Embedded Files
By David Quintanilla
Bands like Nappy Roots, Morning Teleportation and Cage the Elephant have put Bowling Green on the map. BG’s music scene is full of bands that are trying to become the next big thing. The Josephines, Sugadiasy and Girl Tones are some of those bands. Another band that is trying to break into the big time was formed right here at Bowling Green High School.
October Tuseday, formed in 2021, consists of BGHS alumni, Samuel Garvin (vocals and lead guitarist), Sophie Stockton (backup vocals and guitar), Caleb Floyd (bassist), and Adam Smerowski (drummer). From a humble beginning as a band that played a show here and there, they soon became BGHS’s favorite underground band.
The name October Tuseday was born when Sam Garvin went to film camp over summer break.
“I wrote this song someone put in their film. The band in the film was called October Tuesday.” This misspelling of “Tuseday” became official when Sam couldn’t spell Tuesday correctly. “I f*cked up a lot on the shirts and I swapped the “E” and the “S” so instead of changing the shirts we just made the name October Tuseday.”
They started out by just being a band that played a few small gigs and concerts. Their popularity within the school grew when on August 14, 2022, they released their first single “Good Enough,” a song about a person not feeling worthy of their partner.
‘If you could fly, drop me, I'm worthless…
don’t look down; stay up there you’re perfect,’
are lyrics from the song that perfectly captures what “Good Enough” is about; there is a person who is perfect in every way and their partner is someone who doesn’t feel good enough for them. They continue this through the chorus:
‘I know I'm not good enough for you; we both know it's true.’
The song brought success and got people talking around school about the up-and-coming band. Whiteboards read “October Tuseday song out now!” The release of their first single got people talking. They performed it at their concerts, and fans had high expectations for their next single.
Just as fans were appreciating the melodic lyrics of “Good Enough,” the band released their second single, “You Thinking About Me?” A song about Sam and his relationship with his girlfriend Evynne.
‘You’re staring at your feet sitting in a plastic seat
It's hard to be discreet when I like you and you like me’
“We had journalism together and we were both nervous to talk to each other. This was before we were dating and we tried to act like we didn’t like each other despite the obvious signs,” remarked Sam. Thoughts we have of other people are the thoughts they should act upon, but sometimes such as in this situation, it doesn't happen. The acknowledgment of knowing the other person likes them isn’t enough and Sam recognized this.
“Please don’t let me disappear., just observe me
I just want to be right here, if I’m worthy
If you’re gonna let me down, don’t desert me
If you’re gonna let me down, you won’t hurt me’
The chorus begins with a line from The Catcher and the Rye “please don’t let me disappear," is the reference where Holden, while crossing the street, asks his dead brother for him to not disappear. Then the lyrics go back to the topic of “Good Enough,” with the lyric “I just want to be right here if I’m worthy.”
“I wanted to be part of this relationship but often I felt insecure if I even deserved it,” said Sam.
The chorus continues with two more lyrics “If you’re gonna let me down, don’t desert me,” when Sam’s girlfriend wouldn’t talk to him and he thought that she was planning on leaving him. The lyric, “If you’re gonna let me down, you won’t hurt me,” represented moments when Sam was beyond hurt whenever he was let down. However, he didn’t want to show that level of vulnerability, so he would say it didn’t hurt him. The song is accompanied by October Tuseday’s most memorable bass line, played by Caleb. A deep bassline immediately attracts listeners and leaves them wanting more.
BGHS started noticing the band with the release of “You Thinking About Me?” More and more followers were appearing on Instagram and it was starting to appear that October Tuseday was meant for bigger things. However, for the rest of the 2022-2023 school year, they didn’t release any more music, leaving their fans with an empty feeling. They continued their small concerts to showcase their talent, but fans who couldn’t attend were left with nothing at home.
It wasn’t until October 2023 that they hinted at more new music, but this time it wasn't to announce a new single but a new album… It Has Everything to do with Cars.
Originally set to release on the first Tuesday of October, the band ran into copyright and distribution issues which delayed the album to the second Tuesday of October.
“I was in class and the October Tuseday group chat was going wild about how it’s finally out,” said Sam Garvin about the initial drop of the album.
The majority of the songs on the album are written by Sam Garvin.
“Some songs took like 30 minutes to write but others are an assortment of different poems written months or years apart,” discussed Sam on his writing methods. “Some I wrote in middle school, while others I wrote in high school or college.”
It Has Everything to Do with Cars is a 9-track album that perfectly embodies the high school years. You can reflect on your memories of high school through the well written lyrics of Sam and Sophie.
“The main theme is melancholy… It definitely feels like a lot of the frustrations and feelings that come up while you are in high school and in your teen years.” reflected Sophie.
