song

12 Days of Girly Juice 2022: 10 Perfect Songs

Kate Sloan

I love music, as you know if you read this blog regularly. The soundtrack of my year is almost as important to me as the events of that year; the two can even shape each other at times.

So, in no particular order, here are 10 songs that made me happy this year, or helped me revel in my sadness or rage or horniness. Good music has a way of making even the hardest feelings seem not only manageable but vital to the human experience, something that links us inextricably to other people, reminding us we are never alone even when we feel like we are.

(The best way to read this post is to click “play” on each song while you read about it, so you get a sense of the vibe.)

 

“2Drunk” by Nick Jonas (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“What would mama say?/ She’d say ‘Oh, you never know when to stop/ Like every day’s Friday night’/ I’m too drunk and I’m all in my feelings/ Oh well; now I’m high as the ceiling”

This song is the perfect musical embodiment of that moment when you realize you are, in fact, too drunk but in a way that feels like joyful surrender, like embracing the uncertainty of life, like letting the chips fall where they may.

There were many depressed days in January where this song was the only thing that could get me out of bed, so I played it on loop a lot. Nick Jonas has taken on this role in my life in several previous years too. There is something about his voice – smooth, warm, inviting – and his music – catchy, fun, effortless – that translates directly into dopamine for me. I don’t question it anymore; I just use his music as fuel, and love him for it.

One of the things I love most about this song is that it’s both happy and wistful, the way a drunken evening can feel when you’re drinking to distract yourself from heartbreak. (I even covered it as a slow waltz on the ukulele to emphasize its sadder qualities.) While I’ve quoted some lyrics above that I think are most emblematic of the song, I also want to shout out the poignant second verse, which goes, “Should I send that text? Maybe not/ But I miss that sex, quite a lot/ It’s five o’clock somewhere/ Maybe you’re somewhere/ Thinking ’bout me.” These lyrics are, as the kids are saying, a relatable mood.

 

“Daddy” by Brotherkenzie (buy on Bandcamp)

“Nobody calls me daddy, sadly/ And nobody sends me nudes anymore/ But I saw your ass last night when you hung up/ And I wondered what you did that for”

I screamed when I heard this song for the first time.

I’ve written before about the low-key sexuality that occasionally oozes from the music of Brotherkenzie, the solo project of my long-time guitarist crush Nathan Stocker. Not to psychoanalyze a total stranger, but I’ve often thought his most romantic and/or sexy songs seemed to point out his daddy-esque qualities: wanting to nurture, to take care of, to treasure and spoil his loves. So, when I first heard the opening lyrics of this song (quoted above), I screeched: my suspicions had been confirmed, and it felt good to know that my “daddy-dar” is still on point even though I haven’t had to sleuth out a new daddy for several years at this point.

As with all Brotherkenzie songs, there are some parts of this song that I find lyrically inscrutable, but at its core I think it’s a song about feeling romantically bored in singledom, wondering what’s next, and hoping for exciting adventures to arise and distract you from yourself. Again: a relatable fucking mood. And I still love Nathan’s voice, guitar playing, and songwriting in a way that feels visceral and inherent.

 

“Someone to Watch Over Me” by Sarah Vaughan (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“There’s a somebody I’m longing to see/ I hope that he turns out to be/ Someone who’ll watch over me/ I’m a little lamb who’s lost in the wood/ I know I could always be good/ To one who’ll watch over me”

I went through a phase this year where this song was basically all I wanted to listen to for a few weeks. It’s an especially gorgeous rendition of a favorite jazz standard of mine. Sarah Vaughan’s vocal control, power, and range were such that she could easily have focused her career on styles of music that many people consider technically “harder” than jazz, like opera or musical theatre – but instead she mostly focused on jazz, which can be every bit as complex and virtuosic as those other genres, and that prowess is on full display here. Her vibrato is masterful and emotive, her phrasing is exquisite, her range is unbelievable, and she brings warmth and wistfulness galore to the song. It’s a stunning recording.

I find it interesting to listen to these old love songs of yore (this one was composed by the Gershwin brothers in 1926, though this particular recording of it is from the late ’50s), because they lean so hard into old-fashioned gender norms that it almost seems kinky to a modern ear. A lot of the lyrics of this song sound to me more like a D/s relationship (in particular, a DD/lg relationship) than anything vanilla or conventional. I like that this style of helpless femininity is something many of us can deliberately opt into now, instead of being forced into that role by an oppressive society.

 

“I Want to Be Your Boyfriend” by Hot Freaks (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I wanna be your boyfriend/ I wanna go on walks with you/ I wanna have long talks with you/ You can be my girlfriend/ I’ll compliment you frequently/ I wanna treat you decently”

I stumbled across this song by total coincidence. Several years ago, a boy I was dating sent me the Ramones song “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend” as a sweet way of communicating his intentions toward me. (We didn’t end up dating for very long but are still on good terms.) At some point this year I wanted to hear that song but couldn’t remember what band performs it, so I asked Siri to play “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend,” and she played me this strange, delightful track instead.

I love how this song buzzes with the energy of a new relationship, the perhaps-foolish optimism you feel at that time (“I’m not gonna make the same mistakes/ I’m not gonna run”), and the self-doubt that can also creep in when your emotions are heightened like that (“All the guys are crowded around/ They’re telling you the same things that I planned to say/ I thought I was unique/ Maybe I’m not that way”). It’s also just got one of the all-time most fun choruses to sing and dance along to, if you ask me.

 

“Rocket Science” by Vaultboy (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Baby, it isn’t rocket science/ Why are we complicating it?/ We’ve got a chemistry I’m liking/ And I’m feeling good ’bout giving in/ ‘Cause baby, it isn’t rocket science/ Even when it feels like it is/ I know your heart’s beating like mine is/ We don’t gotta hide it/ Baby, it’s not rocket science”

Vaultboy was one of my major musical discoveries this year; I sought out other people who’ve done songwriting challenges, as inspiration while doing my own, and stumbled across his “77-minute songwriting challenge” videos, which are incredible.

