Well, How Did I Get Here?
My Mixtape’s A Masterpiece is a weekly feature in which a guest compiles a playlist around some theme. This week, Ryan Brown assembles 11 songs about things he’ll never experience (or never will again), but that describe an inevitable reality that awaits. Read Ryan’s thoughts on each song and listen along to the Spotify playlist on top and/or the YouTube playlist at the bottom of the post.
A few weeks ago I was invited to gather…outside of work… with other adults …without children present. That shouldn’t be a noteworthy occasion, but for me, it felt like the equivalent of Rumspringa. I was especially excited, after a little day drinking, to meet people; particularly folks that looked like this was just a regular occasion for them (i.e., not fellow parents).
At some point I found myself totally engrossed, chatting with someone about their struggle with the genuine existential challenges of being a young adult in this post-pandemic world that’s pushed us even deeper into virtual lives that can be robbed of context, warmth, and nuance. I could feel the strain of the emotional and spiritual burden that they were carrying as it weighed down every syllable and I was empathetic to the desperation, hurt, and boundless passion with which they spoke. But amazingly, in a blink, this person could switch to discussing parts of their lives that brought them so much wonder and excitement, that it gave me butterflies. I was completely taken by this interaction. Fully and totally captivated and invested.
At the same time though, the connection I had to their reality felt more like emotional déjà vu. Like the razor sharpness of the way this person experienced life and the way their heart was so tightly interwoven into each personal (or larger) relationship seemed familiar but also foreign. I was oddly both envious and exhausted by it in equal measure. And rather than feeling a growing kinship to them I just felt way more worried and protective of them than I had any right to be.
Then they mentioned they were 25 and I subsequently did not hear another thing they said to me as I frantically tried to calculate whether this person was closer in age to me or my daughter. Turns out they are closer to me, BUT IT WAS WAY TOO FUCKING CLOSE.
It dawned on me that this interaction reflected all too well my relationships with the pop culture to which I have always been drawn. My favorite books, movies, and music have at their heart the naïve certainty and fragility inherent to coming-of-age. Trying to figure out who you are, while you are still changing in so many ways. Facing a reality in which most of the external guidance from society about how to “correctly” answer that question is demeaning, contradictory, and degrading. It’s a fraught exercise in ecstasy and agony. Artists that have been able to capture that struggle have always been the most magnetic to me.
But the difference now is my point of view. I am no longer the hero in those stories. I am no longer the one fighting those unending psychic battles. I’m EIGHTH GRADE Josh Hamilton at best and Jason Bateman in JUNO (yuck) at worst. I’m an observer of these shooting stars, hoping they won’t burn out just yet and rooting for them to hang on a little longer—despite all the darkness with which they are sharing space. And ultimately this type of art is a connection to who my daughter will be and what unbelievable (and unsustainable) bursts of joy, pride, and love she will feel alongside the relentless crashing waves of pressure, self-doubt, depression, hurt, and loss that will try to drag her under.
So yeah, this is a mixtape of the music that moves me the most these days. Songs almost entirely made by young women, about struggles I will never face, that in no way were written for me, yet that in my mind hold the greatest stakes of anything that remains to be part of my life. So yeah, this is a mixtape of the music that makes me think about my daughter.
1.“Brutal” by Olivia Rodrigo
Thirty seconds into this song I’m googling “parental controls” and deleting social media apps. 60 seconds in and I’m looking at the profiles of Yelp’s top 10 child psychologists in Denver. By a minute and a half I’m texting my partner “homeschool…thoughts?” At the two minute mark I’m on Reddit asking how expensive it would be to replicate the “BRIGSBY BEAR upbringing, but like, for real.” I don’t make it to the end of the song.
2. “Being In Love” by Wet Leg
This song instantly gave me those visceral pangs of stomach pain, dizziness, and doom that always accompanied (but is less discussed) the elation, adrenaline, and hope that can come with new love. Trying to balance supreme self-doubt against that slight glimmer of hope that someone that feels cosmically special could think that you are “ok and stuff” is a hell of a ride.
3. “Icepick” by Sadurn
My daughter having that first SERIOUS relationship is one of the things I dread most. ‘Cause I know how goddamn hard you fall and how completely it both fills and desiccates you. How your life becomes intertwined with another person’s in a way you’ve never experienced before. You’ve even let them meet your parents! And then it shows cracks and the feelings change and you still love them with all your heart, but also they are dragging you down, but will anyone ever love you again?
