This is Friday Feels from Feeling Phine. Grab your headphones or speakers, let’s boogie.
I was going about my afternoon yesterday, making decent progress on my to-do list, when I suddenly heard the opening melody from that song. My stomach pitted; I felt sick, but no bile appeared. Worse, a tangle of memories arose, up, up, past my throat, into my skull, where they crashed all over my brain. I couldn’t hit the “next” button faster.
This is the song: “Lifetime” by Romy. It’s a fun and fast, synth-heavy pop song, full of emotive declarations. She sweetly promises that “if this world comes to an end” she’ll be by her lover’s side. Throughout the song her call to action repeats: this love is “once in a lifetime” so her object of affection should just “let it happen”! Obviously.
To 99.9999% of the population, this three minute and seventeen second composition makes for a cute and easy listen. For me, it’s pure torture. I hear the beat, then I see him. I feel my hands clasped on the wheel, driving towards him. I smell the crisp winter air as I get out of the car and look around the parking lot to check if he’s already there. Alas, it’s all in my head. I’m actually in my living room, far away from him, even further away from the experience.
If this all sounds a tad melodramatic, that’s because it is! “This sounds like a ‘you’ problem.” Indeed! I’m my own worst enemy. I’m the dumbass who continually attaches any newfound infatuation to a song.
Music and emotion are inherently intertwined. The best records go like this: emotion feeds into a musician’s inspiration. The artist then crafts their songs based off of their emotional landscape. Finally, when we the listeners consume the final product, if they’ve created something honest, and good, we’ll feel all the feels that went into the process.
You’re supposed to feel something when you hear a song; that’s the point. The danger zone, well, MY danger zone, is taking the song and attaching it to a specific person. In my defense, it just feels so good. Hearing a tune which perfectly encapsulates the crazy emotions you experience when you’re falling for someone, is a pleasure that is, quite frankly, unparalleled. What better way to recount the sweet interactions, read the tentative texts, review the photos exchanged, than with that perfect bop playing in the background. It quickly becomes the soundtrack to your internal world.
The fatal flaw in this beautiful phenomenon is the lifespan of the song. New love is temporary, songs are eternal. If you’re lucky enough to stay with the person who inspired said musical attachment, then you get to enjoy that song until, well, death doth thee part! If that person doesn’t end up being The One, as they so often are not, then you have two choices: 1) It stays on the playlists, sitting like a booby trap, waiting to trigger and re-ignite the memories, or 2) the song has to die along with the (potential) relationship, so you make it digitally disappear. There’s no win either way. And this, for me, is the tragedy.
How many songs have I ruined by falling in love? These are the ones I can name off the top of my head:
“Latch” by Disclosure
Song lifespan: 7 months.
Brought to life: Coachella 2014, during Disclosure’s set. I was thinking of the love of my life (at the time) who I’d met at UCSB. He wasn’t at the festival, so I danced alone and thought of him. Nothing like enjoying an amazing set, mentally wishing you were elsewhere!!
Death of the song: Fall 2014 when I finally faced the music (har har) and realized it wasn’t going to work out.
“How Will I Know?” by Whitney Houston
Song lifespan: 5 months.
Brought to life: At a house party in Singapore, summer 2016. The flat belonged to the next love of my life (at the time). I’d chosen it for karaoke, and our friends drunkenly belted it out, off-tune. This one was bad. I would listen to it on my headphones en route to work, where I knew I’d be seeing him.
Death of the song: The second time he started dating someone else. There were multiple times, unfortunately. Entire playlists were made, unfortunately.
“Heart To Break” by Kim Petras
Song lifespan: 2 months.
Brought to life: Spring 2019, driving around LA with my best guy friend. He had kindly picked me up after my SG > LAX flight; I deplaned, got into his car, and told him about my new boo back in Singapore the moment I sat down. Later, he showed me this song. “Does this make you think of him?” he asked. From then on, it did.
Death of the song: Two months later, when new boo didn’t text me back all weekend, until Sunday night. His excuse was that he had been drunk the whole time.
Side note: I feel like I almost knowingly walked into it with this one. The lyrics were prophetic: “This game I know I’m gonna lose makes me want you more.” FUCK.
As is true with hangovers, sometimes the only way out is to go back in. When I find myself broken after another love lost, amidst the many cures available, the strongest one is always a tune. To get over The Biggest Jerk (the very same dude who inspired the “How Will I Know?” honeymoon phase), I had Dua Lipa and her “New Rules” coaching me through the angst. Her voice rang on repeat in my ears; she was the sexy drill sergeant leading me towards my best life.
To illustrate my more recent (mis)adventure, I’ll spare the cringe details, and will allow a food metaphor to summarize the situation: it was like presenting a crispy banh mi on a freshly baked baguette to a starving, Handsome Himbo, who didn’t like jalapeños. Or pâté. Said Himbo also had a metaphorical gluten allergy and a personal preference for unseasoned chicken. At the time, I found this simplicity charming; my friends thought otherwise. Their commentary ranged from “I think you could do better...” to “Are you fucking serious?”
My friends’ sympathy storage was understandably low after months of hearing about the same dead-end pursuit. I spared them from my feelings as I tried, in earnest, to move on from the situation. Fortunately my fairy godmother, Cher, was there to comfort me. Did I believe in life after love? YES! I screamed along with her: “I know that I'll get through this! 'Cause I know that I am strong! I don't need you anymore!” After several weeks of “Believe”, and many other empowerment-centric bops, I found myself a healed woman. I could even look back at the situation with a comic eye rather than a layer of tragedy.
So now that I am, for all intents and purposes, ~over it~, why did I nearly convulse when I heard “Lifetime”? The answer is simply: the feels. In my logical mind the song acts as a single track of a playlist that I’ve already lived out; it sits towards the end of Act II, as I’m nearing the resolution. However, when consumed as a single, it doesn’t evoke the victorious feeling of freedom I’d worked so hard with Cher to achieve. Quite the opposite. “Lifetime” captured precisely what I’d felt when I’d had it on repeat: my silly heart’s futile hope, in the midst of what my mind clearly knew was a lost battle. The pit in my stomach was an echo of the original, carved by an understanding that things with Handsome Himbo were unlikely to develop any further. Time has passed, and so did my angsty wonders about what could have been. (Likely, a vacuous and short-lived relationship.) The part I’m still gutted about is the song; I really did love it.
I can’t undo these sonic attachments I’ve intricately linked in the past. The best I can do is to avoid killing any more songs in the future. My game plan for the next time I fall into infatuation is to listen to lots of “Sandstorm” by Darude. My hope is that I’ll have a laugh; the song evokes memories of karate practice from my middle school days. I also aspire to remember that, like my obsession with karate, this new “love” likely won’t last forever, so I shouldn’t take it too seriously.
In the meantime, blissfully in love with no one, I’ll enjoy my music without reading too much into it. I’ll also continue to thank the heavens that I didn’t discover Blue until this year. If I had known “A Case of You” existed before any of the aforementioned romances, I’d probably be writing this from beyond the grave.
love it! ya know.. huff post accepts submissions... care to submit?