Simir Hampton
January 25th 2022
During my winter break I found myself reflecting on the chaotic year I had. There was so much growth and transformation, especially towards the end of the year. I experienced so much personal development and started to figure out what “loving yourself” actually felt like. But, as soon as I came back from winter break it was so much easier to lose sight on all the work I did in the year before. Covid cases were rising and sending many of my friends home for being sick or being in close contact. Many of my classes were not even halfway full, and my motivation just completely disappeared. Whenever there are times like this, there’s always a song stuck in my head to get me through the day. This song was “Bittersweet” by Lianne La Havas.
Lianna reflects on the weariness we feel after completing a cycle on her most popular song, "Bittersweet".
To me the song is a 5-minute playground of angst regarding the ending of a cycle. I could really recognize the anger in her voice when she belts, “Bittersweet summer rain/ I’m born again”. It fully captured the feelings around the first 2 weeks of January. Even though I was happy to get to a new year, I was really bummed that covid was going into its third year stronger than it’s ever been. Coming home, I talked with my mom about how it would be great if we got a little more of a break, and she said, “this is bittersweet”. As she continued to talk about how when we were virtual, we wanted to be in school but now in school we want to be virtual, I was stuck on that one word she said, “bittersweet”. It was amazing seeing how the title of the song that’s been stuck in my head was also the same word she used to describe the mess we were going through. This only reaffirmed my belief that music can be tool for us to digest the tougher times.
My journalism teacher and I share a love for the song, so I had to tell her when I came to school the next morning. “Yeah, Bittersweet is the word of the year” they said. “More bitter than sweet but you have to really look in order to find the sweet.”
Music can provide us that space to feel bitter, but it can also provide us the space to find the sweetness.
The bitterness for most of us comes from the fact that we’ve been in a pandemic for almost three years, with extreme highs and lows of anxiety, depression, and isolation. Many, if not all of us, had our relationship patterns completely transformed. This could involve the relationships with ourselves, with our families, our communities, all being impacted by the drastic changes and traumatic events we’ve experienced during the everlasting pandemic.
For many people, all the time in isolation during the pandemic was more time to fall into unhealthy coping mechanisms. In a time span from April 2020 to April 2021, we saw over 100,000 overdose deaths, which was a 30 percent increase from the previous year. In Philadelphia, we saw a record breaking 562 homicides last year, which increased 13% from the years prior.
Violence and addiction is something that we all look down upon when we encounter it, but they really are cries for love, attention ,and care. There are studies that show that communities that suffer the most from opioid addiction and violence are the ones with the most economic stress and the least social connection. So, it’s clear that these behaviors are actually a cry out for help. A cry for love.
Music often gives me the love that I need in the moment, and it does this for many people. My friend, Leila Underwood and I had a short talk about music (as we usually do) and she brought up something I thought was interesting: a need for love.
Adele eats the fruit of heart break and motherhood on "30".
Leila is in love with Adele. She says that she remembers Adele’s 21 being a staple of her childhood. But a song that she feels a strong connection to now is, “To Be Loved”, off of Adele’s new album, 30.
“I didn’t want to play it at first because I knew what it was about”, Leila said. “It talks about how we do so much to please other people, just because we want to be loved.”
As she reflects on all the ways she coped with a lack of love, she finds that this love is something that she's always deserved.
“Wow I did all of this crazy stuff just to be loved?” She questioned. “Just the bare minimum? Crazy.”
She loves how this song makes her feel. Of course, this is one of the more emotional songs in her listening catalogue, but she sits with it because it validates her.
“I love when artists cut open their chests to feel something” she said, reflecting on some of the best music she’s ever listened to.
Music is the perfect translation of emotion. We play that really upbeat music when we work out or need to get work done but when we need to sit with rejection or loss, we put on that deep existential music that makes us feel real.
Another thing that Leila loves to do with music is to share it.
“I’m on the shyer side” she says. “I don’t want to ruffle any feathers, so the best way to tell you how I feel is to show you a song.”
To Leila, sharing music is like it’s own love language; it’s a place where you can share your vulnerabilities more easily because you have the space to.
Khalid makes a hit album straight out of high school years on "America Teen"
My friend Jenny Liu from New York City also agrees with this.