I was immediately enthralled by his ability to churn out hooky hits that get stuck in your head for days and punch you right in the heart. “Rocket Science” is one of his best, if you ask me: it’s romantic, fun, and (as with literally every Vaultboy song) criminally catchy.

The gorgeous second verse goes, “You’re telling me secrets nobody else knows/ ‘Cause I wanna know, I wanna know/ Where you might see yourself way down the road/ I wanna know, ’cause I wanna go,” and it feels like falling in love, and wanting more more more of the person you’re falling in love with. But the refrain of the song – “Baby, it’s not rocket science!” – resonates with me because I am so prone to overcomplicating love, psychoanalyzing myself and my partners to try to understand what’s happening, when instead I could (and should) just enjoy what’s happening while it’s happening. “Baby, it isn’t rocket science, even when it feels like it is.”

 

“About Damn Time” by Lizzo (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I’ve been so down and under pressure/ I’m way too fine to be this stressed, yeah/ I’m not the girl I was or used to be/ Bitch, I might be better”

I love to listen to Lizzo to on days when I feel gloomy and self-critical. So much of her music is about self-love, self-acceptance, and confidence; these things come through not only lyrically but sonically too (not to mention visually in her magnificent music videos). It’s super refreshing, in a world where so much of the capitalistic machine still works daily to make us feel bad about ourselves.

I love how this song points out not just Lizzo’s current confidence and happiness, but also the journey that got her there, and the fact that it’s not always easy or instant. As with so many great songs, I deeply related to this one, especially the idea of rising from the ashes of stress and trauma, transformed into a stronger, brighter and louder version of myself, one who can strap on her “Balenciussys” and strut out into a new adventure.

 

“Cbat” by Hudson Mohawke (buy/stream on Apple Music)

This instrumental track rose to fame this year when a guy on Reddit wrote a thread about how much he likes to fuck to this song, and how much his girlfriend does not like it. Luckily for us, he identified the song in the thread so readers could listen to it – which led to it going viral and being widely mocked and revered – and it’s cringe in a way that makes the girlfriend’s position understandable.

After a lush chordal intro that makes you think the song will actually be pretty, it breaks out into a distinctively grating melody played on a high-pitched electronic instrument of some kind, and sounds a bit like a ghost climaxing, or a creaky door that someone has autotuned.

But I’ve listened to Cbat several times at this point, and weirdly, it has grown on me. Its rhythm does indeed feel appropriately paced for sex, as the original thread-writer argued, and the story behind the song’s sudden viral popularity makes it all the more amusing to listen to. I’m not sure I’ll ever have sex to this song, because I’d probably be laughing too hard to focus if I did, but I’m glad it exists and that I got to hear about it.

 

“Anybody But You” by Malia Civetz (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“I might invite you to my party/ So you can watch me dancing on somebody new/ You probably know who/ Come enjoy the view of me/ Happy with anybody but you”

Being petty after a breakup can feel like kind of a shameful thing, a conversation topic with girlfriends over martinis and fuel for pithy tweets but not something you’d proudly admit to. I love that this song makes post-breakup pettiness into something powerful, a way of reclaiming strength and agency after having it squashed out of you by a shitty partner. Golden-voiced Malia sings about inviting her ex to a party just so they can see how happy she is now, while also acknowledging that she’s not actually happy now, as evidenced by how hard she’s working to create that image.

“Anybody else will do/ Anybody but you/ I would rather spend the night with anybody in this room,” she sings, over a pop beat that makes you want to stand up, dance, and sing along. It’s a perfect post-breakup anthem and I love that it acknowledges the ways recovery from heartbreak can sometimes look like causing more heartbreak – it’s not nice, it’s not ethically good, certainly, but it’s messy and gratifying and real, and I love her for it.

 

“Pink Moon” by Nick Drake (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Saw it written and I saw it say/ Pink moon is on its way/ None of you stand so tall/ Pink moon is gonna get ye all”

Content note: Discussion of a possible suicide in this one.

So much has been written about this song, and the album of the same name. There’s even an entire book about it, which I read this year. Famously, the album Pink Moon (of which this song is the first track) was the last album ever completed by English singer-songwriter Nick Drake before he died of an antidepressant overdose (accidental or on purpose, we don’t know) at the age of 26. He’d previously recorded a couple of albums which hadn’t sold well at all, on which his intricate fingerpicked guitar parts and ethereal melodies had been backed up by strings, guitars, drums, and various other accompaniments. He evidently wanted to try something different on his third album, and recorded it in its entirety in late-night studio sessions on two consecutive days, just him and his guitar. This title track is the only one on which any other instruments appear at all – Nick added a sweet, spare piano overdub, and that’s all.

While there are hints, in Nick’s earlier records, of romance, optimism, and joy, this last one was recorded after severe depression got its claws into him, and it shows. The album is full of bleak themes like despair, regret, rejection, and isolation – which aligns exactly with what Nick was going through at the time, a gradual-and-then-all-at-once descent into a depression so profound that he could barely speak. Friends and colleagues have suggested that at this time in his life, listening to his songs was likely the only way you could experience Nick’s inner workings: he was monosyllabic or silent most of the time and looked catatonic with bone-heavy depression. But he was still playing guitar like a virtuoso, albeit with fingernails grown long and dirty from depressive neglect.

The song “Pink Moon” alludes mysteriously to the imminent arrival of the pink moon, which no one can run from or escape; his lyrics never make it clear whether the moon symbolizes something we should dread and fear, or something we should rejoice and wait for, vibrating with excitement. Many commentators have argued that the “pink moon” represents Nick’s depression or his ultimate demise. I don’t know the answers to these interpretive questions, and I don’t think anyone ever will, now that Nick’s been gone for nearly fifty years; all I know is that this song is so hauntingly beautiful that it transports you to an alternate reality for a couple short minutes, and that listening to a lot of Nick Drake this year made me feel less alone.

