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Have you ever had a talking stage that left you so confused that you had to step back and think, ‘what even was that?’ Ever had an attachment so unreliable that you literally cannot track where, who, when, or what is even going on? Or do you just want to lay on the floor and cry for a bit? If the answer is yes to any of those questions then this is the playlist for you!
Let's set the scene for all you readers really quickly. Nearly a year ago, I made the fatal mistake that all beautiful, gorgeous, yearning theys make in their lives: getting attached to some fuck ass guy. And while I am now a bit more calm about the whole situation (post floor-time crash out, a pros and cons list and actually going to visit the priest I live next door to and lighting a candle in his garage-come-chapel), I was reflecting on the emotions I endured throughout this whole ordeal. And there really are a lot: anger, insecurity, guilt, self doubt, and pure bone aching sorrow - all reflected heavily in my Spotify stats. After tracking what songs I listened to at each stage in this eight month long mess, I have compiled the best of them for you to vicariously experience this emotional torture alongside me!
More realistically, if you’re reading this article you’re probably either yearning, gay of some variety, or on an SSRI - or the lethal combo of all three, so I am sure you can relate to this situation! In that case, here are some more songs to add to your crash out playlists.
11. ‘Under Your Spell’ - Desire
This song made it onto my list for one simple reason: YEARNING. Immediately, from the synth heavy opening, it evokes this feeling of being trailed along. The notes open and extend, dragging underneath a quicker beat that reminds me of a heartbeat, constant and steady throughout the whole song. The dreamlike quality of the instrumental feels like all the hope and joy of the beginning of a talking stage; all the ‘what ifs?’ of a new connection you immediately feel tangled up in come to life within this song.
Also, it is a tale of dependency. While these new emotions are lovely and exciting, getting wrapped up into them too quickly will only fulfil their own tragic fate. This longing desperation is evident in lyrics that feel conversational.
"I was wondering, do you know the difference between love and obsession?"
"No"
"And what's the difference between obsession and desire?"
"I don't know"
"Do you think this feeling could last forever?"
"You mean like forever ever? Forever ever? Forever ever? Forever ever? Sure!"
"God, I hope so"
"Me too”
The internal monologue bridge sums up how it feels to be stuck inside your own head during a talking stage when the whole world feels like sunshine and rainbows, but there’s still a lingering doubt about the longevity of this connection. Will this ever become something? Will I ever escape this feeling? Do I ever want to?
10. ‘Casings’- Ethel Cain
Anybody who knows me in real life knows that Ethel Cain (Hayden Silas Anhedönia) is my mother; this woman is my lifeblood and has held my hand through some of the worst moments in my life. And this scenario is no different. ‘Casings’ comes from her second EP Golden Age, which is sonically different to her later projects such as 2022’s album Preacher’s Daughter. This EP instead boasts stripped production and piano/synth driven beats.
This song truly captures the crippling self-doubt of forming any new connection for those of us who are chronic people pleasers, or for those whose inner child is kicking, begging and screaming to be liked. While the lyrics are probably best read as exploring the betrayal of a partner cheating on the voice of the song, I chose to interpret this song as a very specific type of jealousy I felt, where this person had told me they had spoken to other girls and had a few rejections from them while we were talking. This song really encapsulates the ‘stabbed-in-the-chest’ sensation of hearing that news.
"Am I just not what you want?
Am I just not what you need?
Is there someone who has your heart
That keeps you gone away from me?
Is she prettier than me?
Is her skin softer than mine?
Can she give you what I can't?
The things I cry for every night?"
With lyrics entirely composed of questions and a minimalistic piano and synth arrangement, Anhedönia conveys the nauseating feeling of not knowing. The persistent self-deprecation and comparisons to other women within the lyrics highlight that unhealthy attachment where you align your self worth with somebody else’s attention.
This song creates a deep vulnerability that starting a new connection brings, and for a lot of us that is an awful experience. Something about this act of trusting another person to see your true self as you get to know them feels so revealing and disgusting, stripping us back like the instrumentals of this track and leaving us open for interpretation.
