Agony and Ecstasy: 9 Songs For Coming of Age

I have a Spotify playlist titled “sepia,” full of the jams that carried me through adolescence. When I’m feeling nostalgic, I put it on shuffle. Cue the memories. Though there are over 100 songs on “sepia,” these 9 were instrumental (no pun intended) in shaping my young years.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams – Green Day

One preteen summer I participated in a reading challenge at the library and won a portable radio for my trouble. It was green plastic with a silver tuning knob. It fit in the palm of my hand. Sitting on my bed in the room I shared with my mom, I put the earbuds in and flipped through the stations. Snatches of pop, hip-hop, and oldies flitted through my ears. But one song caught my attention with its sandpapery sine wave of opening chords, its minor key and pained lyrics.

I walk a lonely road

The only one that I have ever known

Don’t know where it goes

But it’s home to me and I walk alone

A sadness had been roosting inside me for years, fluffing its nest. I’d been the shy and quiet kid my whole life, the awkward nerdy one who sweated during recess and lunch hour because it meant playing or eating alone. Or worse – approaching an existing social group and begging them in all but words to tolerate my presence among them. Grammar and long division were a breeze, but concepts such as “likability,” “popularity,” and “coolness” were particle-physics level enigmas.

My shadow’s the only one that walks beside me

My shallow heart’s the only thing that’s beating

Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me

‘Til then I walk alone

But finally someone out there had put my feelings into words. Better yet, into music: the strum and slide of angst-inflected notes, the cathartic guitars that said it was okay to feel sad and alone. Alone could mean: strong, badass, romantic. I just had to keep walking. My strength came in feeling my feelings and standing tall despite, or rather because, of them.

Nobody’s Home – Avril Lavigne

In middle school, my class took a trip to the Grand Canyon. On the overnight bus ride there, I stayed awake, the combination of vertical seats and unfamiliar surroundings keeping me upright and sleepless. I scrolled through a friend’s iPod and stumbled on an Avril Lavigne song that vibed perfectly with the desolate landscape and distant industrial light-flickers outside the windows.

She wants to go home

But nobody’s home

That’s where she lies

Broken inside

Later, I would watch the music video, about a girl’s struggle with homelessness. But I related to the lyrics in a more prosaic way, remembered confessing I’m sad, and my mother replying You have no reason to be sad. The scornful lilt of her voice. How oddly deep it cut. How it would end up staying with me through the years. A subtle and insidious isolation crept over me, where I felt like I couldn’t express my vulnerability without being judged. I retreated into the pages of my journal. When that didn’t help anymore, I teased a piece of sharp plastic over my skin. When that didn’t help anymore, I flirted with metal blades.

I couldn’t tell you

Why she felt that way

She felt it everyday

And I couldn’t help her

I just watched her make

The same mistakes again

I hid the sharp implements at the bottom of a drawer. I had no reason to be sad. And yet, there I was, digging them out again on a rough day. A girl in my eighth grade class was also a cutter and when people found out, they showered her with shock and horror and expressions of love. I couldn’t stand the thought of such attention, so I hid my secrets well. If anyone looked at me, they would look right through me. That’s how I liked it. Got through the day. Went on YouTube after school and let the music play.

Crushcrushcrush – Paramore

The girls in my class loved Paramore, and I was no exception. We grooved together to punk-infused pop-rock, admiring Hayley Williams’ vocal athleticism. Middle school was bullshit, but damn if the Riot! singles didn’t go hard. On a lunch break, I shared earbuds with a friend and sang part of “Crushcrushcrush” out loud.

They taped over your mouth,

scribbled out the truth

with their lies,

your little spies

A boy nearby slid his eyes askance at me, and I became self-conscious because he could play guitar and was in a local band even though he was literally in middle school, so he could probably (as in, definitely) tell I was off-key. Plus, I used to have a crush on him. I stopped singing.

Nothing compares to a quiet evening alone

Just the one, two of us who’s counting on

That never happens, I guess I’m dreaming again

Let’s be more than this

The boy I had a current crush on was in band class with me. I watched him soak a reed in his mouth to make it supple enough to play. I eyed his ruler-straight posture, the earnest tapping of his foot to the conductor’s baton. Outside of class, though, I ignored him completely or talked trash about him behind his back. He’s so stupid. The heat death of the universe would come before I confessed my feelings. Time passed. The entropy of systems increased. My feelings cooled, but the music stayed.

Soul Meets Body – Death Cab for Cutie

Maybe I clicked on their link because their name was unusual, the darkness of “death” contrasted with the levity of “cutie.” In the beginning of the song, bell-like notes rang out, creating an odd yet lush atmosphere. The melody of the verses veered upward at regular intervals, as if hinting at something greater but pulling back at the last moment. What was it building to? When it finally came, the high note of the chorus broke a dam inside me. I tasted flight.

I do believe it’s true

That there are roads left in both of our shoes

But if the silence takes you, then I hope it takes me too

So brown eyes I’ll hold you near

‘Cause you’re the only song I want to hear

A melody softly soaring through my atmosphere

I relished not just the melody, but the lyrics. Swooned over the use of metaphor (roads in shoes!) and alliteration (softly soaring!). It was around this time my taste in music and aesthetics began shifting from alternative/emo/goth-lite to indie/hipster/quirk-core. Little by little, I gravitated away from graphic tees and toward vintage clothes from my mother’s and grandmother’s closets. A friend gave me a camera for my birthday and I developed a photography habit. I made a Tumblr account and reblogged blurry photos of soft girls in picturesque landscapes. For a while, all I wanted was to live a beautiful and aesthetically pleasing life, one I could write song lyrics and poems about.