 

“Boys” by Hippo Campus (buy/stream on Apple Music)

“Take off my shirt at your girlfriend’s party/ What’s it to ya?/ Nobody cares about your music/ They see right through ya/ Kissing boys, missing work/ Got hungover from your words/ Same New York, it’s the worst/ All these nights are a blur”

Jake Luppen, the lead singer of my favorite band Hippo Campus, publicly came out as queer late last year, and has spoken about how “Boys” is a song about (among other things) his queer awakening. It captures so well the flavor of excitement you feel when you’re figuring yourself out in real-time at a messy drunken party in your early twenties. To me it sounds like dancing in clubs, my sweaty body so close to some other girl’s glitter-streaked body, and learning to tolerate or satiate the intense tension between our shimmering shapes.

So much of feeling sexy is about feeling comfortable with who you are, and this song feels like the encapsulation of a moment when you get a glimpse of the “you” you want to be. Maybe it’s in a conversation with a stranger who knows nothing about your career or your past (“Nobody cares about your music/ they see right through ya“) and who therefore can serve as a blank canvas onto which you project the version of yourself you hope to become. And you see that projection, stark and inevitable, and want to dive into it the way you’d want to dive into a lake in a Bob Ross painting.

 

What songs did you love most this year?

“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 11 of 12

Kate Sloan

Song 45/52: “What If?”

Lyrics:

You treat me so much better than my last love
I clearly carry scars from every past love
And though you buy me roses and ask me to dance
I can’t trust this sweet romance

I’m just as scared as ever that I’ll fall
I’m unprepared to tear down this wall
And though you spoil me with affection almost every day
I can’t trust the words you say, ’cause…

Chorus:
What if it’s all a lie?
What if you leave me alone like they all do?
What if you make me cry?
What if you block me so I can’t even call you?
What if you, what if you, what if you do?

You had to turn your phone off for a work thing
I couldn’t help but think that you were flirting
And though I don’t believe every feeling I feel
I can’t trust your love is real, ’cause…

(repeat chorus)

I once read a story about some spies
Who had to infiltrate communities in disguise
They must’ve done pretty well, ’cause they got the intel
After years-long relationships built on lies
Oh, what a nasty surprise!

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I pulled a couple tarot cards to inspire a song this week and they were the Knight of Cups (romance, charm, beauty, sentiment, expressiveness) and The Moon (illusion, fear, anxiety, intuition, uncertainty). This combination made me think about the recurrent fears I’ve had in most of my romantic relationships that my partner might only be pretending to be into me, whether because they’re just polite or because they’re planning something malicious. (This has never really turned out to be the case but probably stems from a traumatic experience I had in my teens where a mean girl “pretended” to ask me out and then revealed she’d essentially been trolling me for the lolz.)

I wrote a complete set of lyrics inspired by that card pull, and made an a cappella recording of how I heard the melody in my head while I was writing it. A couple days later, I sat down at the piano and worked out some suitable chords for the melody I’d been hearing, making some changes to it in the process.

The bridge section is referencing a real news story about undercover cops getting into relationships with activists under false pretences in order to spy on them. I talked about how this story fuelled my already-troubling delusions in this story on the Bawdy Storytelling podcast.

Song 46/52: “Sisyphus”

Lyrics:

Slow and steady wins the war
Don’t know what I’m fighting for
Moon is pink and sky is dark
Somehow, somewhere, lost the spark

Are you ever gonna hear my echoed words?
Are you ever gonna like the things you’ve heard?
Are you ever gonna love me, love me, love me, love me now?

Chorus:
I’m still so small; whose fault is this?
I swear I feel like Sisyphus
I yell and groan when I’m pushing the stone
Every day feels the same
Sisyphus – that is my name

History has much to say
On we who’d rather work than play
River man has lost his oar
Don’t know who I’m rowing for

Are you ever gonna borrow from the past?
Are you ever gonna do what I did last?
Are you ever gonna hear me, hear me, hear me, hear me now?

(repeat chorus)

Time has told me that there’s not much time
(Not much time, not much time)
It passes coldly, like I did mine
(I did fine, I did fine)
The conversation, the situation’s wrong
(It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong)
But I’ll be pushing until the hill is gone

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

Another tarot pull inspired this song: the cards were Strength (courage, determination, power, dedication) and the Eight of Pentacles (apprenticeship, repetitive tasks, skill development, hard work, “slow and steady wins the race”). This combination made me think about the myth of Sisyphus, who was cursed to roll a boulder up a hill over and over again forever.

I had been thinking about Sisyphus recently because I’d just finished reading a couple of books about Nick Drake, the British folk singer-songwriter who, like Van Gogh, was plagued by mental health issues and didn’t experience true commercial success until after he had already died tragically. Nick famously had a copy of Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus on his nightstand when he died, and many have theorized that he related to Sisyphus’s plight, seeing both his career and his mental health as a constant, grueling uphill battle.

I wrote some lyrics from Nick’s perspective, ruminating on his lack of success and calling forward to future listeners, begging them to hear him and to be influenced by him. (This did indeed happen; he’s widely considered a cult hero in the music world now and has been cited as an influence by huge artists like Norah Jones, REM, Beck, and Belle & Sebastian.)

