5 Songs That Helped Build Me A Path Forward (Part 1)

“Where words fail, music speaks.”– Hans Christian Anderson

Music has always and forever been at the forefront of my life and the unfailing safeguard to it’s immeasurable troubles.

One of my earliest memories include the solemn years of my middle school days, alone with head lain against frame of my mother and father’s backseat car door as my headphone-less flip phone rang out the pre-recorded sounds of various tracks and songs. Storing music through it was next to impossible, though, so I had managed to record a good amount of them through it’s (now DEFINITELY dated) recording app. In the days of my early youth, I was lucky enough to have even a measly twenty dollars saved up, so a flip-phone was more of a treasure to me then.

For most and many people, music is not only just a tool of expression, but also undoubtedly a tool for reassurance. The weight of the world is real, and it would be disingenuous not to share what guided me through even the toughest of my days, as well as more appreciate the good ones. The songs that made me let go and no longer fear vulnerability. The tracks that helped me laugh in the face of uncertainty.

Here are the ones that personally both stand the test of hard times and elevate the times of good. The ones that no doubt truly helped me build a path forward.

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1. REVOFEV - by Kid Cudi

You know those moments in certain movies where everything seems to go wrong and gives no room for a chance to breathe? When everything seems to be for nought, and the chips are down? Then suddenly...light. And then the light stays. Even as the forces that aim to bring you back down return.

To me, this song is the embodiment of rebellion to those forces.

The beginning of this song comes in like the marching of a withstanding band for an army parading into the upcoming danger. And everyone is smiling.

Kid Cudi warmingly welcomes you, (quite literally) and describes himself as your “big brother”, aiming to connect to you and let you know that

hey, I’ve been in the dirt before, too. You’re not alone in this mess.

“We’ve been here before, but this danger seems new...still, we’re going through it just like we always have, and we’ll endure this again. Together.” is how I would paraphrase this wonderful, peppy song in words.

You can tell there’s probably going to be more from him on this list, or the next.

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2. Plastic - Moses Sumney

Some find unfamiliarity and fear in admitting that they’re shield is down. Most times I do, too. But if there were any kind of song that I would gift to anyone unsure of my presence, I would gift them Moses Sumney’s Plastic.

Moses Sumney dives into the idea of false appearances in this melodic and relatively ominous track as he lays down a simple but beautiful electric guitar’s melody as he reveals that through these invisible walls of expectations that his wings are made of plastic.

It’s a song that I always draws me back to itself when I’m feeling lost, alone or scared. It helps assure me that, yes, though things are unsure...being vulnerable isn’t always a bad thing. It gives me a strange sense of personal pride through the vocalization of admitting that I’m not as strong as you may think me to be.

It humanizes the idea, and ultimately truth, that all of us walking past each other has our own vulnerabilities, and there’s no harm in admitting that...either to someone you trust, or just to yourself.

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3. How To Disappear Completely - Radiohead

Radiohead has quickly become one of my top three favorite bands of all time. After overcoming the guilt of only recently getting into them seriously in the early year of absolute nonsense that was 2020, their albums and subject manner immediately fell into the same realm as me and my taste. Real, raw and intimate is what I can describe Radiohead as, and this song in particular is all of that in spades.

How To Disappear Completely was inspired by a dream the lead Tom Thorke had along side his experiences with depression and disassociation during his earlier touring times. Expectations and feelings of were weighing him down and it effected him greatly to the point where he found himself alone and unable to normally function. He called Michael Stripe of the band R.E.M and the words of mantra-like advice he spoke to Thorke gave him direct inspiration to the song’s lyrics.

And then he made it his own. With the help of his amazing band, he mustered up this masterpiece of a song.

Overall, this song represents the denial in resentment of a current circumstance and a willingness to want to stay within a dream-like state to escape an overbearing feeling. An overbearing sense and pressure of living. The more I started to listen to it, and the more I pushed through times of bouts of downs and constant doubts, the more to me this is a song about taking time to just...disappear for the moment. Not to vanish forever, not to wish to not have not existed...but to just rest. It has now become a comfort song for when things overheat and reminds me that the human spirit is not a robot. It is a vessel.

And vessels need to recharge.

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4. On Track - Tame Impala

Every now and then, you run into a certain song that specifically moves you like no other. A song that, even though you can put it up with a good collection of others, it runs to it’s own drum. This is one of those songs.

This track from Tame Impala starts off with the simple and distorted playing of a piano, full of a somewhat nostalgic tone before things start to pick up almost immediately. Not long after, the song’s title comes into full view through lyrics. It’s whole representation is all about lost time to me, and that the willingness to find a way back improvement in the future shouldn’t be discarded. It shouldn’t be the end. Despite everything (the good and bad) you’re still here. The present dictates the future’s past.

And you still have time to get back on track with it.

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5. a few words for a firing squad - Run The Jewels

I’ve actually just recently gotten into this amazing rap-duo. Run The Jewels and everything they represent, from unity to the destruction of corruption and injustice, just hits home with me. It was around 2018 that I first saw their then-newly released album, RTJ 3 on the shelves pre-pandemic. And it was actually mid-2020 that I fully took on the pleasure of being a true fan.

On their most recent album, RTJ 4, their last song was what hit me the most hard. Starting off their final track with the repetitive and addicting overdrive of slightly muffled electric guitars, the lyrics quickly draw you in with the pure and raw delivery given by

When my mother transitioned to another plane, I was sitting on a plane

Tellin' her to hold on, and she tried hard, but she just couldn't hang

With the passing of my uncle, grandmother and aunt all within a few months of each other in 2020, the first two from Covid respectfully, this part really, REALLY hit me hard.

And it’s all set up in the of someone who’s getting their last words in before the end of everything. Ironically, at the end...not all seems to be over. Instead, it seems things are only just beginning.

This song is the ultimate middle finger to my demons. Every single one of them. This song gives me energy I ever thought I had or could ever conjure up. And on those strenuous days, it’s all and everything related to a loud and welcoming hug, with a whisper telling me to embrace the madness and keep pushing forward for those you love and care about.

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And with that goes my fifth and final song that helped build me a path forward.

There’s honestly way more and way too many to count, but that only gives me more ammo to shoot out should I decide to write up another one of these for you all. I truly hope that this has provided any help for anyone out there. Maybe one of these songs will help lead another spark into your life to help both light you up and bring you further joy. Maybe they already have.

Thank you so much for reading, and if you’ve truly enjoyed maybe even leave a tip.

Wishing everyone good vibes, -Aaron P