Fidelity – Regina Spektor

This one I heard on the radio. It began with staccato strings. Light and quick, like peaks of whipped cream or curls of citrus peel. The singer’s voice was eggshell-delicate. But it didn’t leave a true impression until she hit the chorus.

It breaks my

ha ah-ah-ah, ah-ah-ah

ah-ah-ah-ah-ah arrrrt

I’d never heard anything like that glottal stop, one word stretched out and out. It reminded me of dropping an object and catching it again, and dropping it again and catching it again – both funny and precarious. One weekend in freshman year of high school, I sat down at the dining table with a notebook and began writing a story about a girl desperate to leave her small town. In the first scene, she waited at a bus stop at 5 in the morning, listening to “Fidelity.” I wrote feverishly as the hours passed, not stopping until the story was done.

I hear in my mind all these voices

I hear in my mind all these words

I hear in my mind all this music

And it breaks my heart

More stories followed, many of which I posted online. I’d always loved English class, but now writing was becoming an ever-larger part of my life: fiction, poetry, journal entries, articles for the school newspaper. The page was a blank world where I could make anything happen. The rush of finding the right word was intoxicating every time. In the survey section of a PSAT practice test, I picked Creative Writing as my projected college major. When my family found out, they raised a stink over its perceived frivolity and uselessness. I hunkered down at my desk and continued writing, earbuds in, music spurring me on.

Rebellion (Lies) – Arcade Fire

I saw them on Austin City Limits and then SNL. I didn’t love every song by Arcade Fire, but the earnestness and intensity of the lead singer was unshakable. A pattern was forming – my favorite songs tended to start modestly and build up to a climax. “Rebellion (Lies)” started with a simple drumbeat. It layered itself up and ended with a repeating violin phrase that made every cell in my body shout.

People say that you’ll die

Faster than without water

But we know it’s just a lie

Scare your son, scare your daughter

High school was when my panic attacks started. First the vague sense of unease would creep in, then the mist of nausea and the subtle tunnel vision. Then a tide that broke and kept breaking across my body. Eventually I found a trick. I could sync my accelerated pulse to the drumbeat of “Rebellion (Lies),” and stabilize my breathing, measure by measure. By the time the violin burst in, it was possible to believe the sensations in my body spelled euphoria and not fear. To climb on top of the wave and ride it as it ebbed back out.

The Engine Driver – The Decemberists

There was a period of time sophomore year when I listened to the album Picaresque by The Decemberists every day. I loved their music not just for the good tunes, but for the storytelling. Each song was like a mini historical short story with witty lyrics and eccentric characters (e.g. sailors, ghosts, murderers, a giant whale – and that was just in one song). My favorite song of theirs was about a lovesick train engineer:

I’m an engine driver

On a long run, on a long run

Would I were beside her

She’s a long one, such a long one

Around this time, I developed a massive crush on one of my friends. Only in retrospect did I realize it was unusual in how the attraction was never sexual or romantic. But I felt a deep connection with him nonetheless. Our conversations were the best part of my day and, no matter how long they went on, they were always too short. I thought about him constantly, talked to him inside my head when he wasn’t there. I didn’t want to be his girlfriend. Just his best friend.

And I am a writer, writer of fictions

I am the heart that you call home

And I’ve written pages upon pages

Trying to rid you from my bones

Sometimes it hurt to feel so much. It hurt, too, when he and I drifted apart. I stayed up late, scrawling in notebooks, trying to make the paper absorb what my heart was too full to handle. At least the blank page was still there. At least the chords in my headphones remained the same.

A Scale, A Mirror And Those Indifferent Clocks – Bright Eyes

From the gentle acoustic guitar, to the quavering vocals, to the lyrics that referenced mental illness and suicide, Bright Eyes was one of the quintessential indie bands that embodied teen angst.

Now I know a disease that these doctors can’t treat

You contract on the day you accept all you see

Is a mirror, and a mirror is all it can be

A reflection of something we’re missing

These lyrics spoke to me as someone plagued with a sense of inadequacy. The longer I attended my highly competitive college-prep high school, the more I fell back on self-harm and thoughts of suicide to deal with the feeling that I wasn’t good enough. It was like everyone around me was not only smarter, but more interesting, beautiful, and socially adept. I was no one. Superfluous. Outside of family, who would miss me if I were gone?

And language just happened, it was never planned

And it’s inadequate to describe where I am

In the room of my house where the light’s never been

Waiting for this day to end

Through it all, I still tried my damnedest, driven as much by a fear of failure as by a desire to do things I could be proud of. Despite the hopeless lyrics, “A Scale” was an upbeat song written in the key of C Major, buoyed by a waltz rhythm. Don’t fear your feelings, it seemed to say. Dance to their intensity. Something beautiful is still here for you.

Comptine d’un autre été, l’après-midi – Yann Tiersen

I heard this song in the movie Amélie, about a woman’s quest to do good deeds for those around her. Simple piano chords grew more layered and culminated in a shimmering run of high notes that lifted me with a sense of possibility and thrill. This song helped me find beauty in the everyday, in the shape of a cloud or the hue of late-afternoon light. I listened to “Comptine” everywhere, from bus rides home to a summer trip in China. The first draft of my Common App college essay was about this song (“Write about the impact a piece of art or media had on you”). Senior year was ending and I was ripe with dreams. Maybe I could be a photojournalist, a social scientist, a choreographer, a planter of gardens. If I could talk to my past self now and tell her what I chose, I wouldn’t. Don’t spoil it for her. Let her dream. Let her press play one more time, and be swept away.