I threw in some references to Nick’s music throughout, including mentions of a “pink moon,” a “river man,” and the phrase “time has told me.” (Would strongly recommend clicking those links and listening to his music if you’re not already a Nick Drake convert; his songs are hypnotically beautiful and virtuosically played.) The line in the chorus, “Whose fault is this?” was also taken from a quote attributed to Nick by his producer Joe Boyd, as excerpted in Amanda Petrusich’s book Pink Moon (emphasis mine):

Boyd later described their brief interaction as grisly, telling the BBC: “His hair was dirty and he was unshaved and his fingernails were dirty and he was wearing a shabby coat. … He sat down and he immediately launched into this kind of tirade about his career, about money, and basically it was accusatory. And he said, ‘You told me I’m great, but nobody knows me. Nobody buys my records. I’m still living on handouts from the publishing company. I don’t understand. What’s wrong? Whose fault is this?’ And he was angry. And I tried to explain that there are no guarantees, that you can make a great record and sometimes it just doesn’t sell.”

Song 47/52: “Bad Girl”

Lyrics:

Late night, skin-tight dress gets caught on the
Windowsill mid-climb until it pulls
Free, like me, and off into the dark

My daddy is asleep; he doesn’t know
That he could not keep me dutiful
Doesn’t know I’m drinking in the park

Chorus:
I’m not a bad girl, I swear
Just want to let down my hair
When I’m a good girl by day
My other side just wants to play
And she gets carried away
She’s got a lot she wants to say

Beer and wine and kiss me in a tree
You are with the wildest part of me
Pulling you so close against my lips

Why do I feel so rebellious?
Wait, wait, strike that, no, don’t tell me, just
Block out all those questions with your kiss

(repeat chorus)

If I seem nervous
It’s ’cause I’m workin’
To be so perfect
When I feel worthless

If I seem stressed out
It’s ’cause I left out
All the realest parts of me
To be who they want me to be

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

Third tarot-inspired song in a row! I’ve been finding tarot cards really helpful lately because there is just an infinite number of topics I could potentially write songs about and it can be paralyzing to try to contemplate them all, so instead I pull two random tarot cards, meditate on their meanings, and write about whatever they remind me of.

For this one, I pulled The Emperor (authority, structure, a father figure, power, rules and regulations) and the Seven of Swords (betrayal, deception, getting away with something). That combo immediately made me think about teenagers rebelling against their parents, so I wrote these lyrics and then ended up putting them to music several days later when various other songwriting attempts that week didn’t produce results I felt were good enough.

While the verses of this song are about experiences I never actually had – sneaking out of the house unbeknownst to my parents to drink with friends in the park – I included some of my actual thoughts and feelings about the “good girl/bad girl” duality, something I’ve been discussing a bit in therapy lately. I have the phrase “good girl” tattooed on my thighs and even previously wrote a song called “Good Girl,” so it was interesting to explore the flipside of that goodness and how both of those girls exist within me.

Song 48/52: “Gun Control”

Lyrics:

Another shooting in the news today
Before the last one’s ink is dry
It’s getting old, getting so cliché
Everybody’s asking why

Why all they’ll give us is thoughts and prayers
Why it’s seeming like nobody cares
Give your local reps a ring
So they’ll get off their ass and do something

Chorus:
The devil wins – he’s on a roll
Let’s do him in with gun control
Use your conscience, search your soul
The time has come for gun control
Gun, gun, gun control (x3)
The time has come for gun control

It’s not as if the jury’s out
Read the stats; the facts don’t lie
I promise you can go without
So fewer kids will have to die

If I seem mad, it’s ’cause I am
‘Cause no one seems to give a damn
I feel unsafe at bars and malls
So give your local reps a call

(repeat chorus)

How many more lives will we have to lose?
How many more hearts will we break or bruise?
No amendment’s worth this pain
I feel like I’m going insane

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I was going to bed one night, checked Twitter (never a good idea before sleep), saw that yet another mass shooting had occurred – there have been over 600 in the USA this year – and felt so angry and sad and despairing that I wrote some lyrics because I didn’t know what else to do with my feelings.

The following day, I grabbed a ukulele and set those words to music. The song was really simple musically so I felt it would be bolstered by some clips of politicians talking about gun control, which I edited in. I’ve long admired the powerful (and often hilarious) songs that people like Jonathan Mann and the Gregory Brothers can create with political clips, so it was an interesting challenge to take a crack at it myself.

“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 10 of 12

Kate Sloan

Song 41/52: “Go Deeper”

Lyrics:

Breathe in some fresh air and breathe out all your cares and keep breathing
And notice the thoughts that are passing, arising, repeating
And let them all go, because deep down, you know that you’re safe
And inside your mind, you can certainly find a nice place

Let your eyes fall closed if they want to
Feel your spine – it’s strong and it’s got you
Feel your mind melting as it tries not to

Chorus:
Go deeper now
Doesn’t matter how
Just go deeper now
Let your thoughts drift away like a cloud

And if it feels good, then maybe you should let it take you
It’s easier, so just give in and let go of what ails you
Your arms getting heavy, along with your legs and your chest
And if you relax, it is simply a fact that you’ll rest

Who knows where your mind disappears to?
If you call it back, it’ll hear you
But we both know you’re really just here to…

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I was deep in trance during a hypnokink scene when the idea entered my mind that I should write a song that is a hypnotic induction. It felt like such an important idea that I said it out loud to my spouse through the fuzzy fogginess of trance, so that I might remember the idea later on. And I did!

Incidentally, a few days before that, I had watched this video about a chord progression that’s apparently super popular in Japanese music but isn’t widely used in Western music (although, notably, both of Rick Astley’s best-known songs – “Together Forever” and the infamous “Never Gonna Give You Up” – use this progression, as does the Silk Sonic banger “Leave the Door Open”). I’d made a note of it incase I wanted to use it for a song at some point. I thought it made sense to use it for this hypnotic song because it’s a progression that never resolves to the home chord of the key, which gives it this strange feeling of perpetual unfinishedness and driftiness, like being in trance.

I wrote some lyrics for the first verse and prechorus, and then sang them over the progression – and then I improvised the chorus after that, and liked how it came out so I kept it.