Even the album cover has a high school vibe. Izzy Stockton, Sophie’s younger sister and the artist behind the album cover art, never thought she was drawing the main album cover.
“What it was, it was just a sketch and they (the band) didn’t tell me ‘til the last minute that they didn’t need just a sketch,” said Izzy. The cover mainly focuses on Sophie’s car, an iconic yellow Volkswagen Beetle that could always be spotted in the student parking lot. The rest of the cover is a collage of random album covers and other random blue assortments.
“There’s part of a The Police album, a 5 Gum wrapper, one of them is a toilet paper thing, and there’s also part of the Ok Computer cover,” noted Izzy. The other random items on the cover include the “Good Enough” cover birds, the Evil Dead movie poster, the Modern Life is Rubbish by Blur cover and the Adolescents Welcome to Reality cover.
All these collaged together create a mess of a cover that reminds you of your high school years and the culture of it. To BGHS students, being able to see Sophie’s iconic Beetle was something that was heartwarming.
The album begins with “Back to Bed,” a great opening track about being with your loved one and just wanting to be with them in a bed.
‘Please don’t wait til I back down
Sleep right next to me without a sound
The world seems to reside inside your head
And I'm tired so shut up
Please come back to bed’
These lyrics accompanied by a soothing acoustic guitar and a good spirited bassline, give you a comfortable feeling you get when you can finally get under your sheets after a long day. October Tuseday starts the album with this song in order to clear the listeners' heads, to start fresh. A clean slate. They want them to focus on the album and encapsulate themselves in the feelings they felt in high school in order to get the full effect of the album. Their lyrics are heavy and only get more relatable.
The next track is the false title track, “It Has Nothing to Do with Cars.” The title of the track has nothing to do with the album, but it is instead a “reference to those emo songs that have really long names that don’t really relate to the meaning of the song at all.” This song was written yet again about Sam’s girlfriend Evynne. It was the first song that he wrote for the band instead of just using lyrics he already wrote.
“This was at a point in my relationship with my girlfriend where everything was new and unfamiliar, and with that came a lot of anxieties,” explained Sam.
‘Evynne I’m beneath your skin do you feel me breathing
Do you feel me breathing do you think you need me’
These lyrics are double-edged to Sam. He defines his previous self as, “being so close yet also annoying because she was often very annoyed when I tried to get her to stay longer.” They only continue to explore these somber relationship lyrics:
‘Evy don’t drive away from me
It gets so lonely when I see your car leave’
The lyrics refer to how Sam would be alone after Evynne would leave his house. It’s something all of us have felt. The post-social loneliness after hanging out with someone we care about is relatable, and Sam perfectly conveys this feeling in just two lines.
‘Let me sleep, let me die in peace,
I could end myself now
But I don’t want to let you down,’
are possibly the most depressing lyrics in the song. “Sometimes at night I would stay up thinking about how I could die and make it look like an accident, but more as a hypothetical than actually considering it at this point,” Sam commented. He knew how much it would affect her and he didn’t want her to go through all that.
‘And this melody used to sound so sweet
but the taste retreats the chords turn sour’
refers to all those moments in life when you have a great time and it ends. It’s so sweet and as soon as it ends it turns sour. Even more significant about this lyric is “the chords turn sour” falls on a minor chord; which symbolizes that the chords actually do turn sour.
These lyrics are just a few from the song that can hit home to anyone. This is what October Tuseday does; make every song as relatable as possible while still speaking on their personal experiences.
The album continues with the mood set by these lyrics. "Hetfield" includes the lyrics, “You belong somewhere far away, free me from this cage,” which is all about feeling trapped and not being able to get out. Tagged along with a chunky bass line played by Caleb, it makes this track the easiest to vibe with.
The next track, "French People," is almost a “part two” to Hetfield. “You live in me like a parasite,” a lyric in the song, continues the theme of not being able to escape. It can be anything; maybe you can’t escape your relationship, or you can’t escape feelings of emptiness or loneliness. “French People” also involves an engaging drum part by Adam that makes you want to tap along.
Track 5, “Sunny in the Clouds,” is the most vivid song, with image inducing lyrics such as
‘Hands, they’re grasping at the wind
there’s nothing in the air’
Giving you an image of someone who has almost lost it and is just trying to get a hold of anything in their life, but ‘there’s nothing in the air.’ It’s a point where they know they’re aware there’s nothing to do yet they continue to try to get a grip of anything. It serves as a perfect transition into the next song.
Possibly the track with the most heart-wrenching lyrics has to be track 6, “Waste Away,” written by Sophie Stockton.
