Making out while the world collapses
Let's discover the joy of Chappell Roan's 'uproarious' songs, sing Placebo with our friends like nothing else exists but that moment, and make a new friend in America while listening to Counting Crows
Welcome to All The Songs. We use “soundtrack” as a verb here.
Listening
Chappell Roan has lit up my life with her vibrant, youthful, searching and celebratory songs that are simply so much fun.
I had been listening to Taylor Swift’s The Tortured Poets Department a lot when, one evening as we parted after a dinner, a friend told me with convincing sincerity that I would love Chappell Roan. I loaded up her song ‘Red Wine Supernova’ in the car for my drive home and played it through three times, singing along by the second listen.
She broke through my midwinter malaise that Taylor’s album had not been helping. Reminding me, with freshness, what it feels like to be young and enthusiastic and to follow your feelings without fear of judgement. The vibe of Chappell Roan’s music takes me right back to an unforgettable night that I write about below under ‘Pure Morning’ by Placebo. There’s a purity of experience and a sense of being vividly present to yourself that I feel from Chappell Roan’s songs.
If you’re new to Chappell, check out ‘Red Wine Supernova’ and see her crew perform with her and hear her voice shine in this performance. Pitchfork calls her sound “uproarious” which feels accurate.
Reading
After I had eaten half of three different sweet pastries and one whole ham and cheese croissant (toasted) and two oysters at South Melbourne Markets a few weeks ago, I went to a great bookshop to pick up some new holiday reading.
Australian writer Jessie Tu’s A Lonely Girl Is A Dangerous Thing jumped out at me because of its provocative title. The book follows a young woman who was a violin prodigy as a child but now feels washed up and soothes her worst feelings with a sex addiction. The addiction could be to anything, but that’s her poison. I couldn’t put it down. I loved this because - like Chappell Roan - it showed me something new.
The back of the book describes it as exploring “female desire and the consequences of wanting too much and never getting it. It is about the awkwardness and pain of being human in an increasingly dislocated world”. Read more about the author here.
Drinking
On Wednesday I had a little gap of time between finishing work and getting my hair done so I slipped into one of my favourite bars, Puffin, to sip some wine while reading my book (at the time I was reading the high-energy British writer Daisy Buchanan’s novel Lime Light). They were pouring Seresin’s Beautiful Chaos natural white by the glass, a pinot gris and riesling blend, handpicked and fermented for 24 days naturally on skins - exactly the kind of natural wine I adore. The wine was lovely and so was the moment, peacefully reading to pass time. And the bar was playing Chappell Roan!
Everyone I’ve Ever Loved & All The Songs That Remind Me Of Them
For this memoir-by-playlist project, I write 500 words on my memories of a song. These vignettes offer a glimpse in to the rich and varied emotions we all experience in our lifetimes through showing a brief slice of my life at a particular time, in how I relate to a certain song. What the music brings up might be shallow or it could be intense. The memory may be joyful or thick with sorrow, a reflection on pleasure or a heavy exploration of fear. Whatever emotions a song dredges up from the spectrum of human feeling, they are true.
I remember snippets alongside songs. This is the soundtrack to my life. Let me be clear: Everyone I’ve Ever Loved & All The Songs That Remind Me Of Them is not a curated selection of the coolest songs I want to associate myself with. Some of them are my jam, others are trashy and catchy - all manner of music has been part of my life.
This project invites the reader to consider, where does this song take you? What does it remind you of? Where were you in your life when you last listened to this track?
‘Pure Morning’ by Placebo
My best friend and I leave my house on Saturday, middayish. We’re so young we do not drink coffee yet. I smoke cigarettes and she’ll pose with them but doesn’t, if you pay attention, puff more than twice for the duration of each lit “cancer stick” (her mother’s phrase).
I am wearing pantyhose that I cut the gusset out of, tore viciously at the nylon legs, cut away the feet then pulled the garment over my head, stuffing my face through where the crotch was originally intended to go. My tights have thus become a top, gutter whore goth style. My best friend is wearing red leather trousers, cut low on the hips and worn tight around the ass.