Song 42/52: “I’d Marry You Again”

Lyrics:

I’d marry you again
Just say when, just say when
Walk down another aisle
Hey, why not? It’s been a while

No need to have it catered
Don’t need a decorator
And tell our friends and family that we’ll see ya later

Just wanna say those vows
We already know how

I’d marry you once more
And meet you out on the dance floor
I’d throw a bright bouquet
Just like I did back on that day

There’s no RSVPing
It’s all about the feeling
Don’t mean to be repetitive, but it is worth repeating:

I’d marry you again
Just say when, just say when

 

Songwriting diary:

I had tweeted a few days before writing this song about how I still regularly have the momentary thought that I’d like to marry my partner before remembering we already did that. I just love them so much, and wanted to marry them so much before we did it, that my mind evidently still clings onto that as a beloved goal even though it’s already happened. It’s nice.

So, with that in mind, I started improvising words while plucking a minimalistic little ukulele part, and the beginning of this song came out. I built it from there, pulling from online lists of wedding-related tropes and traditions to fill out the rest of the lyrics. It’s a pretty short song (actually it’s the shortest one I’ve done for this challenge), but that’s nice sometimes!

Song 43/52: “Every Morning”

Lyrics:

Is love hard, or has love just been hard before?
My guard is up, but I don’t wanna be guarded anymore

Chorus:
Every morning, you say “I love you”
And every morning, I say “I love you too”
That’s just what we do

My dream love never quite looked the way this does
But my dream, love, was a dream for who I thought I was

(repeat chorus)

Back then, my heart would stop and start
Hot and cold, highs and lows
Then you came ’round; I’m safe and sound
In the now, ’cause I know:

(repeat chorus)

Every morning that I’m in your arms
Is a morning when I thank my lucky stars

 

Songwriting diary:

I was very frustrated this week at my apparent lack of success in writing a song. It was Friday night and I’d polished up 2-3 songs I’d been writing over the past few weeks, but didn’t really like any of them (one was about tattoos, one about gender and one about impostor syndrome). I wrote in a song earlier this year that “the songs never have to be good; they just have to get done,” and while that’s true, there have definitely been several songs this year that I’ve ostensibly finished but haven’t felt good enough about to include as part of this challenge. I always wanted to push myself to write something better instead, which is what happened this week.

I was messing around with my favorite voicing of the Fmajor7 chord on the ukulele and found a rhythmic way of finger-picking it that was very evocative to me, and so I started improvising a vocal line over it. I had just guested on my spouse’s podcast earlier that day, and one of the things we talked about was how I always imagined I’d end up with a writer, actor, visual artist, or other artsy type when I got older, but mb’s personality and brain are creatively oriented even though they’re not in one of those conventionally artsy fields. (Software development definitely involves a lot of creativity!) So I guess I was in a mood to marvel at how our love story turned out so different from what I’d envisioned all those years and is somehow nonetheless exactly what I needed.

Song 44/52: “Grandmaster”

Lyrics:

I don’t know how you bring out the best in us
There’s people like you, and then there’s the rest of us
I take your thoughts as gifts and as gospel truth
Though my family worries that I might be wasting my youth

But it’s not a waste
To follow you anyplace
And I’ll follow you home, ’cause you’re the only home I know

Chorus:
‘Cause you’re my grandmaster
And I’m falling faster
Than I ever thought I could
And though they insult what they call a cult
I know that your heart is good
I know that your heart is good

I thought I knew myself before I met you
But all that I knew was the lens I’d been looking through
My world is shifting as I absorb your words
You never listen, but somehow I still feel heard

But that’s just your way
And of course, I am glad to pay
For the privilege of being a prisoner you’re freeing now

(repeat chorus)

If sometimes I question some of your lessons
I’m sorry if I’m out of turn
If I understood it, I’d know that you’re good at
Helping us learn what we need to learn

(repeat chorus)

I think that your heart is good

 

Songwriting diary:

Months ago, the first two lines of this song randomly occurred to me (“I don’t know how you bring out the best in us/ There’s people like you, and then there’s the rest of us“) and I wrote them down in the music folder of my notes app, not really sure what they were about or when I’d ever be able to use them.

At some point I started watching season 2 of The Vow, which is a show about a New York-based cult called NXIVM that I’ve been fascinated by for a while – I’ve seen a couple of documentary series on it and read a book about it. It occurred to me that those lines sounded like something that one of the cult leader Keith Raniere’s followers might have said about him, and then I decided I wanted to write a song from their perspective. It was partly inspired by “Unworthy of Your Love” from the musical Assassins, specifically the part sung by Squeaky Fromme to her hero and lover Charles Manson, and the way she is clearly so brainwashed and taken in by him. “Grandmaster” is one of the names that Keith Raniere’s followers called him, along with “Vanguard.”

I’m honestly not that happy with this song and it feels like one of the only ones I’ve kind of “phoned in,” but I’m also glad I wrote it and I think there’s some good lines in it. Besides which: the entire point of a challenge like this is to generate new songs, some of which I’m gonna like and some I’m not. It’s a useful lesson in releasing perfectionism and just doing what I can do, every single week.

“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 9 of 12

Kate Sloan

Song 36/52: “Red Lipstick”

Lyrics:

Red lips sink ships, and turn a lot of heads
They stare, but who cares? I like wearing reds
Trends say red may scare the average guy
So I pull out the bullet, and proudly reapply

Chorus:
Give me scarlet, russet, crimson, vermilion
Cherry, berry, carnelian, persimmon
Paint it on me, lay it on thick
Paint it on me, my red lipstick

Boys say they won’t kiss my ruby mouth
They don’t really get what it’s about
Boys say they don’t want to make a mess
But if they want me, they’d want me nonetheless

(repeat chorus)

I’ve got so many shades
For all different days
Some are matte, some are glossy
Some are soft, some are bossy
I’ve got pride, I’ve got power
I am bright like a flower
And if you don’t wanna kiss
Then I guess I’m done with this

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I wrote 90% of this song back in May, but set it aside (permanently, I thought) for two reasons. One was that I thought the chorus was too cloying, annoying, and repetitive. The other was that I’d set out to write a song about my love for red lipstick in general, and instead found myself writing about men’s reactions to red lipstick, which felt counter to what I was trying to do with the song.

