R-9

As we have deleted our Spotify account – entirely due to conditions unfair to artists, its support of AI, and the funding of military projects – we have decided to use this month's rumination to circumvent that social media's yearly algorithm findings.

We were unsure how to go about this, and so offered a poll with three choices: provide a playlist of our favourite winter songs, provide a list of the albums most listened to this year, or to provide a list of songs which claimed us this year. Eleven voted; eight for the third option – and so we go!

Fetch the Bolt Cutters // Fiona Apple

The titular track from Apple's 2020 album struck me like lightning, when I first heard it. I hadn't gotten to her discography until last year, and my first run through of this album actually yielded a few changes in me: the shift from want to a need to learn how to read and write music; the shift from a want to a need to learn how to play piano, drums, and bass guitar; an unhinging of the door I had closed years ago on any prospects of me playing with rhythms and vocals as I wished. There is much on this album I feel I relate to, and this song, its refrain, became a mantra I would recite to myself in moments of feeling too constrained, in moments of feeling that I needed to stand up for myself, in moments of recognising that I do not need to remain where I do not feel safe... "fetch the bolt cutters; I've been in here too long" muttered beneath my breath as I make decisions that benefit myself. The dogs, the urgency, the panting, the rushing heartbeat at the end of the song, always in my head a scene of escape, of running with the bolt cutters to the gate, snipping at it so that I might finally be free of the containment and constraints both myself and others place upon me. I am weary of my fun being stolen, of me giving it away; I am weary of diminishing myself to fit in boxes offered me in the way one offers children candies and other coercive treats.

Thought I Was Dead // Tyler, the Creator

In conjunction with a lyric from an earlier song on this album ("stop impressing the dead"), this song makes a fun flex. Just... just noting that. Over the past year or two, I've been doing a lot of work to come to terms with the depths to which people do not know me, even some who by all means and self-declaration should know me best. I've been coming to terms with the fact that there are those who love me immensely and poorly, simultaneously; that there are those who know what they want of me more than they know me, and yet confuse the two; that there are those who either do not know me as well as they proclaim or know me as well as they say and act out of hatred/animosity towards me. I've been reckoning with my rejection-sensitive dysphoria and moving towards living for myself, no matter what that means for others. I've offered the advice to so many that we have to treat life like aeroplane oxygen mask rules apply; we have to apply our own masks before we assist others, so that we don't become a liability and/or detriment to the very people we're seeking to help.

Also, there IS more to life than just working. So write that down.

Witches // Alice Phoebe Lou

Probably the bop of the collection, this song is a glowing dance track that I've used to help determine just how healed my Achilles tear and sprain (it's been a rough couple of years, physically) are. I can confirm, at the time of writing this, that they are pretty much back to full use. I love this tune so much; I love singing it, dancing to it, performing it... it is a joy, a thrill, magnificent and magical! My Moonflower might be the only person besides my cat privy to my whole performance of the song, but I can assure you, once you give it a listen, you'll find yourself equally bewitched! And if you haven't listened to Alice Phoebe Lou's work, you must! You must! Her voice can be found in fairy circles and speakeasies alike!

Invisible Wounds // AURORA

There are few artists I claim become increasingly visceral every album, few artists I claim as favourites, few artists whose concerts I am nervous about attending solely because I know I will be blissfully and thrillingly drowned by attending. Aurora is perhaps the first artist I became aware of fitting in all three. And this album rent me apart in ways both necessary and unexpected, especially this song, a soft and melancholic request for space from a person with whom the singer has shared home and history. This song resonates with my heart so completely, so perfectly... I love the people this song brings to mind, I love them with all my being, and, simultaneously, I... well. Listen to the song. I'm sure you can parse my meaning.

Sympathy Magic // Florence + the Machine

If I didn't have this list on shuffle to decide the song order, I would have put this one first or last, depending on if I wanted to go in order of magnitude or chronology. It doesn't matter if it's the standard or chamber version of this song; it hit me so hard that I knew half the lyrics before I finished listening to it for the first time. It hit me so hard that I knew the rhythm and could sing the song before the conclusion of the first chorus. I am incessantly working on the playlist I want to give people an idea of who I was while alive, to be played after I finish inhabiting this current form, and this song will be on that list. I dance, I sing, I breathe, I scream, I love this song – and by doing so, I love myself. In the way I hold "Space Lion" to be the thesis of Cowboy Bebop, I hold this song to be the thesis of myself.

