have you ever seen the rain
merry april showers
my melodrama
Recently I listened to Lorde’s Melodrama start to finish for the first time since the year of its release, probably. It’s an album I’ve actively avoided because of the feelings it stirs up in me, the same way I’ve been avoiding writing a newsletter all year. I don’t know what’s worse - that I would believe I ever had something important to say, or that I’d venture to try saying anything at all.
When I heard Melodrama again it unlocked that vault. It came out when I was 19 and New York City still looked shiny. My heart was broken but that music carried me block to block, avenue to avenue. There was a long way I knew I would need to go. That album was the axis along which I traveled, my point of reference.
But I couldn’t return there. Physically or sonically - how could I reopen that box? I longed to hear the songs and allowed myself to sing a few bars when they’d pop into my head, but never more. There was something scary about what that album signified to me, like if I ever touched it again, I’d slip away, implode, or ask myself the question I’ve been avoiding: am I any different now? Have I changed at all? Â
I went through the East Village last week to switch subways and didn’t know where I was. Everything looks different - buildings go up and come down in a day. That skyline, never mine, changing just to spite me.
I was so little. Just a girl when I heard that album and I thought the best thing in the world could be to be loved by someone else. Â
But I changed too. I tell myself I have the life now that I dreamed about then. And I know the truth now: that living with love has nothing to do with anyone else. I see it all in me now. And I’m not a bitter New Yorker just yet, if I’ll ever be. The world changes and I change with it, rocking and rolling. Ashes to ashes, funk to funky.
I loop the album. I head downtown.
music
I saved all my songs for you since the beginning of the year because I knew I’d want to share.
January: Solange, Rachel Chinouriri, Hole, Ray Bull, Richie Quake
February: The Last Dinner Party, AG Cook, Yot Club, Lady Facing Left
March: Wolf Alice, Yung Lean, Gesaffelstein, Sipper, Snow Strippers
As for this month (so far): MF DOOM, Blondie, Wasia Project
Listen with me here:
returning to the chappell
When I was writing (for free) for a publication in college, I got sent to Atlantic Records to interview a young artist from the Midwest with a name I didn’t know how to pronounce until she said it for me. She was so small, with long, long hair, soft-spoken, was in the presence of her family, meek and quiet, but sang like Cher. When I spoke to her then, I knew she’d eventually be climbing the way she is now.
At the time, Chappell Roan was still living in Springfield. She originally rose to semi-stardom when she gained the attention of pop star Troye Sivan. She had just gotten back from tour, where she’d been opening up for Vance Joy. I love looking back at the (albeit poor quality) videos I have of Chappell and remembering the sweet conversation we had that day.
She sang songs from her EP, School Nights, which were the soundtrack of the rest of my fall season that year.
I think about her a lot. Red-haired curly queen that she is now, I will always see her this way:
taken on my iPhone, like, 7. October 24, 2017.
a man in love with plants
by Jenny Mitchell I’ll start this by transforming his last words. Help me, please! becomes I have gone upon a mission. That’s how my uncle spoke, each word precise, although he did not have much education, his childhood drab as dirt assailed the floorboards of a leaning shack. Outside his final house, he worships life held in hibiscus buds, red as new- spilt blood. Roses shade the path. Yellow orchids make him beam, jasmine does the same even when a gang plucks his last breath. He lies as if awake, feet aimed up at the ceiling, hole gaping through his golden suit – self-made, a tailor since a child in love with floral cloth. I know he’d seek more plants to bless his garden-church beyond the house.