However, over the months to come, this song kept coming back to haunt me, more than any other musical fragment I’d left behind. I realized that the traits I’d identified as “annoying” or “repetitive” in the chorus actually made it a bit of an earworm. I’ve never been very good at consistently writing “catchy” songs, and I think a huge part of that is how averse I am to being too repetitive (I think this comes from my parents lightly criticizing me for playing super-repetitive Regina Spektor songs on the piano all the time when I was a teen, lol). It was interesting that the very trait that’d worried me about the song was actually part of what made it great.

As for focusing too much on men’s reactions, I realized I could just lean into that aspect of the song and make it into a song that’s explicitly about men’s reactions to red lipstick, and my own reactions to those reactions. There’s no reason I need to write a magnum opus incorporating all my thoughts and feelings on red lipstick; I’ve referenced it in songs before and no doubt will again. Once I accepted that, I had no problem finishing the bridge and therefore finishing the song. Everything but the bridge is more-or-less unchanged from how I originally wrote it back in May.

Song 37/52: “Notice Me”

Lyrics:

I’ve got a poster of your face in my locker
And a collage of all your interviews
Everyone knows that you’re my favorite rocker
They’re always joking that I’m stalking you

I cut your girlfriend’s face out of a photo
And then I glued myself in perfectly
We’ve never met, and so I know that you don’t know
You’re gonna spend your fuckin’ life with me

I don’t mind waiting
I’ll follow you across state lines
To catch the show in Toledo
And see if I can finally make you mine

Chorus:
Notice me from the stage
Notice my lips, my hips, but not my age
And when the curtain falls and the show is through
Notice me, the way I notice you

Sure, there are boys who I could date with less trouble
They’re always laughing in the gym; they clog the halls
But they’re disasters made of swagger and stubble
They’ve got no class, they’ve got no charm at all

I don’t mind waiting
Until I’m 18, if I must
I’ll catch the show in Chicago
And on the Megabus, I’ll think of us

(repeat chorus)

The night gets dark
I watch the stars
No need to wonder where you are
Tonight it’s Milwaukee
Then off toward the Rockies
I’ll follow you far, I’ll follow you far

The night gets dark
I watch the stars
No need to wonder where you are
Tonight, Minnesota
And then South Dakota
I’ll follow you far, I’ll follow you far, so far

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

One day I walked down to the beach hoping to write some new lyrics, and on my way there, I thought about how much I like songs that start with a vocal line before any instrumentation comes in (the Beatles’ “You’re Gonna Lose That Girl” is an example), and how I hadn’t written a song like that in a while, so maybe I wanted to do that.

Once I found a seat at the beach, I pulled up a random word generator to get 3 words to inspire a song. The words this time were “substitute,” “object,” and “connection,” which made me think about parasocial relationships and how, when I was a teen (and even later), I’d often develop romantic obsessions with actors and musicians because it was easier and less vulnerable than pursuing someone I knew IRL.

I drafted these lyrics, and didn’t decide until about halfway through that it was going to be a song about a girl stalking her celeb crush. When the line about “the show in Toledo” came to me, it seemed right to mention other locations later on in the song, and her stalking him seemed like the most compelling way to do that.

Researching American geography was the most time-consuming part of this songwriting process; I had to figure out a route that made sense but that also included names of regions or cities that rhymed with each other. But it was a fun challenge, and I figured it out eventually!

Song 38/52: “I Could Not Write a Song This Week”

Lyrics:

I could not write a song this week
I could not rhyme, I could not think
I tried and tried to eke one out
But I was overcome with doubt

I could not write a song this week
I could not sing, I could not speak
But that’s just how it goes sometimes
And so I wrote these goofy lines

Some say that writer’s block doesn’t exist; it’s a hoax
And some say it’s par for the course for all creative folks
Whatever the answer, I know a block when I feel one
I’m writing and writing, and nothing I’m writing feels done

I could not write a song this week
My inspiration’s looking bleak
I barely leave the house, then I
Feel stuck, and then I wonder why

I could not write a song this week
I’m wondering if I’ve hit my peak
Should I cut myself some slack
Or just admit that I’m a hack?

Perfectionists find it depressing to make art that sucks
And sometimes I wish that I gave a bit less of a fuck
‘Cause judging my output is pointless – the point’s to have fun
The songs never have to be good; they just have to get done

I guess I wrote a song this week

 

Songwriting diary:

I was verrrrry writer’s-blocked this week, in part because I had less time than usual to finish my song because I was leaving on a trip to New York on Friday and wanted to finish it before that. I worked on 2-3 other song ideas but none of them were really coming together.

While scrolling back through my folder of song ideas, I stumbled across the first stanza of these lyrics, which I had written several months previous. I’d tucked this idea away, thinking it would be a good failsafe someday if I was ever feeling uninspired – which was exactly what ended up happening. I built from that initial starting point and it was much easier than trying to come up with something wholly new.

It was actually really cathartic to write this song and I feel good about how it came out. It was a useful reminder that sometimes songwriting is more craft than art, in the sense that having a structured songwriting process can help you crank one out even if you feel you have nothing new to say.

Song 39/52: “Existentialist”

Lyrics:

Do you feel the dread
Seeping through the cracks?
Do you read the news?
Do you know the facts?

They say the world is ending soon
Do you know what you will do
When the smoke fills the sky
And we have to wonder why?

Chorus:
What’s the point? What is this?
Quick, we need an existentialist
Where’s the joy? Where’s the bliss?
Please, we need an existentialist
To get us through this

I read a lot in school
On nihilistic angst
When other kids were cursing fate
I was giving thanks

But I still don’t know just what to do
When the world is ending soon
Do we hide and count the days?
Or do we stride into the blaze?

