What The Fuck Are Fucking Feelings, Yo? - A Guest Post and Curated Mixtape

Andrea and I have worked together since I started at the co-op; during my first year, she worked in a different department, and we had exchanged enough pleasantries in passing that after a little while, we became 'work friends.' 

In the summer of 2017, she became the assistant manager in my department, making her my boss, or at least one of my bosses. And from being 'work friends,' (I doubt she remembers this) I remember the point when I she and I became 'music friends' as well—she was doing work on a computer in one of the back offices when I had come to check in at the conclusion of my shift, and I could hear the faint sounds of Trouble Will Find Me, by The National, playing from her computer. 

A little less than a year ago, she went through a very difficult break up with her partner of seven years, and from being really good friends at work, we became very close friends outside of work as well.

At the beginning of 2019, when I was trying to wrangle guests for the podcast's first season, Andrea was one of the first people I asked; at the time, she declined almost immediately, but many months later, after we had started spending so much time together outside of work, and after she had listened to the first season, as I was trying to plan out season two, she started to reconsider. At first, she looked at it as a bit of a joke—saying she only wanted to talk about five Dave Matthews Band songs. 

Then there was the idea that, rather than her be a 'guest,' we would co-host an episode, and have a discussion about a handful of songs from three albums we both enjoyed from the year.

For a number of reasons, none of which I am going to elaborate on, we were unable to make an episode of the podcast happen. However, I took the nine songs Andrea had put together, and made them into a 'curated mixtape,' and asked her to write something that went into a little more detail about her relationship with these songs, or artists. 

Andrea, outside of still being my boss (she's also the manager now), and my friend, operates a blog, Seasonal Healing Kitchen, which she put on hiatus in August, as well as an Instagram account of the same name. So please give her a read, give her a follow, and please give a listen to her hand picked mix of tunes.

What The Fuck Are Fucking Feelings, Yo? - A Curated Mixtape by Andrea Carpentier (right click, save as, etc.)

For about a week after we broke up I couldn’t listen to music. 

It felt like too much, on top of the grief that was twisting knots into my body and thoughts.

One evening, a friend sent me song after song for any potential, post break up feels I might be experiencing, and I used these to build what I aptly named my “fuckit” playlist—nestled somewhere amongst Spotify’s suggested mood playlists for me of “Happy Hits!” and “Life Sucks.”

As I let music in again, and began to explore what I had been letting pass me by, I began to heal—just a little bit at a time.

*

I’d love to be able to say that I have in depth reasons for why each of these songs made it onto this playlist (or mixtape, if you will) but I guess that’s not how I approach music. Sometimes a song simply fits a moment, a mood, a feeling so perfectly regardless of its words, regardless of the meaning. It could be one guitar riff, or one line that keeps me coming back again…and again.

Some of these moments are best described painted as a picture:

Spring was slowly emerging into the landscape as I was walking through the woods, feeling lost in my thoughts—thoughts that were making me spiral into hopelessness. I didn’t notice the promise of renewal and life that was dripping from limbs and seeping back into the earth. 

I found myself standing at the edge of the lake I grew up on. Everything was still covered in ice and snow, and even though I couldn’t see it, everything was changing. All of a sudden, two eagles flew over me from the trees and snapped me back to reality. I remembered that although shit fuckin’ sucked, life could still be beautiful and I felt my chest fill with…something—something good. 

My dog and I stood there for a while, faces to the sun, and I played us the song that was weaving it’s way through my thoughts⁽¹⁾. It was perfection. I couldn’t help but waggle my shoulders about while I bobbed my head, releasing the feelings that were weighing me down.

Other songs don’t need a description of a moment, because I have been holding them close for a long enough time and have already discovered, and rediscovered, them in what seems like a thousand different ways. Who knew the songs I’d play at work when I was alone in the back office, approaching the end of the day and needing something to help me embrace a bit of melancholy⁽²⁾ or let out some “motherfuckas”⁽⁵⁾, was exactly what I would need to slowly fill the newest chasm that runs through my stupid heart?

*

I’m lucky to have a friend who writes a music blog and, because of this, he spends a good portion of time discovering new music (Hi, Kev E Fly). If you don’t have a friend like this, I highly recommend you go out and get one as soon as you are able. 

This is how I found myself sitting on the couch at his house (a common place occurrence since my break up) hearing Salt, by Angie McMahon for the first time, but not really hearing it until a few hours later, when he shared a link to stream it on social media. I’ve listened to this album a lot—both by myself, and in the living room of my friend’s house. Every time the first track starts my head sways and my eyes close⁽³⁾, and I immediately feel those waves of from the guitar in my chest—and McMahon’s low voice, full of every emotion I didn’t even know I was feeling; her voice is so thick, I can almost hold it. 

Looking back at my relationship with this album, I can see the space that was created by change, and I can see the beauty in the journey of filling that space, or opening, back up. And thankfully, that journey has the best fuckin’ soundtrack, ever.

