Emo Guilty Pleasures

Teen angst is defined as: “the feeling of the “ugh-I'm-so-misunderstood-what-is-life?” part of adolescence. While this coming of age emotional turmoil may seem like a drag at times, don't worry. There is a purpose and cure. By definition, angst is a feeling of anxiety about your life or situation.” and although I’m just recently out of my teens I can still relate to the idea of being misunderstood and not finding life as an easy way to deal with whatever it’s thrown at me and also by how I’ve been able to cope and/or handle all of it.

In my young adulthood I find this playlist still relevant to what I’m going through on the daily scale with less symptoms of feeling what the songs are expressing. Which is a good thing because I lived my entire childhood and adolescence in a depressed funk that I’m grateful that my adulthood seems to be looking up regardless of adulthood barriers of weakness and stress.

The angst that still lives within me is partially my own fault. It’s tricky to avoid because many believe in allowing things to just sit there and not be dealt with. That’s not my way of being. No matter which stage in life I am in whether it’s poor or full of blessings you won’t ever catch me just dealing with whatever is there and not do anything to make it better.

Songs and why I chose them:

1. Somebody Told Me by The Killers is chosen because of the lyric "heaven ain't close in a place like this" that may have dragged my soul to hell and back. Going to hell was scary but being brought back only showed me why to be different from the rest and keep a strong faith for the world. That the world can be better than how we perceive it and by how we allow bad to negative things impact us. The idea of heaven is sparked with being a beautiful place... which it might be but reality needs to be seen as equally lovely of a place because heaven and hell and reality all sound like what goes on there is built by the seriousness of what we beings want for it.

2. Weight of Living, Pt. II by Bastille is chosen because the lyrics don't only get me but they express my angst against the situation of living, being alive, and coping with life's imperfections caused by we the people. So to me "the weight of living" displays a concept of how we may feel emotionally heavy or mentally overwhelmed by the limit of how much we can take from being under the weight of living. The weight of our sorrows, other beings sorrows, and global issues is something that takes me under and leaves me being breathless from the amount of pressure that exists within the world itself and by the amount of people not dealing with their issues that then roams into the weight of what is already holding us down under.

3. Hospital for Souls by Bring Me The Horizon is chosen because it brought me to an understanding of how simply ones go to the hospital for mental illness or physical injuries, that our souls need repair, attention, or even a band-aid. Because as we are all going through something its crucial to repair our souls, Repairing our souls reflects an issue that our souls aren't even okay in the moment or at any moment. That we need this "hospital for souls" as an acting spiritual matter. As for me my soul is torn and lost in the era of never getting better. So instead I pray on my situation to figure it out. In ways I'm behind on my time then on another scale I'm making it right. It just never made sense to me that I was so broken and lowkey still am but that my repair has been at a cost that I can't afford.

4. Low by Sleeping With Sirens is chosen because it would help get my frustration out from its angry melody. I'm not an angry girl but I can still rage from time to time. Making it harder and harder to find happiness and inner peace. Then to also live at complete ease its difficult when you're in a low state and getting high doesn't seem to work anymore. Being low yet knowing your highs can exist only pulls me under even more. Due to my focus and lack of will to keep existing I do find life/reality as a complication that does not need to be as set up as the way it actually is.

5. Days are Numbered by Black Veil brides is chosen because back when I discovered this song I always felt so truent and lifeless in the means of not wanting to exist and had felt like I was counting my days towards the end. I was maybe 14 when i had these thoughts. Not exactly young or old to be having such thoughts as that does not exist but for me it was an exaggeration of the pain I was living with for that time period of my life.

6. Chemical Kids and Mechanical Brides by Pierce the Veil is chosen because I just enjoy the song. It's also a great song to help distract myself from my troubles. So I plug in my earphones and blast this one until I feel okay again.

7. New Perspective by Panic! At the Disco is chosen because due to my self loathing ways I have always wanted to view myself by a new perspective. Maybe see why everybody hates me or why of whats so wrong with me. Maybe pick up on the idea of figuring it out so I could prevent that troubling matter from making its way into my right now and then on my later future.

8. Magic by Coldplay is chosen because in my youth I never believed in magic. This song kind of helped change my mind. On the idea of being loved. That right there is magic at its finest because the amount of hate I had in my heart for myself was horrific in ways that I don't wish to reflect on. It was a scary time when I believed nobody would ever love me yet alone to ever be in love with me too. The hate has slowed down but I'm still in a tragic state of if my life is worth being loved enough to be brought into major context and prepare for the magic of being shown the flaws of my past and that I am deserving.

9. Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) by Arcade Fire is chosen because even before knowing the words I knew this song could feel me. Or maybe I could feel the song. Which ever way that floats it is still an example of why it's important to reach and comprehend what you're listening to and understand the messages behind music when being shared. The words to this song are sad but relatable which baffles me because it sounds fun but its dark and I guess maybe that's why it was released the way it was.

