Jam Journal: Composing my emotions with music
Now, I’m not very good at this stuff. As opinion editor, I can ramble on about social justice, mental health and law all you want — but if you ask me what my favorite song or artist is, I’d probably tell you I don’t know, lie or give you a different answer each time you ask. This is reflected in my playlists. These days, I feel like it’s common to have a Spotify account with at least 20 different playlists. Currently, I’m working on playlist 64 which I named “noisy november” because this past week alone my head has been filled with more chaos and commotion than usual.
To give you a peek into my mind and what my November has been like, the first few songs of “noisy november” are “Pool” by Still Woozy and Remi Wolf, “Rich Spirit” by Kendrick Lamar and “TOMBOY” by (G)I-DLE. You could say I have a diverse music taste but the real reasons for my chaotic arrangements of songs in my playlist is 1: I am too indecisive to settle on one genre or artist and 2: I use music to formulate my emotions because my emotions are usually more tumultuous than my playlists are.
I often get this feeling of overwhelming claustrophobia, pressure on my temples and ringing in my ears where it feels like everyone is yelling different things around me. My thoughts become a puzzle with missing pieces and I lose focus on what I’m doing as my brain goes numb. So what do I do instead of writing that essay due the next day? I make a playlist.
I have no idea what I’m feeling or how I’m doing 90 percent of the time — it’s probably due to some combination of anxiety, depression and PTSD, but who knows. The only thing that seems to get me out of that haze of emotions is either sticking my face in ice water or music. I think Kendrick said it best in “Rich Spirit”:
“The morality can wait, feedback on low latency, I’m glitching from the face as my thoughts grow sacredly, I’m runnin’ out of space.”
Most of the time I’m on high latency but as the music blasts through my headphones, the fog in my brain starts to clear and suddenly my brain is working on low latency. Now, as a neuroscience major, I know that music isn’t magically cleaning up my brain with a biological mop of some kind. I know that music is acting as a stimulus in my brain, activating multiple regions between both hemispheres. Through a cascade of reactions and firing neurons, music helps my brain process the immense flow of information coming in and starts organizing it just like I organize my emotions with my playlists.
Now, as a person who has 64 playlists ‘cause she doesn’t have the capacity to sort her emotions out on her own, I think it’s because songwriters don’t just compose music but emotions into the heart of their songs.
When my heart is so broken that I can’t cry and I am lost in a field of confusion as to why a loving and healthy relationship didn’t work out, I’m reminded by Delaney Bailey that no matter how much love was there, at my core I’m a hopeless romantic looking for someone to “tie a lasso around the moon and bring it on down” even if I didn’t ask because I would “give [them] the sun if [they] asked me.”
When I continuously make excuses for the things my mom puts me through and I don’t know why my eyes start tearing up, Harry Styles and “Matilda” remind me that I’m crying because I normalized my family’s behavior.
“Nothing ‘bout the way that you were treated ever seemed especially alarming ‘til now.”
When the guilt of distancing myself from my family eats me alive, I just remind myself that it’s okay to “throw a party full of everyone you know and not invite your family, ‘cause they never showed you love.” Then I question my relationship with my family and I queue Conan Gray’s “Family Line” to get the answer to the hole I’m feeling in my chest.
“It’s hard to put it into words how the holidays will always hurt, I watch the fathers with their little girls and wonder what I did to deserve this? How could you hurt a little kid? I can’t forget, I can’t forgive you ‘cause now I’m scared that everyone I love will leave me.”
Sheesh. Am I right? Who needs a therapist when you can get the answers to your internal conflicts on Spotify for only $4.99 a month — and it comes with free subscriptions to Hulu and SHOWTIME? (This article is not sponsored by Spotify and please go see a therapist).
Music doesn’t always give me the answers I’m looking for, but it’s a place where I can sit amongst all the things I’m feeling freely. I’m pretty sure I don’t interpret the songs the way the artist had in mind, but that’s the beauty of it and depending on the day, “laurel” by BETWEEN FRIENDS reminds me that I deserve better:
“I always wait for you to call me, but you’re never on time. And every night I’m on your old street, you’re the one on my mind. But do they care?”
And other nights, I’m reminded that relationships and breakups are a two-way street:
“I should let you go because I’m always on my own. I’ve been waiting for you to call me, running back to tell you I’m sorry, yeah I should let you go.”
Heartbreak, excitement, anger, love, depression, anxiety — I have a playlist for it all. Hell, I even have a playlist called brain juice. Things just make sense when I listen to music. This doesn’t just apply to songs with lyrics as I float away from my problems listening to Luke Faulkner’s piano composition “Clouds” and “Ballerina” by Yehezkel Raz.
While I still haven’t found all the missing pieces to the puzzle of my brain, music is a temporary placeholder that helps me go on with my day just like my antidepressants do.
Growing up, threats of my parent’s divorce echoed through the hallways and yelling scattered throughout my house when a tiny mistake was made. It was a place where the safest choice was to bottle up my emotions. The only way I learned how to tune out the noise and learn how to open up was through Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” album and Ed Sheeran’s “Photograph.” I learned how to grieve my dad with songs like “Talking to the Moon” by Bruno Mars and “Ripples” by beabadoobee.
At the end of the day, music is whatever I want it to be. While I can’t always control my emotions, I can always arrange my music to my liking. Some days it’s fun and my “dance till the cops come” actually brings the cops to the party. Other days it’s a bit more mellow, and I put on my “okie dokie” playlist.” And whatever is causing chaos in my life, it all settles once I put my headphones on.
“Jam Journal” is a rotating column featuring a new Daily Trojan editor in each installment commenting on the music most important to them.