Six Picks: November
music is a key part of healing and self-soothing for me.
i'm like a musical encyclopedia sometimes. i love reading and watching interviews from artists sharing how they created their art.
i’ll try to mix up some different genres to fit all of your tastes, but keep an open mind. ;) welcome to my musical brain!
here are this month’s six picks.
my mind & me - selena gomez
“And all of the crashin' and burnin' and breakin', I know now if somebody sees me like this, then they won't feel alone now. My mind and me”
Watching the Selena Gomez documentary made me reaaally uncomfortable, and I’m reflecting a lot on this. It was unfiltered and authentic. It was real. It didn’t have a happy ender, per se.
Selena has been ripped through the media for not being able to get over Justin. This film shows her being pushed over and over again by the paparazzi to comment on him, years after they ended things.
I can’t imagine not being left alone about someone I used to love.
Nonetheless, without spoiling a lot of the documentary, Selena had to face a lot of mental illness challenges that would lead her to question how she can use her experiences to build more compassion for herself and others.
why is this resonating with me right now?
I just think this song is so authentic to the challenges of mental illnesses.
I do see my mental illness as a part of me now, but it’s important still that I separate myself from my intrusive thoughts and obsessions. It’s important that I do take care of myself when the mentally-ill part of me becomes a bit more dominant.
I also don’t regularly give myself credit for the influence my advocacy has because it’s not something that’s easy to see. I deserve appreciation & self-compassion while sharing my story.
I hope this song can remind you to recognize your wins in your journey, too.
sorry to me too - julia michaels
“You were like God. I was so anointed when I fell for you and now I'm like, ‘God,’ I'm havin' so much trouble gettin' over you.”
I’m guilty of finding myself looking up the celebrity relationship breakups that lead me to some of my favourite songs. I know, I know. Guilty pleasure, if you will. But I couldn’t NOT look up this one.
Julia Michaels and JP Saxe are both incredibly talented songwriters so when I realized that this song was about their break-up, I was struck by what this song must have meant for Julia’s healing. I can’t imagine what it must be like to do something you love and are passionate about so closely with the person you love and then have all of that end, and likely not on good terms.
(Well, I guess I kind of can…)
why is this resonating with me right now?
This song isn’t directly about mental health but it touches on a lot of themes of a relationship turned toxic because of pedestals. If you read a lot of my posts, I risk sounding like a broken record, but you can’t truly love someone when you put them on a pedestal.
I feel both Julia and JP’s position in this song and it’s helping me understand myself and how I approach my relationships. I encourage you to listen and see what comes up for you, too.
bruises -
annika rose
“What a lonely fight to fight for a feeling you don't have to hide. Cry for a reason, you don't have to cry. Every burden that you're choosing”
It’s not a secret that I’m a massive Annika Rose fan, but after listening to this acoustic version of her new song “Bruises” I believe that you’ll see why.
Annika Rose has had a rocky pandemic (I encourage you to watch her hilarious/depressing recount of her story here) and it’s made for a really great song, about recognizing the coping methods we turn to amid chaos.
What do we do when we realize we’re part of the problem?
why is this resonating with me right now?
Self-sabotage is a funny thing. So many times in my life I’ve struggled to figure out if I’m letting myself feel my feels in their entirety or if I’m sabotaging myself by still holding on to things I should let go of. It’s a healing journey and it’s a hard one.
This song reminds me to check myself and my choices to make sure I’m not sabotaging my growth.
maybe you saved me -
bad suns and pvris
“Fallin' in a forwards motion, drivin' down the old dirt road. Shaded by the burnt-out trees. From fire, flowers grow”
This song is about balance. The good and the bad, to be alive - you get both.
Bad Suns lead Christo Bowman says, “Distancing yourself from a negative or toxic situation can be extremely difficult, as there are so many powerful emotions to get caught up in and confused by. Ultimately, this song is about coming to terms with all the good and the bad and opening yourself up to the notion that difficult times are important in leading you to the place you need to be.”
Need I say more?
why is this resonating with me right now?
I’m coming to terms with losing a lot of people that I loved this year. Our paths were going separate ways, despite the love we shared for each other. Sometimes, that’s just life.
But just because I know and believe that to be true, doesn’t make it any easier to deal with. I love this song simply because I can sing while I cope, and that’s powerful to me.
teenage renegade - robinson
“She was a blue hot summer in the middle of July. She wanted everything she couldn't have and nothing made her cry. I was a teenage renegade, how'd I end up so afraid?”
Wow - what a powerful tribute to an old self.
I love this song, and I love how the video portrays growing pains and how lonely it can feel to be changing who you are. We don’t talk enough about the part where you’re in between who you used to be and who you want to be.
Robinson beautifully shares that, “as we experience pain, loss and hurt, we start to walk through life more carefully, protecting our hearts. I wrote this song to remind myself that inside us all is a wild, joyful soul that needs to be free in all of our beauty. We are all teenage renegades at heart.”
Why is this resonating with me right now?
The part of the music video where Robinson is people-watching and we’re led to believe that she’s either feeling intense nostalgia or longing - that is what I feel like people must be seeing in me sometimes.
I’ve spent the majority of this year in some in-between: I’m not quite there yet but I’m certainly not where I’ve been.
I love that this song reminds me that this experience is valid and I can always rely on joy to bring me back to the ground again.
forgive myself - griff
“And it's really exhausting when they say that they don't have any regrets, 'cause I got a million weighing my chest. And, that's a lot of forgiveness that I just ain't got around to yet, giving myself any of that? No.”
This song captures so much that I definitely won’t do it justice , so you just really need to listen. Griff is incredibly relatable on this song, but we can tell it’s not us she’s written it for.
“I think I find it easy to be quite hard on myself when it comes to making decisions and trusting people. So this song was just about cutting myself some slack and forgiving myself for past relationships that maybe didn’t end in the way I thought they would.”
why is it resonating with me right now?
I revisit this song from time to time, when I’m really doing my healing work. It first found me in 2020 during a time of navigating a lot of new things.
When Griff talks about how she let the wrong people in so it must be her fault - woah, felt that. It’s hard to fight back against your brain when it tries to take blame for everything, but I find that this song makes it just a bit easier.
Plus, it always helps to know that you’re not alone.