10. Why’d You Only Call me when you’re high? by Arctic Monkeys is chosen because in my drug use days I could heavily relate to person being asked "why'd you only call me when you're high" due to my issues of insecurities and fear I could only express and connect to my loved ones when I was high on drugs. These drugs amplified my inner self and I had found out that these highs were a way of pausing my pain and allowing the shallow version of myself into this kind of paradise that made me feel like myself. The "myself" my sobriety hid from me because of the 'sad-over-broken-everyday-reality' section of existing. Makes me quiver at the fact of how bad my focus was attached to my well-being and trying to stay safe over the years.

11. My life by Adam Levine & 50 Cent & Eminem is chosen because it’s a song that the first time I listened to it I never wanted to stop playing it. The lyrics speak to me especially the “got no where to go” part really gets to me because at the time this song came out I was 13 and dealt with heavy suicidal feelings and tendencies so I could feel the lyrics expressing what I was going through on my own and it was difficult back then to even admit those matters to myself. But now as a 22 year old I find some of the lyrics still stick with me on the idea of wanting to escape but having no safe place to go and turn to. Maybe not even just turn to... more so like runaway and never come back to the enviroment that stabbed you in the heart time and time again due to being an empath in a scary world.

12. Waste by Foster the People is chosen because I find in my personal life that I don't just waste my days away but something more that is in no way excusable to the matter of existing in a place that makes me feel overwhelmed and quite anxious at that. That I only waste these days because I am unsure of how to be productive in the correct ways of being and staying successful.

13. What You Know by Two Door Cinema Club is chosen because it sounds fun but its an interesting tune that compromises my chance at fully understanding my life's situation of being in a suffering suit of humanly expansions. This expansion is caused by the population and lack of control over it. This suffering suit refers to the human body and how we may feel trapped in it.

14. From Heads Unworthy by Rise Against is chosen because I always chant the first verse of "We are the children you reject and disregard. These aching cries come from the bottom of our hearts” because even though I'm a pretty quiet to being very silent person I always view this one as my own cry for help. That right there is why I enjoy this song. Because its not my own words but its that thing songs do for people going through it that makes me all the more appreciative of being a lover of music and its important to always view that statement in a matter not destined for impairment due to the ideas of lost focus and sullen tendencies.

15. Never Too Late by Three Days Grace is chosen because the first time I had heard this one something in my mind clicked and it was almost like a beautiful escape that a song could bring me so much satisfaction and it centred me on the stage of being at a brink. But this song taught me that all through my lonliness that there could still be a person out there that wants me safe, loves me, and would care if i ever had killed myself.

16. Use Somebody by Kings of Leon is chosen because during my entire life, even up until this very moment I've found that I could really use somebody. Not for personal gain but for some sort of satisfaction of having somebody being my person. My person to go to when I'm feeling sullen or somebody to listen when I need to express my trauma's or even somebody to distract me from the pressing matter of how shallow I feel in my sobriety.

17. Move Along by All American Rejects is chosen because the lyric of "even when you're hope is gone... move along" it speaks to me in the matter to keep pushing regardless of what i had been facing at the time. Which would have been the suicidal tendencies I had been suffering with on a daily scale. "when all you got to keep is strong... move along" brings me to a better understanding of why its so important to keep pushing through our struggles and to be an example to our past selves or our future selves still battling things we never got the chance to repair from.

18. Teenagers by My Chemical Romance is chosen because during my teens this song was one of my life anthems and could relate to the "all teenagers scare the living shit out of me" lyric because as a generally insane, shy, yet still a complete introvert person I had found through this one a sense of capability in the area of feeling so alone. I never used to believe in the concept of 'everyone' having their sufferings but as a young adult I am forced to face the truth. The troubling matter is that although we are all special and unique to one another; that the world affects each of us the same. Whether higher, not as much, or almost the same... the worlds sufferings affect each of us in invisible ways.

19. God Save Us All (Death to Pop) by Sum 41 is chosen because right before this song was released or maybe around the same time I had started passion writing and the idea of "God save us all" was my main theme. So this song is a bop and one I had actually forgotten about until just now that makes me know there are others out there waiting on the call for the world. That "us all" needs to be saved. I don't want to stop writing until we are saved. Not damned to the exception of what goes on in the hearts, minds, or overall life of the evil ones beckoning this world to end.

20. Afraid by The Neighbourhood is chosen because its a dark song but the singer has a way with his vocals where it sounds sweet to listen to. I'm "afraid" too!! My world carries on this life that is basically dragging around a dead corpse. She died from the wickedness and selfishness we as people act out, witness and feel from. It's a scary happening to be left afraid. Afraid and insecure to the mass spectrum of living uncomfortably. That's what I understand of from my viewing of this song and what it makes me feel from it.

To listen here’s the link to my playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4xUxvv6fIJjtnBcZ4Kpjh9?si=BivVbcyWTQiLMbJ9iD636A

Enjoy :)