9. ‘All I Need’- Radiohead
Possibly the poster child of unhealthy attachment styles, ‘All I Need’ confronts us with the tumult of unrequited or unstable affection. For so many people, myself included, getting caught in these lingering emotions makes us rather pathetic.
The voice Thom Yorke crafts is dependent on the object of their affection, begging for attention and desperately grasping for any semblance of reassurance. This song played a large part in me processing the breaks in contact with my person. Going from talking every day to nothing for a month with no warning, I went a little bit mental, craving a conversation even if it was a rejection.
"I'm an animal trapped in your hot car
I am all the days that you choose to ignore
[...]
I am a moth who just wants to share your light,
I’m just an insect trying to get out of the night."
The gritty resonance of the synth moans behind soft bells; the sounds should be dissonant but blend together perfectly to explore this contradicting and threatening attachment. Bells and soft melodies are the lullaby to the suffering underpinning this song, sustaining the belief that this connection can still be beautiful; that we can still be soothed by this person, and find comfort in the degradation of their abandonment of us.
But the deep bass drags us back down from this delusion, crawling along with the beat as it drags us through the song. The animal metaphors epitomise this instinctive, primal need for affection; the voice of this song is reduced down to a subservient mutt, waiting for its owner obediently and slowly suffocating in the heat. Equally, we are crazed like a moth, flying with only one object: to exist within the sphere of their life.
The extent of the dependency and desperation in the lyrics reflects the humiliation of these attachments, where we willingly lower ourselves and wait in the backseat for them to come back and open a window, to let us breathe at their whim.
8. ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’- Squirrel Flower
As wisely said by fellow NOTED! writer @ttwo_reverse over drinks in the Dusk smoking area, if the original version of this song by Caroline Polachek is while you are dancing at the party, the Squirrel Flower cover is the drunk walk home crying. Squirrel Flower is the stage name of Chicago based musician Ella Williams, a staple in my library for this cover since 2022, which I heard years before listening to the original. A cardinal sin, I know.
With a slowed down and grittier interpretation of Polachek’s lyrics, Williams amps up the yearning and devastation in this cover to a ten. This reimagining frames the same events of missing someone at a party but takes away the upbeat denial of how brutally lonely the voice of this song is. We are left with an intense need to be seen, held and yet ignore the pain of this failed connection altogether; we are stuck in a constant push and pull of wanting more yet needing less.
Squirrel Flower has so many other songs that are honourable mentions for this list, most notably 'Open Wound'. If you like the vibes of this cover, then definitely check that one out.
7. ‘Belly of the Whale’- Searows
I need you to do some imagination for this one. Imagine it's 2AM, you’re laid in the dark of your bedroom after walking home under broken streetlights and that kind of bitter rain that soaks you to the bone. And you are still there, thinking about them. No matter how far the walk home is, how many streetlights you pass, you still end up heading right back to here, this moment: rain soaked and shivering in bed. The cold is tightening your chest and you can't really tell if it's tears or mist in your hair from how wet it is. You are stuck in the belly of the whale, thinking about it. It’s endless.
Searows is the moniker of Portland raised musician Alec Duckart, who has risen from posting Soundcloud demos and TikToks to having released two studio albums as of this year. His sound blends a light and tortured vocal with the diary style or second-person lyricism reminiscent of Sufjan Stevens, but then combines that with the heavier guitar instrumentals similar to Alex G, who he notes in an interview with Atwood Magazine as one of his primary inspirations.
'Belly of the Whale' specifically explores that introspective narration style as the instrumental sinks us to the bottom of our human experience with its deep guitar. That sensation of a pit forming in your stomach pervades this song.
"I am not invincible
I am measuring things
I am watching the walls again
Collapse everything
I've been here for a long time
I try and I fail
I am still in the belly of the whale"
For me, this song felt like the absolute dread of knowing you are stuck in a cycle. It’s like when you trap your car keys in the washing machine. You immediately know you’re fucked, that this will cost so much money to fix and you need to get them out, but even if you press every button that drum will still go round and round. You can't stop it until the wash ends.