“It’s how I was feeling for a long time,” said Sophie. The song pertains to a battle with self image issues and eating disorders. “In times when I’ve felt really out of control in life, it’s been something that’s creeped back.” The song explores these themes with beautifully crafted lyrics;
‘I don't think I can hide it
And I don’t think I want to
I don’t see the use in fighting
And you poisoned my food’
‘I can’t help but keep on crying
Cause the one I am fighting
Is the girl I see in the reflection looking back
Yeah she’s under attack’
It’s become an issue with kids in high school. The University of Washington reported that “53% of American girls are unhappy with their bodies. This grows to 78% by the time girls reach seventeen.” The National Institute of Mental Health reported that “The lifetime prevalence of eating disorders was 2.7%.”
Sophie realized this during her battles.“It’s about feeling mentally unwell and wanting your physical appearance to reflect that.” Waste Away brings these issues to the light more and helps us realize that we or someone we know might be battling the same issues.
The next track “New Moon,” is about finally being together after knowing for so long that there was something there.
‘It took us long enough to find out that we make the perfect pair
Like socks that stay on overnight keep you warm while you go downstairs
It took us long enough to walk up close and each other’s way
We went from staring at our shoes not having any words to say’
The track is similar to “You Thinking About Me,” there are feelings there that weren’t acted upon til later. “New Moon,” does a great job of diving into the feelings we feel in these situations. It’s frustrating whenever two people know that there is chemistry between them and they won’t do anything about it. Finally when they do it’s a satisfying feeling, the awkward period is over and they can finally set in on a relationship.
More somber lyrics in “Cursed.” “Cursed” makes me cry like a baby some days,” said Sophie.
“I started writing “Cursed,” freshman year of college and I was going through a rough patch,” commented Sam. “I couldn’t really motivate myself to do anything and I felt dependent on my girlfriend. She was taking hard classes and had to do homework and study a lot.”
That’s where the first verse comes from;
‘I can’t move there’s nothing I can do
What if I were to come crawling back to you
And yet I’m in full control
I tend to forget I can fill this hole’
It’s about the hardships in a relationship and how it’s difficult to overcome those moments. “We were at this point where there was always this tension between us like an unspoken problem that we couldn’t resolve,” stated Sam.
‘I feel cursed; bad things happen when I’m with you
I don’t need words you know I’ll hold you cause I want you
Why do I always find myself making you cry
You have the smallest bed we curl up on separate sides’
The chorus brings these fights into the light. There was no cause for these fights; they just happened and that’s why Sam felt cursed. He thought he could fix these problems by just holding her but she said he was only doing it to stop the argument. They always seemed to end in her crying as well. Sam builds up these lyrics almost as if the listener is in the room, watching the fights go on. It’s what makes “Cursed” so impactful. The bridge was taken from a poem Sam wrote in high school with a few tweaks;
‘Trolomine supposed, don’t take off your clothes
I’d feel too exposed you seem so tired
Gaps between your teeth,
Inflections in your speech
I’d stay for as long as you like’
Sam wrote these lyrics to reflect on how their relationship changed from then to now. He was a lot more self conscious then and even though he appreciates all her flaws he can’t stay forever, only for as long as she wants him to. This bridge shows that even though we can get into disagreements with people we can always find something to be grateful for. The song then fakes, dies down, speeds up and goes back to the chorus in order to express the fighting through the music.
The album then wraps it up with “Weeks or Weaks,” a perfect way to close the album off. Reflecting on the feelings Sam dived into on the album; he summarizes the unpleasant ones on the finale.
‘Every day every day every day every day feels the same
And nights turn to days without sleep
Dim the lights but the feelings are deep’
High school is a repeated action. It’s the same schedule and it’s talking to the same people every day. The analogy of “high school is a prison,” can be somewhat true to most of us and October Tuseday present this. “Weeks or Weaks,” showcases just how impactful Sam’s lyrics can be and also the potential that October Tuseday has.
With memorable bass lines, catchy drums and two amazing vocalists/writers, October Tuseday released an album that showcases the ups and downs of a relationship and also explores real heavy topics. They brought out every feeling they had and put it into this album.
Sam is now in a predicament. “If I’m being honest I’m kinda in a rut right now in terms of lyric writing,” said Sam.
“I have this crazy fantasy that we will like spike in listeners, and like go on tour or something; I guess why not speak that into the universe??” expressed Sophie on what is next. The band has songs they previously recorded that could be released soon.
October Tuseday has made it past their “high school band” days. They are now looking to become the next big thing. This album was a step in the right direction. For now, fans can enjoy the solitary sentiments of It Has Everything to do with Cars.
Page updated
Report abuse