hear the song, and realize there is hope for a better life after the trauma. 

"I just thought of someone sitting there, experiencing abuse, and having maybe never told anyone, thinking that they had to keep that secret forever," she says. "Maybe just getting an inkling, or a thought, or seeing a line in one of my posts and thinking you know what, I want to speak out. Because once you say one thing to one person, it's like water pushing it's way through the cracks. The crack gets bigger and bigger until there's flow."

You can listen to the song on Hallie's YouTube channel.