I'm Gonna Make it Through High School, Even if it Kills Me

Alright, time to relive some of the hardest years of my life. Many people wish they could return to their teenage years, I don't. While I'm grateful for my experiences, mentors, and friends in high school, I can't say I want to experience it again. Far too much discomfort, trauma, and general angst.

But I digress. You didn't come here for post-adolescent winging, you are here for the music. And I shall deliver.

Spotify Playlist or YouTube Playlist.

Something in the Night - Bruce Springsteen

Perhaps fueled by my terrible insomnia, how in middle school I snuck out late in the evening, nighttime, and whether a song is good for late-night drives, largely impacts how I enjoy and relate to popular music.

Springsteen's Something in the Night is the third track on Darkness on the Edge of Town a cathartic follow up to his euphoric Born to Run. A frequent theme of the album is breaking free which many teenagers can relate to. Racing in the Street is about escaping your problems for a brief moment in a fast car, Badlands is finding a true life out of a dead town, and Prove it All Night is about forbidden teenage romance.

Something in the Night is my favorite. The soulful wails at the beginning and end hit me right at my core. Scenes of getting lost in the blurry lights and dark horizon of driving at night paint a beautiful, dark, angsty portrait.

I Was a Teenage Anarchist - Against Me!

Obligatory punk song with "Teenage" in the title track. Many will probably turn to Teenagers by My Chemical Romance for theirs, and while I can certainly relate to the feeling of being terrified of my fellow teenagers, Against Me! works better in my book.

I Was a Teenage Anarchist has a certain self-awareness that makes it unique among the teenage rebel songs. The teen's anarchist beliefs are politics of convenience, instead of fighting the system he bitches and gets in fights. It is a great song to feel superior not just to others but to feel superior to yourself. With great production and driving rhythms, self-deprecation has never been so cool.

This Year - The Mountain Goats

The title of this playlist was inspired by the pivotal lyric in this song, it goes as follows:

I'm gonna make it through this year, if it kills me.

I believe that speaks for itself. The song has a fun acoustic punk feel and the lyrics of powering through self-destruction and teenage chaos are relatable and empowering.

Wave of History - Downtown Boys

This song just straight-up rocks. It calls out often overlooked historical atrocities with style. The epic bari saxophone riff, powerful vocals from Victoria Ruiz, and rough around the edges punk make the group both unique and highly effective.

I highly recommend checking out this band that brings diversity and life to the punk scene. This song introduced me to Downtown Boys, and I am forever grateful for that.

Spiderwebs - No Doubt

A very close friend of mine, who is far more accomplished and intelligent than me, is a huge ska fan. I'm not as well versed in the genre as he is, I'm a basic ska bitch you could say. So No Doubt's Tragic Kingdom defines the genre for me. For many teen girls Excuse Me Mr. or I'm Just a Girl may speak more closely to their unique female experience, but Spiderwebs is more fitting for an introvert like me. Who wants to be alone and have people stop hounding her for attention.

All around a fun song that's great for a teen girl venting session.

Kendrick Lamar - Element

Unlike other tracks in this playlist, I can't explain why Lamar's Element spoke to me. It's not really about a shared experience, nor are the themes of this song unique among Kendrick Lamar's work as a whole, which I thoroughly enjoy. Something about the production, his intensity, and lyrics made me feel the weight of a person in that position.

Kendrick Lamar is notorious for his thoughtful hip-hop that addresses violence in and outside of his community, as well as incredible production. I was introduced to one of my favorite jazz artists, Kamasi Washington, from Lamar's collaboration. I've listened to Element countless times on lonely bus rides home after a rough day.

Maggot Brain - Parliament Funkadelic

This is the title track to P-Funk's third album. While I adore their more well-known fun and afro-futurist tracks, Maggot Brain is darker and heavier than most of their discography. The first time I heard this track was when I bought a vinyl of their greatest hits. I knew the majority of the songs on the record, but not this one. I was wholly unprepared for the artistic electric guitar that played for 10 and a half minutes. Each of us will bring our own darkness to this track. The only guidance is a short spoken section at the beginning, ending with the following two lines:

For I knew I had to rise above it all

Or drown in my own shit.

