One evening during my sophomore year, my roommates and I sat in our living room and scrolled through our Spotify accounts in search of songs that we could not stand to hear anymore. Whether these were songs that reminded us of past relationships, or awkward middle school parties, or simply a reminder of how bad our tastes used to be, it was amusing to note how arbitrary–and downright cringy–many of these songs were.
Today, I pride myself on my taste in music, and an acknowledgment of this taste is my favorite compliment to receive. But it has not always been this way. So, take this article as a confession, an attempt to purge myself of my musical sins.
They’re so pretty, it hurts
I’m not talkin’ ’bout boys, I’m talkin’ bout girls
– ‘girls’ by girl in red
Picture this: you are barely fourteen, have freshly realized your bisexuality, and have no idea how or where to begin your journey as A Gay. Because of this, you turn to the internet and its wondrously expansive collection of information, cuff your jeans, and create a playlist titled sweater weather. You fill the playlist with songs by girl in red, Clairo, and King Princess because they’re the only sapphic artists you can think of, and listen to it on a loop while memorizing Tumblr flags and microlabels you barely understand. The soundtrack to your fourteenth year, one that was anything but glamorous, thus features the likes of “Wish You Were Gay” by Claud, “She” by Dodie, and the eponymous “Sweater Weather” by The Neighborhood. I listened to these songs not because I particularly liked them, and in fact often realized that they weren’t for me, but rather because I believed that I was supposed to enjoy them. If I was to proudly say that I quote-unquote listened to girl in red, I had no choice but to actually listen to her music. As I became more comfortable with my labels and identities, I slowly realized that not enjoying sad queer indie pop songs did not make me like girls any less, and my playlist was left to gather dust. However, today I cannot hear those songs without being immediately transported back to the age of fourteen, finger guns and all.
I lift my head up and the world’s on fire
Fuck, there’s school tomorrow
– ‘IG Comments Song’ by Soren
The closest I can think of to a time capsule within my Spotify is my four-and- a-half hour quarantine playlist. As someone who was far from cool when COVID hit, the playlist featured half of the High School Musical: The Musical: The Series soundtrack, along with many songs that I discovered through TikTok, all songs that I decided to play nonstop from March to May of 2020. As I flashed my purple LEDs and texted my friends about our Google Classroom homework, I sang along to songs such as Soren’s “IG Comments Song,” Ashe’s “Moral of the Story,” or EDEN’s “sex,” which have since become synonymous with a generation-defining pandemic, and the many turmoils of my quarantine-time Discord server.
So go ahead and break my heart again,
Leave me wondering why the hell I ever let you in
– ‘Break My Heart Again’ by FINNEAS
There is no such pain as the one associated with one’s very first homoerotic situationship. I was fifteen, my brain was still essentially mush, and I had yet to discover the comfort of crying to Jeff Buckley. Instead, I found solace in breakup songs like “Break My Heart Again” by FINNEAS, “A Soulmate Who Wasn’t Meant to Be” by Jess Benko, and “Jealous” by Labrinth, just to name a few. Playlists with names like lying on the cold bathroom floor, with tears streaming down your face, and missing someone so much it hurts were my not-so-quiet calls for help, and I still wince at the memory of the subject of these playlists asking me if they were the one I was speaking to through these titles. While the feelings I held at fifteen have long disappeared, “Lonely” by Noah Cyrus and “Happiness” by Rex Orange County still punch me in the gut if I’m not paying attention, and flood me with memories of drawn-out cry sessions over Instagram DMs.
If long hair and tattoos are what attract you
Baby, then you’re in luck
– ’18’ by Anarbor
At sixteen, I made the conscious decision that I wanted to become “cool,” a decision that inherently nullifies any supposedly “cool” action through its explicit intention. The first step to coolness, other than the exaggerated amount of eyeliner I started to wear, was to make my music taste more alternative. I swapped out indie-pop for pop-punk and the singer-songwriters for grunge bands, Anarbor’s “18” and My Chemical Romance’s “Teenagers” embodied my aspirations for an alternative existence, and I plastered my closet with printouts of riot grrrl images I found on Pinterest, though I could only name Bikini Kill and Le Tigre. I saved up for my first pair of Doc Martens, adopted my dad’s old electric guitar, and tried-then-failed to teach myself Mother Mother’s “Hayloft” riff.
In a way, this phase laid the foundation for who I am today. My Docs are broken in, I’ve traded the guitar for a bass, and my introduction to riot grrrls and 90s grunge eventually led to my current obsession with New York punk and the Clash. I can’t, however, forgive my teenage self for listening to “Scotty Doesn’t Know” from EuroTrip without a trace of irony.
Get a load of this trainwreck,
His hair’s a mess and he doesn’t know who he is yet
– ‘This is Home’ by Cavetown
As I came to realize my trans identity, I found myself once again turning to music to interpret how I was feeling. I began with every transmasc’s rite of passage: Cavetown. I would listen to “Boys Will Be Bugs” and “Lemon Boy” long before I had the words to express my own relationship with my gender, and to this day I cannot hear the opening strum of “This Is Home” without experiencing a full-body reaction to it and being once again thrust into the awkwardness of being a transgender teen. I externalized my gender dysphoria through “Reflection” from Disney’s Mulan and “Alien Blues” by Vundabar, picked up the ukulele exclusively for Sushi Soucy’s “I Deserve to Bleed,” and spent too much time crying to Ricky Montgomery.
However, while half of the music I listened to became representative of my internal misery, on happier days I found myself associating many random artists to my interpretation of what masculinity was supposed to be. Thus, I latched onto Hobo Johnson’s “Peach Scone” and Hollywood Undead’s “Everywhere I Go” while donning skate shoes and men’s XL sweatshirts, and blasted “Puppy Princess” by Hot Freaks while cruising through my hometown on a glow-in-the-dark Penny board.
I can’t help but repeat myself, I know it’s not your fault
Still lately, I begin to shake for no reason at all
– ‘I Can’t Handle Change’ by ROAR
There are so many more songs and artists that I can no longer listen to, and a few of them have followed me all the way to college. I won’t talk about those. The wounds are still fresh and would reveal too much about my relationship with myself and others. Still, those I am willing to reveal prove that we all have to come from somewhere. As wince-worthy as these songs may be, they have all played a part in forming the person I am today.
Written by Micah Petyt
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