So, five days ago I asked people to contribute to this newsletter and to submit songs along how they feel towards those songs or how they make them feel (in case you didn’t know, here you go) and actually people contributed and sent me stuff. So this is the first group of wonderful submissions I got.
Hadir Yousry wrote about STAND BY ME for Oasis
Since it’s my first time contributing, the song that jumped to my head was Stand By Me by Oasis. To be totally frank, kudos to my head for that, it’s one of the simplest songs, it’s not avant-garde, no, it’s honest.
Now I don’t actually know if there is a solid interpretation that Noel Gallagher intended when he wrote that song and is available to people. If such thing exists, I haven’t read it. This is how only I feel when I listen to this song and no one can take that away from me.
A little overview about Oasis, is that the overall of their songs, remind me of the unsolicited things we write in our notebooks. Not necessarily interconnected or talk about one thing, mostly in utter bad handwriting, when you’re alone in your room, angry and you don’t owe making sense to anybody.
When I listen to this song I’m at a concert in a huge ass park, lots of greenery, the band is in the far front of the park on their stage, and my friends and I are at the far end, lots of meters away from the crowd. Maybe myself and one of them sitting back to back, singing it, eyeing the sky briefly as we do. One of us is dancing with one hand in the air, two others are jumping around, imitating guitar playing.
The song is about friendship mostly. That amid all the loneliness and being the misunderstood ugly duckling, you can still depend on your friends to “sing you something new”
It’s an all acknowledgment, that unfortunate events are random, that the universe is not at all personal to us, that the wind and rain just really do come and go.
Then the song gets personal to every one of us, even though we’re in the park singing it together, but each one of us’s heart will never be a home to someone. Be it for any reason. One of us has been let down way too many times they refuse to roll out the welcome wagon for anyone else. Or maybe the other is just simply incompetent and lack the so called heart hospitality. Either way, I get to tell such things to my friends, and they stand by me.
This song isn’t meant to make one feel infinite or give one a surge of dopamine. One doesn’t clap or jump or scream. One is just at the image of the park with friends, not fleetingly euphoric. No, better. We’re content, safe. Standing by each other and that’s more than enough.
Anonymous #1 wrote about WELCOME HOME for Radical Face
I spent some time thinking of what song my first submission should be. At first, I thought of songs I've recently started listening to, ones that have really had an impact on me. But, for my first submission, I'd like to share one of my all-time favorite songs. It's one that I've listened to on repeat for almost 7+ years now.
WELCOME HOME is probably a song that you have all heard before, but to me it's very special. It was the only song I listened to during my finals exams, which should tell you a lot. This song is extremely soothing and it reminds me that things will always be okay - no matter what shit is thrown at you. With the whimsical wind chimes, you're thrown into an almost dream-like state. You feel safe, grounded. You're home. And that's exactly how I feel when I listen to this song.
"All my nightmares escaped my head / Bar the door, please don't let them in."
When to listen: If you ever want to feel safe, at home, and warm, this is your song.
Mahmoud Hamdy wrote about NOTHING COMPARES 2 U for Toni & Chris Cornell
This version was released after the sudden suicide of Cornell and it was with his daughter participation in its parts, and it’s originally a cover for a Prince song with the same name. So basically it’s a wave of nostalgia coming through my mind along with a very personal memory; it was summertime at night, I was sitting outside the flat that I had rented along with my colleagues in college, it was a cold night though, feeling lonely, abandoned and just finished a decent part of my studying and a couple of chapters in of my favorite novels now, it was the first reading at the time and it was Kafka On The Shore by Murakami. I was flipping around some old tracks for Radiohead, Queen and Prince of course. My ex was just apologizing for treating me aggressively at the time but didn’t offer to make things okay again, so the song was hitting my guts about the past “nothing compares / nothing compares to you”. And it wasn’t for her then, but it was for the time that we had spent together that I could have done everything, a time that wasn’t too long but it wouldn’t have been the same without her.
That’s what I was thinking about that time, that particular moment, I was missing her old soul, not what she was pretending to be to move on. I was missing her and I was remembering events with her shadow, just exactly as Toni Cornell is doing with her father’s recorded voice singing that simple yet emotional song for me.
Anonymous #2 wrote about DREAM STATE for Son Lux
So maybe I will talk about this song produced by Son Lux. I convince myself that I don't like songs where I can feel the pattern in it, I like songs where the melodies move like a wave, I don't mind it suddenly getting high or low as long as it's not the same pattern. The reason I love them is because i can hear in their music different vibes at once, kind of futuristic machines effects in it yet there is chantings like old tribes. the song may seem kind of chaotic to the ones who won’t like the different atmospheres at once but I really like the feeling of living in two different worlds at once. I usually care more about the melodies which I think this what makes it more alive more than the lyrics
One last thing, this song doesn't make me feel a specific emotion, it doesn't demand how the listener should feel, it completely leaves it to the listener letting imagination grow wider, expand outside the space and time you're listening to it.
Mariam Khalifah wrote about SPORTS for Viagra Boys
This song is for people who kinda enjoy Sleaford Mods music but wish they were made with more interesting beats, or the lead singer’s voice actually synchronized with the music. Sports is like if King Missile wrote a song for Sleaford Mods. A very tongue-in-cheek song with a gonzo, catchy bassline that will get you into it immediately. It is said to be a song that mocks masculinity but I think it’s just Sebastian trying to write about a topic he doesn’t really comprehend or something he didn’t get to do when he was young because his father didn’t think it was important. (as he mentioned in Just Like You)
The song itself wouldn’t be as good without the hilarious music video where Sebastian, very high on speed, dances wearing speed dealer shades, bare-chested with his not-so-slim body in a tennis court while mumbling the songs words and screaming them out as the song unfolds.
Each track in this album is the tits; amphetamine induced post-punk tunes with great saxophone riffs. The current post-punk scene is filled with bands that sing about the same shit, but this one is completely provocative, eccentric, and different. They are like what The Fall was compared to all the other post-punk bands back then.
This was the first group of submissions about five different songs sent by five different wonderful people, the posts were minimally if not edited at all.
You can still send me your submissions until the end of March and I will post them here. Looking forward to reading your sweet words!