We have no plans, but we have plenty of time.
We are in Victoria Park Market where there’s a shop that sells lace-up pink patent flat soled boots. There’s a lady who will pierce your fingernails for a few dollars. This isn’t somewhere we come to shop. It is a place where a plan will find us.
Perched on a bench, me smoking my seventh cigarette of the day, we survey the scene around us. An old friend appears from the crowd. We haven’t seen him for over a year. Having found each other randomly is a miracle.
He’s living in a flat now, in a suburb of Auckland I’m not sure I’ve ever been to. We wander through the city together for hours as a trio, breathless with everything we want to say to each other, cocky and loud.
There is a party happening at his place. We wait forever for the bus to take us there. I don’t understand how he rents when we’re not old enough, legally, to have our names on a lease, but I don’t ask.
When it is dark, he pulls me to the courtyard while Placebo plays on the stereo. We press our foreheads together, I drape my forearms over his shoulders and he does the same to me, stacking his arms atop mine. We sway, pressing our full weight into the burden of the other person, then open our eyes and scream into each other’s mouths along with the lyrics, “A friend with weed is better”. We pull away, cackling.
My limber body feels like it is made of liquid gold and I am sober, just excruciatingly alive. I meet a girl who I am drawn to. We connect, brightening up, and confide.
When she goes to bed with her tall blonde boyfriend, she asks me to join them. “Please,” and her eyes convince me. It is special, being wanted.
Later I tumble into sleep on the couch, holding the taste of her inside my mouth. I’ll keep it there for the rest of my life like a glorious secret.
The morning light seems especially harsh. We are quiet as we journey on two buses back home. No one knows where we’ve been. School on Monday is a joke, that night was real.
‘Rain King’ by Counting Crows
I declare a desire for blueberry pancakes when we discuss what to have for breakfast. I can picture the tall fluffy stack, syrup spreading over and seeping through. “I want America while I’m in America,” I explain. Benji says he knows just the place. I met Benji yesterday - a friend of my dear American friend.
The pale grey concrete of the pavement in Reno, Nevada is so shiny it is almost mirror-like when we check out of the hotel and step outside. The sun screams this winter morning.
We came here for a concert because we all revolve our hearts and lives around music, then the three of us slept in one hotel room like puppies, flopping to sleep near each other tired, platonic and trusting.
At the restaurant we are seated in one of the booths. My friend chooses eggs and there is satisfaction warming my chest as I order the pancakes I’ve been wanting. I am surprised when Benji just orders a fruit salad.
We continue yesterday’s conversation about music while we eat. He asks if I like Neko Case. I reply that I love her, and that I saw her perform in Auckland the year prior, and she’d played ‘Deep Red Bells’. I add that I like the Canadian power pop band she’s a member of, The New Pornographers, too. “So do I!” He exclaims, asking if he can have some of my pancakes.
“Sure,” I say, “I’m almost done.” I’m midway through slicing my knife vertically down the stack of three pancakes so I can load a bite on to my fork when he leans over the table and starts cutting in to the stack from the other side, our forks simultaneously working at the food from different angles as though we’ve been sharing food from the same plate for years. Like how lovers might share a meal.
The snow on the road back is expected to be heavy so we stop and get snow chains for the tyres on Benji’s car, and more coffee. I talk more about what it’s been like this past year in the lead up to my separation. I tell them how I want to move to Canada so I can be somewhere I don’t know anyone.
The trees along the roadside are speckled with snow. “Well,” Benji says while we’re stopped at a traffic light. “This is such a beautiful day, we’re all here off of work with the whole day ahead, I’ve got two lovely ladies in the car, this feels good. I want to play you a song that captures this moment. It means a lot to me.”
Bright guitar chords signal the start of the song. I ask what it is and he tells me it’s Counting Crows.
When I’m alone in my rental car the next day, I flick through Counting Crows songs on Spotify and learn that song was called ‘Rain King’. Benji was trying to say he liked being there, with us. With me.
Previous instalments of Everyone I’ve Ever Loved & All the Songs That Remind Me Of Them
Thank you for reading! Jazial x