*

One of these songs, you listen to on the morning of your 30th birthday. 

You’re at your sisters house, and for reasons you can’t remember you’re alone. 

This song is playing from your cellphone as you look up from your bare feet moving you across the patio⁽⁴⁾, the old tamarack trees are towering over you—something that feels like home in the city you’re only visiting. 

What is it about this song that tugs at something in the center of your mind—the clarity of words cut right through you, but in a way that feels necessary. 

Even though you’re being cut through, you’re simultaneously getting mended back together.

*

Somehow, after sharing with my sisters that I had been listening to, and was surprisingly enjoying “Cruel Summer” by Taylor Swift (again, hi Kev E Fly), my sister, Liz, responded with, “Hey, that’s great—but you should also be listening to this,” and and sent me a live version of “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo. 

I had already heard this song numerous times, but through my new lens of heartache and rebuilding, it was like I was hearing it for the first time, and the next day I opened up Spotify, and listened to Lizzo’s ‘Cuz I Love You. 

The moment I heard those opening lines—“I’m crying 'cuz I love you…Never been in love before—what the fuck are fucking feelings, yo?…Tryna open up a little more—sorry if my heart a little slow,” it was instantaneous love. 

The rest of the evening, as I chopped vegetables for dinner, as I soaked in an epsom salt bath, as I foam rolled the shit out of my back (back pain, am I right?) I had a silent revelation that I needed this music—there was something necessary and cathartic about the way that big energy, and the prolific use of explicit language, moved through me. ‘Cuz I Love You has been in my car for months now, and I still use it as a form of therapy, as I belt out every word. The way Lizzo effortlessly glides between soulful, powerful singing, to bad bitch rapping, fulfills a wide spectrum of emotions—and fuck if I don’t have all of them.

So if you see me driving by, with my hands thrown up off the steering wheel, singing with abandon, you can confidently assume these are the words coming from my mouth:

“I just took a DNA test, turns out I'm 100% that bitch

Even when I'm crying crazy

Yeah, I got boy problems, that's the human in me

Bling bling, then I solve 'em, that's the goddess in me

You coulda had a bad bitch, non-committal

Help you with your career just a little”

*

My 20 minute drive into work is a perfect time for me to sit with and discover music, and I love the influence the weather, the season, the time of day, layered with my mood and a song, has on the entire experience. 

There was a stretch of unrelenting rain that washes everything to grey (as it does in fall), when I discovered the album, but more importantly the song, “Norman Fucking Rockwell.” It seems I would spend the entire drive with my finger pressing the back button, as the sound of rain against my car only enhanced the piano, the crescendo of accompanying orchestral instruments, and that beautiful, warbly voice at the end. 

I am uncertain if this song would be considered a “sad song” but the more I listened to it, the more it rained and the more I sang wholeheartedly along with it:

“Cause you're just a man—It’s just what you do

Your head in your hands as you color me blue.

Yeah, you're just a man—all through and through.

Your head in your hand as you color me blue…blue, blue”

I did my best to do any version of an emotive warble at the end, and eventually, I began to wonder…can any song be a sad song? 

*

I was driving into work on a dark morning in the late fall, listening to the radio, which doesn’t happen often these days, and this song came on as I was sitting at a stop light⁽⁸⁾. Who would’ve thought…a sad, slow, sparsely arranged song ,with a female singer, had me feeling like this song was made for me. Each line sank in slowly, and my mind grasped at each deliberate word and each lingering note.

“Don’t know if I saw you, if I would kiss you or kill you.

It probably doesn’t matter to you anyhow.

You left me standing in the doorway crying—I’ve got nothing to go back to now”

I listened to this song over and over for days, and like so many of the songs I’ve discovered lately, it seems like the song came at the perfect time to show me something—to resonate through me and help me sift through feelings that were both already there and that were soon to come. 

Some songs act like a balm for the soul. 

This is one of them.

*

When I was in high school, we had to interview people about their relationship with music, and one of the questions I asked was, “Can you live without music?”—because I’m dramatic as fuck, apparently. 

I’ve been thinking about this question the last couple of days for some reason, and it leaves me feeling uncertain. I’m sure that I could, but I would miss the the way music can be this bottomless vessel of my own creation that is always there to pour my feelings into. 

I would miss the way it can be a mirror for my life—and I would miss the moments of self-discovery that coincide with that surprising connection with a song. 

I’d miss flailing my limbs in every direction, to even the slowest songs. 

I’d miss the way that music makes life more beautiful, and just a little bit less lonely.

1. Phoebe Bridgers - “Motion Sickness”

2, Julien Baker - “Something”

3. Angie McMahon - “Play The Game"

4. Jade Bird - “Something American”

5. St. Vincent- “New York” (“Tiny Desk” version)

6. Lizzo - “‘Cuz I Love You” / “Truth Hurts”

7. Lana Del Rey - “Norman Fucking Rockwell”

8. Jenny Lewis - “Standing in The Doorway” (Bob Dylan cover)