Figuring out how to untie that knot you created with your first true love without cutting out your own heart or theirs is such an unappreciated step towards “adulthood” and impacts every relationship that follows.
4. “Pristine” by Snail Mail
This song is a reminder that there was a time when I could and regularly did idealize someone. Like I really thought they were perfect and I just needed to contort myself to fit snuggling within their being. When does that shatter? I mean, now I’m so cynical it can be hard to be around anyone I don’t have history with already.
But, what’s interesting is that this song suggests maybe it’s not that I was less cynical, it just that when I was younger sometimes I would actively or subconsciously choose not to look: “And you’ll never change to me ‘cause I’m not looking”. I love how honestly, wisely, and pragmatically this 19-year-old lays this bare and how it leads to that youthful idea of undying love.
5. “Radiator” by Sadurn
Oh and the emotional and sexual confusion! How can we forget that lovely mix of uncertainty? The flailing in the dark to find yourself, while also locked in the desperate hope you’ll find someone that can turn on the lights or at least calm your nerves enough to take the next unknowing step together.
6. “Wet Dream” by Wet Leg
At some point you need to confront the reality that your kid will be an object of desire. Oof. Even writing “desire” while thinking about my kid makes me gag a little. But, there is no denying or running from that reality. This song puts a very fine point on that experience. I mean it’s all about being the focus of someone’s masturbation. What I love though, is the power dynamic of this song. The lead singer asks, “What makes you think you’re good enough to think about me when you’re touching yourself?” It’s the idea that my daughter and girls like her can have that level of self-confidence and sexual agency that gives me hope and makes me adore this song.*
*The horrible truth is that we have spent decades empowering our young women about their bodies and sex lives and then kicked out their legs by stealing the literal rights to those things…. but, yeah this song really slaps.
7. “Riot Rhythm” by Sleigh Bells
Oh shit, the editor is telling me these are supposed to be one or two sentences each! Um…class ranking…viper pit…extracurriculars…fake smiles…AP classes...Adderall…standardized tests…“please heart don’t stop fighting.”
8. “Things That Are Bad For Me (Part I)” by Colleen Green
It’s wild to me how similar Colleen Green’s tone in this song, about all the things she knows she shouldn’t be doing and really really wants (wink) to stop doing, is to the vibe my daughter already has when being told to ask for forgiveness for something she did that was against the rules or mischievous or dangerous. It’s like we are forcing the kid to lie and of course it’s important that they sound like “they mean it". Maybe that is why we all get so good at lying to ourselves: practice.
9. “Kill Me” by Indigo De Souza
The straightforward and rational way Indigo De Souza plots, manages, and justifies her suicide attempt chokes me up every time I listen to this song. At the same time, she is making you her accomplice. But I am an unwilling one. I want so badly to comfort her, help her, change her mind. The most heartbreaking thing about the song though, is that by the end when she is instructing me to tell anyone who asks about her that she was “all done” and “wasn’t having much fun” I’ve already been convinced to go along with it.
10. “Deja” by Bomba Estéreo
Despite being only 43 and exuding unbridled vitality, Liliana Saumet—the lead singer of the Colombian band Bomba Estéreo—is a bit of an elder stateswomen compared to the other artists I’ve chosen. While I could have elected to include other Bomba Estéreo songs written in Liliana’s youth, it is actually her ability to reflect back and offer wisdom that lands this song here.
So many of the songs on this mixtape are expressing feelings that run from uncertainty to self-doubt to self-loathing. When we are young, we can get lost in those emotions and it’s hard to find a way or believe there is a way or want to find a way out. It happened to me, and it will happen to my daughter. When it happens, I just hope she has that person in her life who she trusts and will listen to that can tell her she is not alone, she is heard, and she will discover how to heal herself.
11. “Die Young” by Sylvan Esso
Clearly, I had no idea what I was getting into when I decided to become a parent. The enormity and relentlessness of it was completely lost on me. And now that I know what it is, sometimes I wonder if I would do it again. But, despite all the terror I feel at the prospect of watching my daughter have to confront all of the parts of life these songs detail, knowing I will not be able to protect her and surely at times will even be the source of her pain, I am so desperate to make sure I am there for every moment of it. Like the song says, “But now I gotta wait around and watch you burn so bright…I had a plan, you ruined it completely.”