Mouth of a Flower // Haley Heynderickx

When I shared this album with Moonflower on one of our listening dates, she remarked that this song was a very "me" song – and I wholeheartedly agree. The instrumentation, the vocals, the lyrics, all of it, just... it's a lovely tune, one which brings to mind a meander through a sunlit forest at noon, when one is filled with the enormity of the world, of its turning, of its cyclical nature. So often do I travel through cities and see in my mind's eye the land that stood there before, turned to skyscraper and cement, reclaimed by flora in a delightful future. This song feels akin to that realisation that we are impermanent in form, yet permanent in essence. The houses we walk through will one day be washed away by rain and subsumed by soil. We walk over the bones of our ancestors, who were buried over the bones of their predecessors, onwards and beyond. An idea carried throughout the song is how much taking is involved in the cycles of things; I wonder, too, by the nature of it, how much we also give, for all to take. This album reignited my passion for guitar, and though I have not had the time nor space to play again in full, I am optimistic and determined to return to it in the coming year.

I Think UR a Contra // Vampire Weekend

There are albums which present as films in musical form, and many of Vampire Weekend's albums are that to me; they are albums I see in my head, rather than finding myself upswept in lyrics and instrumentation. They are albums that I watch rather than listen to. And this song is the final scene, where two are realising that they might not be good together, that they see each other in completely different lights now. Throughout the song, many claims are made from both parties regarding how the true person is different from the person they made themselves out to be. The tension lies between inner and outer perceptions of the self, and the anticipations and expectations derived thereof. I did not get into Vampire Weekend in earnest until recently – I likely wasn't ready for them with my first attempt, years ago – but this song has been in the recesses of my mind since my first listen. This year, however, the story unfolded with such intensity that I've caught myself humming and stimming with it, writing poems to the rhythms found in it... it is a great closing scene. I love the returning of the warmth at its conclusion, where the heart is coming back into the beat, showing that it's possible the two might find a way forward, with their truer selves – whether as friends or more.

Rear View // Manchester Orchestra

Manchester Orchestra is another band whose albums I watch rather than listen to. This song was so potent when I listened to it last year that it produced a scene on sight, the skeleton for one. The sinew came after I visited my twinsoul last October; the nerves came when the two of us watched Doctor Sleep, and the rudimentary idea coalesced into a short story I finished writing spring of this year. That short story, I realised this summer, was but a seed – and so this particular song can be said to have galvanised the novel I am currently writing. "I'd rather sit here with you screaming / than sit here alone" is perhaps one of the most shattering lyrics I've ever heard, for the record. There are many Manchester Orchestra lyrics I call to mind when thinking about love, and that one... golly... I'm sensitive to high volumes (especially screaming), so it's possible that line hits me harder than some, and... and...

Good Luck, Babe! // Chappell Roan

This was the first Chappell Roan song I realised I should learn how to play on guitar. I'm tempted to leave it at that... no, no, I won't do that to you. Listen, this song is spectacular – I can't say there are any songs of hers I'm not fond of, but this song in particular wrenches my heart in the best of ways. it's equal parts melancholic, despairing, furious. And the fury is not explicit; it's more in the reading than the writing of the song, I can take that responsibility. It lurks in the throwaway notes to me, in the "'nother stupid reason," in the titular lyric, in the bridge; this is a fury seeded by hurt. The tenderness in the closing line is the collapse of a house burnt down, just as the rain starts to pour.

Real Pain // Indigo De Souza

You might note that there are a lot of songs with screaming and fury and agony-induced raging on this playlist. I acknowledge it. This song plots on that trend, and! The artist in me was fed well by this song. It is a triptych, I would say, sonically; there is the opening, "when pain is real..."; there is the real pain itself (the visceral screaming bit); there is the progression away from the pain, when the song shifts towards a more poppy beat and ascends onwards. I'd argue this is one of the most powerful songs written, honestly, a true testament to the ability of music to make tangible aspects of the spirit. The first time I listened to it, I was so overwhelmed and stunned by it that I had to pause and listen to it on my speaker instead of my headphones, so potent was it all, so well-distilled! This song inspires me to play with the sounds I use in my music, pursue what I want earnestly, with abandon.

I'm Your Man // Mitski

I did go see The Land, I did, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, and I had a few revelations watching it that I believe I reflected on in a prior rumination. Perhaps the one immediately preceding this one. I checked; it is the prior rumination! This song is another I seek to learn on guitar; this song is another which inspires me to create the sonic soundscapes I hear in my head. This is another song with dogs chasing the singer, which... I hadn't intentionally included two in this playlist, I hadn't intentionally been compelled by two songs with dogs chasing the singer, but... here we are. Two nickels. I love the reflections in this song. One is perhaps only noticed by someone as myself, who enjoys palindromes; god and dog, two beings with different, almost opposite relationships with man. God made Man, Man worships God. Man feeds Dog, Dog worships Man. I am enthralled by this song; I can chew on it for days at a time, find new meanings and implications and readings in the work.