(repeat chorus)

Jean-Paul Sartre, Kierkegaard
Back then, you were avant-garde
Dostoevsky, Friedrich Nietzsche
Now we’d really love to meet ya
Heidegger and de Beauvoir
How I wonder where you are
Lewis Gordon, Al Camus
There’s so much we can learn from you

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I was feeling uninspired so I returned to my old friend, the random word generator. One of the supplied words was “philosophy,” a subject I studied pretty extensively in high school and university, so I started wracking my brain for philosophical ideas I wanted to explore in a song. Existentialism has always been my favorite area of philosophy, and I’ve found the existentialist paradigm particularly useful and comforting as our world has descended further and further into fascism, chaos and the climate crisis over the past several years.

I started improvising vocals over chords and sang the lines, “It’s at times such as this/ that I think of the existentialists/ and how they taught us to/ see the power in everything we do.” Eventually I figured out a chord progression that felt suitable and built that initial lyrical idea into something more finessed.

The song was originally much more slow and sad-sounding, but once I’d written it, I felt it made more sense to speed it up and give it more of an unnerved, almost angry feeling. From start to finish, the whole song took about half an hour to write.

Song 40/52: “Tinder”

Lyrics:

Why is every girl on Tinder beautiful?
How do they do eyeliner so flawlessly?
How come all their open hearts are bruised and full?
Profiles packed with doubting and apologies

Chorus:
The world’s not fair
You can see it in this app – it’s all right there
All the pain and all the people who don’t care
If they make you smile or make you come or cry
All I do is swipe and wonder why

Why is every guy on Tinder at the gym?
Or fishing up a trout down at the dock?
Guess I’d rather that than to see more of him
Please don’t send me pictures of your… oh, fuck

(repeat chorus)

Don’t say “hey u up?”
Never just say “sup”
It’s impersonal, so why don’t
You just read my fucking bio?
Don’t destroy the mood before we’ve built it up

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I had written the first and second verses of these lyrics several months ago, and found them while I was desperately trawling my music notes folder for something I could salvage into a song. I started singing those lyrics on top of a basic chord progression and then, as sometimes happens, started hearing the next section (the chorus) in my head, as if I was listening to a song rather than writing one. Then I had to write lyrics to fit into the melody and rhythm I was hearing. The bridge was written in the same way.

One of the songwriting books I read this year said that if something was invented within the past ten years, you shouldn’t mention it in a song, because there’s a strong chance it’ll make the song sound dated after not too long. Tinder has been around for just over ten years so I think I’m good 😅 To be honest, I’ve barely used it since I started dating my now-spouse in late 2017, but whenever I check back in on what’s going on over there, I notice similar patterns to how things were when I was a much more frequent Tinder user.

The hardest part of writing this song was figuring out what to say after “Please don’t send me pictures of your…” Some other options I considered were “pet rock,” “Starbucks,” “mohawk,” “dirty sock,” and “Glock.”

“A Song A Week” Challenge: Monthly Recap 8 of 12

Kate Sloan

Song 32/52: “Amicably”

Lyrics:

I hope your summer brings some sun
And that you spend it with someone
And I hope that when you’re sad
You’ll think of what we had
And say “At least we had some fun”

I hope the drive isn’t too long
I hope your coffee’s nice and strong
And I hope that when you go
You’ll blast the radio
I hope they play your favorite song

Chorus:
I’m gonna miss you
Not gonna kiss you goodbye
I’m gonna cry soon
It feels like somebody died
Because I loved you
And I still remember why

I hope your new place feels like home
And that you won’t be too alone
And if times are getting tough
And your friends are not enough
I’ll always answer when you phone

And now, we head our separate ways
And set our sights on brighter days
But I never will forget
That feeling when we met
And how you set my life ablaze

(repeat chorus)

It was the right thing to do
I think we both know that’s true
You couldn’t just stay

It was the right way to go
Because we both gotta grow
And go our own way
But let me just say:

(repeat chorus)

 

Songwriting diary:

I was improvising various different lyrical/melodic lines over a simple chord progression, and sang the first two lines of this – “I hope your summer brings some sun/ And that you spend it with someone” – and then built the rest from there. It was one of those magical woo-woo songwriting experiences where it seemed like I was hearing the song clearly in my head and just writing down what I heard.

I have a few friends who’ve recently gone through breakups that were amicable but painful, and I’ve found it inspiring to listen to their stories of letting go of old resentments and arguments and just being happy and hopeful for each other as they both head off into the sunset. That type of breakup has been extremely rare in my life (mine have historically been, for the most part, extremely one-sided and very painful) so it was interesting to inhabit that brainspace for a bit while writing this song.

I think this is the fifth song I’ve written about exes in this challenge… My exes just really haunt my brain. Not in the sense of yearning for them or thinking about them constantly, but more in the sense of: our shared history is always informing my decisions on some level, however indirectly, and I refer back to each of them as mental touchstones in the way I conceptualize my life story, whether in writing or just in my head. So it makes sense that I’m referring to them and considering them in a lot of songs.