Heroin - The Velvet Underground

I feel strangely out of place discussing this song, considering I have never struggled with addiction, let alone the powerful effects of heroin. Nevertheless, one of my favorite literary movements was the beat poets and authors of the mid 20th century. Their power and defiance, unashamed to approach the beauty and ugliness at the bottom of the city. While all of our lived experiences are incredibly different, sometimes those we have seemingly nothing in common can relate to us most of all.

Heroin is one of my favorite songs, and possibly my favorite from high school. Gritty and unpolished, this song gave me an insight into the experience of heroin addiction. The highs and lows, the feeling of being trapped. When I was alone at night searching for something to save me, Heroin by The Velvet Underground was my desperate cry to the stars.

Busy Brain - Cayetana

I first heard Cayetana at The Fest in Gainseville. For the uninitiated this is an outdoor multi-day punk festival that takes place each year, barring a pandemic year. Many have described it as a 'family reunion' for punk. Thousands of people and dozens of acts come from around the world in the burning Florida heat. My father drove us three hours to get to the festival, in my DIY jeans and frizzy hair I danced and nearly got trampled in a mosh pit. Those memories are still golden for me, and Cayetana was the first act to perform when we arrived. My father eventually bought me their album Nervous Like Me for my first vinyl.

Busy Brain is near the end and sums up the anxiety of having a million and one things in your head, bad habits, and the weight of each day. I highly recommend the band and their unpolished sound.

Killer - Phoebe Bridgers

I'm officially dubbing this the hipster entry on my playlist. Phoebe Bridgers has received acclaim for her recent album Punisher. I adore that album, and if it had come out when I was 15 or 16 this playlist would just be the album. However, my first introduction to Phoebe was with her lesser-known Stranger in the Alps LP. Which makes the album's track Killer my "before it was cool" entry.

To describe why this song is so integral to my angst, and why I chose this over her other tracks, requires I go a little deeper than normal. I struggle with OCD, and while many think the disorder has to do solely with cleanliness and contamination, many sufferers have different obsessive fears and compulsions. For myself, these manifested as superstitious behaviors and avoiding others due to my repeated vivid worries that I could randomly lash out and hurt someone. That my psyche could snap and I would become a killer. Worries that something evil within me would lash out any moment. This made me worry about numbers, how I walked, being around certain objects, and being terrified to touch or get close to someone.

This is why Killer hits so close to home. It touches on the anxieties of being in a relationship and portrays Bridger's own preoccupation with infamous serial killers. For myself, the song acknowledges the fear of myself which I wouldn't be able to name as OCD until 8 years after it started. While being this vulnerable is difficult, music provides an avenue to understand my emotions.

I Am Disappeared - Frank Turner

This is perhaps Frank Turner's best work. This track combines his unique mix of acoustic, rock, and singer-songwriter instincts to create a powerful impressionistic landscape. Images of depression and deteriorating tolerance of one's home. The need to escape and see more of the world. The plaguing images of death or being trapped in one place. All of these form one of the most poetic songs I've heard.

A frequent theme in all of Turner's work is the idea of the road. A distant horizon that some of us poor souls can't help but chase indefinitely. An escape from typical lives that compels us to strike out no matter the risks. My goal has always been to travel the world and experience things off the beaten trail. I Am Disappeared reflects the good and bad of the future I desire, as well as the present I endure.

I'm on Fire - Bruce Springsteen

I tried incredibly hard to keep this playlist to one song per artist. But I simply had to make an exception for The Boss. Every lyric in this brief song captured the love, lust, agony, and confusion of life, especially as a teen. If I had to choose one verse to define this playlist, my bike rides home from school on the wrong side of town, my mental illness, and so many of my experiences it would be this:

Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull

And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my skull

At night, I wake up with the sheets soakin' wet

And a freight train runnin' through the middle of my head

Only you can cool my desire