If you’re anything like me, if someone is asking you who your favorite artist is, it’s a crime second only to being asked what your favorite song is. As a born and raised Venezuelan, who spent her most formative years in the heart of Miami, Florida – my affinity for music like much else in my life has been written in and translated into multiple languages. Which makes it, at times, very difficult to read and understand. I am loyal to no genre of music exlusively. But I do love all music (and singing and dancing). I have since I was very young, a love I inherited from my mom (a neurosurgeon, and by no means a professional musician) who will burst out into song on her karaoke machine at any given opportunity. My love of music has always been an outlier in my life, as someone who spent most of her childhood with her nose in a book and who now, years later, studies Political Science, International Business, and Latin American Culture. It is something that I believe is deeply rooted in me and explains so much of who I am, yet it isn’t something I ever devoted a lot of time to think about thoroughly.
I do, however, given a platform like this one, think it is crucial to share one’s love of art. I think it’s one of those things that can make life either lighter or heavier to carry, depending on what the situation calls for. Personally, I think that the features of Apple Music and Spotify that allow you to see “what your friends are listening to” make for the most intimate and vulnerable forms of social media. Art carries stories and so does the way we each engage and interact with it. Your “most played” playlist can tell me as much about you as your the people you trust the most in the world can. In fact many times in our lives, or at least my life, songs I love remind me of people I love and what they would say to me in times of hardship or happiness. Your “most played” tracks say as much, as your diary or journal can.
With that said, here are my own, personal diary entries — explained — for this week:
1. AS IT WAS, HARRY STYLES
This song was probably the first on Harry’s last album to blow up on TikTok and while it might be super basic and controversial, it (along with Matilda) has been my favorite on the album since day one. In terms of why it is on my rotation this week, here’s the story. I am a nostalgic person, to a fault. I have an extremely hard time accepting that things that have come and gone can never be as they were, again. Nothing is ever the same twice and it is something that has been really difficult for me to learn. This time last year was a really difficult time in my life and in that moment it felt like I would never be able to feel as happy as I once did again. However what I have discovered is that, it will never be “as it was” again, and that is one of the best things about being human. You think you’ll never be as happy as you were and what you uncover in the end is that: you’re happier than you ever even thought you could be. This song’s happy and uplifting melodies make me feel optimistic about change and happy that as much as it was difficult to accept, things are not the same as they once were and that is something to be celebrated.
Featured line: “You know it’s not the same as it was.”
Dedication: Georgia Kopf
2. unbreakable, jamie scott
Every time I hear this song, I cry without fail. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, however, it has been heavy on my playlist rotation this week. In this song, Jamie Scott sings about making the girl he loves “unbreakable” by sheltering her in his arms from all the harm she has endured during her life. I go to therapy guys, I know people can’t “fix” people and no one is “breakable” in the first place and blah blah blah, whatever. But, there is something truly powerful about the feeling that in the arms of the people you love, nothing can get to you. Because the truth is, things can still get to you. Hardship will always exist, hearts will always ache, et cetera. The key is knowing that protected by the people we love, we don’t have to carry the weight of it alone. The people you love the most and who love you the most will always call you home, in a sense. They are an unwavering constant through hell and high water, and through this they make you feel unbreakable. Those people are something to be thankful for each and every day.
PS: If you’ve ever watched the Vampire Diaries — you know.