Song 33/52: “Nobody Likes Me”

Lyrics:

I wish I’d made a few more friends back in college
It was too hard with all my doubt and anxiety
Instead, I filled my little head with lots of knowledge
And kept it down if anybody talked to me

I didn’t wanna be alone
I didn’t wanna spend my nights at home
I didn’t wanna be that girl
Who stays inside and never sees the world

Chorus:
How do I shake off the feeling that nobody likes me?
How do I go to the party when no one invites me?
How do I banish all the shyness from my mind?
How do I learn that other people can be kind?
But hey, I’m doing fine

My classmates tried to make new friends, oh so sweetly
And I did too, but I was nervous, and it showed
I never let nobody in, not completely
‘Cause then they’d see that I’m a fraud and then they’d go

I didn’t wanna scare them away
I didn’t wanna hear what they might say
I didn’t wanna be so meek
That no one in my class had heard me speak

(repeat chorus)

Don’t worry, there’s a happy ending
I think I’ve finally found the key
Because at last, I stopped pretending
And I went to therapy

I investigated all the shit that makes me wanna hide
And divested from the stresses that were festering inside
Now I’m happier and healthier and I’ve got friends
I hope that’s how your story ends

How do I shake off the feeling that nobody likes me?
How do I get down to healing my jumbled-up psyche?
How do I banish all the shyness from my mind?
How do I learn that other people can be kind?
But hey, I’m doing fine
Hey, I’m doing fine

 

Songwriting diary:

As I’ve done a few times before in this challenge, I used a random word generator to pick 3 words to inspire a song, and the words it gave me this time were “form,” “college,” and “shallow.” I didn’t end up incorporating either of the other words, but “college” got me thinking about how much I struggled socially and mental health-wise during my time at university. I already have a song that I wrote about anxiety while I was in the thick of it, but hadn’t really written one that looked back at that time in my life from a further-removed vantage point.

The second line of the chorus (“How do I go to the party when no one invites me?”) went through more rewrites than any single line of lyrics in this entire challenge thus far. I had trapped myself by wanting it to rhyme in 3 different places with the preceding line (originally the two lines went, “How do I shake off the feeling that nobody likes me?/ How do I wake up from dreaming that everyone fights me?”) and then I talked to my friend Brent about it and decided to let go of the need for it to be packed with internal rhymes. I’m not Sondheim and that’s okay!

Song 34/52: “The Lube Song”

Lyrics:

Chorus:
Lube, lube, glorious lube
The special sauce of sex
When you’re in the mood
Or when you’re not, it can get you wet

Let’s talk about water-based
It’s available almost any place
It’s compatible with toys and condoms too
So you can do whatever you wanna do

The trouble is, it’ll dry up fast
But add some water and it’ll last
It can cost less than ten bucks a tube
And that’s water-based lube

(repeat chorus)

Let’s talk about silicone
It’s smooth as silk and it makes ’em moan
But silicone toys can be damaged by
This kind of lube; ask a scientist why

It’ll last and last, but it’ll stain your sheets
And just make sure it doesn’t leak
If you spill it, you’re fucked, and you have to move
And that’s silicone lube

(repeat chorus)

There’s one more type of lube I forgot to mention
I don’t have many in my collection
Oil-based lube is a great invention
But watch out – it can cause infection

It’s fine for dicks in most cases
But not for more internal places
Your gynecologist might disapprove
And that’s oil-based lube

(repeat chorus)

Lube, lube, glorious lube
So many kinds to explore
When you’re in the mood
Or when you’re not, you can still use more

 

Songwriting diary:

I walked down to the beach with my notebook and pen, and sat down to write some lyrics. I hadn’t pre-chosen a topic, but for some reason, after a few minutes of staring blankly into space pondering different ideas, the words “Lube, glorious lube” jumped into my head and I was off to the races.

As I wrote the rest of the lyrics, a bunch of children gathered very close by as their parents snapped a bunch of summery group shots. I have no idea why they chose that location, as I was no doubt photobombing them and they could’ve moved a few feet in either direction and been fine. But now, somewhere, there’s a series of family photos in which a sunglasses-clad stranger in the background is hunched over a notebook writing lewd lyrics about lubricant.

I had a lot of trouble accepting this as a “real song” even once I came home and put it to music. Jokey songs are not really my forte, and I also often feel guilty about “taking the easy route” when I write a song that’s this structurally simple. But I’ve received more positive feedback on this song than for practically any other in this challenge (which probably has a lot to do with my pre-existing sex-positive audience) so I should be gentler with myself about lighthearted songs like this one in the future.

Song 35/52: “Stay”

(Content note: this song deals with themes of depression and suicide)

Lyrics:

The depression’s pressin’ down on you
It can do whatever it wants to
Now you’re stressin’, dressin’ for the day
Wondering: what’s the point anyway?

I wanna hype you up
But I’m worried I’m not too tough
I wanna be your savior
But then I need to be braver

Chorus:
Maybe I’m not really a friend at all
If I can’t stop you and you end it all
Maybe I’m not as good as I say
If I can’t stop you and you go away
Hey hey, hey hey, I really want you to stay
Hey hey, hey hey, I know it’s harder to do than it is to say

When the news is lookin’ especially bleak
And you’ve had a really shitty week
Can I see you and feed you dinner, please
Or whatever else you’re gonna need?

I wanna keep you here
But the path is not too clear
How can I help you through
When I’m struggling just like you?

(repeat chorus)

Hey hey, hey hey, I really want you to stay
Hey hey, hey hey, I just want you to be okay

 

Songwriting diary:

I woke up in a panic one morning after having a really scary dream where a friend of mine was feeling suicidal and I actually heard him going through with it in another room. After checking the friend’s Twitter to make sure he was actually doing fine (and getting some nice hugs from my spouse, who was staying with me at the time and is very used to comforting me after anxiety dreams, which I have a lot), I took out my journal and wrote the lyrics to this song.

My partner got up to take a shower and I grabbed my phone to make some quick recordings of the melody I heard in my head. It was then that I improvised the “Hey hey, hey hey/ I really want you to stay…” part of the song, which ended up becoming key to its overall structure.

When I sat down at an instrument a few hours later to figure out the chords, I realized that in my head, the song really only had one chord. This is extremely unusual for me and I wondered if I should scrap the whole song because it was too simple. But then I remembered reading in various songwriting books earlier this year that one-chord songs are valid and not even uncommon in the worlds of pop, rock, and blues. So I put together an arrangement in Garageband to spice it up a bit, and I like how it came out!