“Music takes on a whole new meaning when you share it with people” Jenny said.
I met Jenny in a summer program called Thrive, and we started getting closer because of our love for music. I found out that she had been stalking my Spotify playlists (as she should) and that she liked Fiona Apple. At that moment I knew that I needed to get to know her.
All the music lovers out there have that one song or that one album that really changed it for us. For Jenny, this was American Teen by Khalid.
She found this album when she was in 8th grade. And because of the age difference between her and Khalid at the time, she couldn’t fully understand all the things that he was saying. But what made this album such a memorable experience was the fact that she listened to it in art class with her friend.
“Music can be shared listening experience” Jenny said. “It works, listening to the album in its entirety with someone else.”
Further in the conversation she says music is by far one of the more accessible art forms to share, because it's so short and less time consuming. By its design, music is more made for sharing with someone else. Back in the day, before Spotify or any other major streaming platforms, we had mixtapes. Where you can collect all of your favorite songs and share it with one another. We essentially do the same thing now, just with playlists on apple music, Spotify or YouTube.
A person I've made many playlists for is my friend, Lukas Patruskey in New Jersey. I remember when we made each other a playlist with 10 songs that best describe us. My playlist was full of rock and avant-garde with a little bit of 80’s pop. His was filled with underground rap with a hint of Spanish music. They were completely different worlds, but we still found ourselves interested.
The coolest thing is that we both love an album called 1999. His favorite is by Joey Bada$$ and mine is by Prince. But as I got to know him more, I started to realize that we both are learning the same things, experiencing the same emotions, just in different ways.
“We used the same outline” Lukas said. “We just filled them in differently.”
This underground rap duo takes the ugly and makes it beautiful with witty rhymes and nostalgic samples.
Lukas says he’s never experienced racism directly, even though he has Latin roots. But rap music gives him insight on what racism could look like in different parts of the country. Whether its Jay z, Nas, Westside Gunn or Joey Bada$$, he’s always learning something from music. To him, music is a way to listen to worldly views that help find the sweet in bittersweet.
“Music helped me identify my own perspective” he said. “Showing me a different side of humanity.
One of his favorite quotes from a rapper is, “With the pen I show you the beautiful side of ugly.” Rome Streetz says this on “Jet Fuel.” And to me, this is the perfect embodiment of what music can do for us. It shows us that beautiful side of the ugly parts of life.
Mindfulness coach, Jazman Dobson (Jaz), is well aware of music’s ability to do this. We had about an hour and a half conversation about music on a random Sunday afternoon. She told me about her experience with music both as a listener and a creator.
During the early stages of the pandemic, she couldn’t have jam sessions with her band, and it threw her off a bit. Even while guiding meditations for her community, she still needed that balance that creating music gave her.
“Not having that balance in the pandemic was tough for me” Jaz said. “Making music is healing.”
She reflected on some of her earlier times with creating and listening to music. She recognizes that it creates the space for her to practice mindfulness and to fully be present with her body and what she’s feeling. There was time when her younger self was heartbroken, so she went home and made a beat to release that angst.
“I remember feeling better after I made the beat” she said. “There’s no rules, you can really create for yourself.”
Music has this boundless space for creativity if we let it work for us. We can create a space that feels like us if we haven’t found it yet. And as a creator, Jaz knows that creating music comes from the need to hear something that you haven’t quite heard before. When she enters in this space of creation, she also enters a space of mindfulness.
“Mindfulness is about being in tune with yourself” she said. “You are inevitably connected with everything around you.
If a musician is forced into a space of mindfulness when they create their music, they also allow us to enter that same space of mindfulness where we feel connected when we listen. This connection and love are the same thing we are all in need of when we experience addiction or commit acts of violence. Music is often that space where we can fill ourselves up with that same connection we are craving. It can help us stop falling into unhealthy habits of coping with trauma or stress. It can be the teacher that shifts our perspective, the space where we feel love, the language we need to communicate, and the reflection we need in order to cherish those sweet moments even amongst the bitter ones.
"Bittersweet summer rain/ I'm born again"
-Lianne La Havas in "Bittersweet"
*Cover art was drawn by Zaniya Eaddy, a Carver Senior. If you would like a drawing from her, you can find her art on Instagram @angelzslviiart*
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