Featured lines: “When you lose your way and the fight is gone, Your heart starts to break. And you need someone around now. Just close your eyes, While I put my arms above you. And make you unbreakable“
Dedication: Maura Herrholz
3. ONLY A LIFETIME, FINNEAS
This is probably one of the most heartwrenchingly, beautiful songs I have ever heard. I first heard FINNEAS last November when my sister took me to a concert of his here in DC. As many others, all I knew about him before this was that he was Billie Eilish’s brother. However, he is a phenomenal artist and live performer and his songs have been frequents of my music rotations ever since. This song though, even with a melancholic melody, has actually (what I think is) really positive messaging. Lately, as hard as it is to admit, I have been battling really crippling imposter syndrome. My auto-response to this has been to try to take onto my plate as much as I possible can, and then some. Wanting to be everywhere and doing everything all at once, thinking that would give me value as a person. I know this is a feeling many of you share with me, too. This song reminds me that we really only get to live one time. As corny and cliché and overused as it sounds: every single day that passes, is a day that we never get back. And those days become months, and those months become years, very very fast. Be happy. Don’t get too hooked on negative feelings or things, most of them are momentary. Laugh, love, do the irresponsible thing once in a while. Call your parents, your grandparents, your friends. Smile to everyone you run into on the street. Those are the things that really matter – everything else will fall into place.
Featured lines: “Don’t waste the time you have, Waiting for time to pass. It’s only a lifetime, that’s only a while. It’s not worth the anger you felt as a child.”
Dedication: M. Veronica Linares
4. thought you should know, morgan wallen
As I said at the beggining of this article: I do not claim to have a heterogenous or even remotely interrelated taste in music. Many of my favorite songs are sad ballads, many are in Spanish, one in French, and many are country. However, even though I know every single word to Morgan Wallen’s last album, I never paid this song too much attention. My friend Bella recently ranked it her favorite Morgan Wallen song on one of those TikToks where you’re supposed to rate songs without knowing which ones come next and so I started listening to it. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, reunions, and going home — this song hits so hard. In the song, Wallen is telling his mom that even though he has not been home in a while, she does not need to worry about him anymore. He does this while recounting to her all the good things happening in his life and assures her that he has not forgotten where he comes from. I spent every single day of many years of my life sitting at the table next to people who I now see few and far between. When I hear this song, not only do I look forward (over-enthusiastically) to seeing them again, but I am reassured of all the positive things that came from the different paths life had planned out for each of us — even if they took us in different physical directions.
Featured lines: “Yeah, I’m sorry that I called you so late, I just miss you, but anyways.I thought you should know, That all those prayers you thought you wasted on me, Must’ve finally made their way on through.“
Dedications: Natalie Pereira, Isabella Morales
5. ’tis the damn season, taylor swift
Maybe my all-time favorite song, maybe controversial — who knows? Not me. Long story short, T. Swift is singing about coming home and reuniting with her (presumed) small-town first love who she knows she will have to abandon at the end of the weekend to go back to her real life in LA. She talks about the pain there is in realizing that while this might be the person who knows her best in the world, due to their traumatic past and their divergent paths, they can’t be together. I, however, have been listening to this song with my best friend (who introduced me to my love for T. Swift with this song) for years. So, though the lyrics and their literal messaging are definitely a sharp knife, when I hear this song what I think about is driving down the Key Biscayne bridge with the windows down at night. I think of drive-thru Chick-fil-As, the beach, frozen yogurt, inside jokes, and everything and anything other than heartbreak. Which is precisely why its heavy on my rotation this week during my countdown to Thanksgiving Break. Though I am sure she is rolling her eyes in every direction possible at my song choice, I want to take this opportunity to remind said best friend that she created this monster that I am — wink.
Featured lines: “We could call it even, Even though I’m leavin’. And I’ll be yours for the weekend, ‘Tis the damn season.”
Dedication: Carolina Karakadze
Keep listening to all sorts of music that produces within you all sorts of different feelings. I’m not licensed to give life advice but I feel like the best that I can give with my limited experience is that there is beauty both in good and in ugly feelings. Don’t wallow in something too long, let it come, cry it out, let is pass. Listen to sad music to make you sadder, happy music to make you happier, revenge music, hype music, motivational music, religious music, anything and everything. All of these painfully beautiful and gorgeously terrifying moments are what make up piece by piece the entire masterpiece that is your life. Do with it what you may, know that no evil lasts forever especially not when you have an appropriate playlist and really really good people to share it with. This, I am licensed to confirm. <3