While this song can be applied to the many toxic cycles we trap ourselves in, it spoke to me as the part of the game I found myself playing with my talking stage. We persistently circled around each other, never saying what we meant; they would drag me lower into depression, paranoia, and dependency on the constant spin of this wheel that decided if he would choose to talk to me today. Every time I felt I had escaped, they would drop one last bit of hope down into the pit, and I would jump back down after it.
Luckily the words ‘I did’ snapped me out of this. When uttered in the same breath as ‘I didn’t,’ I found my way out of the belly of the whale; somehow I swam. If that was two bottles of wine deep at first, that's none of your business.
6. ‘Fable’- Grayera (ft. Lady Moon)
At just over one minute long, 'Fable' is an ephemeral, dreamlike song that in its brevity speaks a lot of emotions into existence. I can only describe its melody as entrancing. When you press play you enter this hypnotic state, transported into a storybook or lullaby, much like the lyrics suggest: we are caught in a dream.
"I was caught in your dream
Lost in your fable
Let me home like a wingless angel
Left me cold like a million stars
And I lost my faith I'm growing dark
Where are you now?"
The sensation of lingering, floating, being stuck in stasis within this dream all combines under this gentle guitar. The brevity of this song allows the listener to experience the physical sensation the lyrics describe. We are immediately immersed in this dream, held in its melody then slowly phased into silence. We are caught in "a million stars" that allow for no logical return to civilisation, unable to even map the constellations, devoid of a sense of direction and left stuck in the dark. We are led into the trance of the instrumentals but left lost, begging for a way out, for the one who led us into the relationship to find us and let us free.
But before we ever find that answer, the song has ended. We stay stuck, still wondering what happened to that person who did show us this affection we have only dreamed of. We ask, ‘where are you now?’
5. ‘Call Me Pretty’- Susannah Joffe
The Texan princess herself, Susannah Joffe’s discography delves into turbulent relationships, whether that be romantic, platonic, with her hometown or family. For those of you who love a Southern drawl and the nostalgic sounds of the Americana aesthetic, mixed with a sad girl, indie pop twist, Joffe is perfect for you. For me, who has a gay cowboy tattoo, this is my literal dream come true.
'Call Me Pretty' boasts brutally romantic lyrics with a swoon worthy keening guitar intro that is so pretty you can almost delude yourself into thinking this song is a love story.
"Give me a black eye and cover it with stars in red, white, and blue
Lay me naked by your Gibson guitar and play me too"
Self-destruction and desperation underlie any possible romance this song can offer, and resonate so deeply with my understanding of catching feelings. The desire to be held, seen, loved despite the harm it might cause is something I related to throughout this whole ordeal.
I felt led on, like their attention was given so freely yet gone as quick as it arrived. It led me to crave this sort of destruction just to have any attention at all. Like Joffe embellishing the physical signs of abuse into something to behold, a lasting visual of attention, I found myself craving an argument, a mean comment, anything at all just to prove I wasn’t forgotten, even if I was the second choice.
4. ‘Waiting Room’- Phoebe Bridgers
This song is what can only be described as a classic for every teenage girl's first love. Baby’s first situationship, unhealthy attachment styles for dummies, whatever you want to call it; nearly everybody has heard and sobbed to this song.
Phoebe Bridgers has a way of capturing the innocence of hoping something will come of very little, and also embellishing the suffering of the inevitable collapse. Written at just fifteen years old, the adolescent voice and stripped guitar that accompanies the verses shows the candid teenage girl behind the iconic name.
"But you're breathing in my open mouth
You're the gun in my lips that will blow my brains out
I wanna make you drive all night just because I said, "Maybe you should come over"
Wanna make you fall in love as hard as my poor parents' teenage daughter
She'll be the best you ever had if you let her"
You can imagine a young Bridgers singing this to whoever this song may be about, standing with nothing but a guitar and these overwhelming, awful emotions and screaming it back at them. I remember coming home from a particularly rough day and screaming this song in the shower, which I think is a canon experience for most people. Sometimes we all need to embody Phoebe Bridgers. Needless to say my roommates were worried.
3. ‘My Body Could Be Yours’- Blake Rouse
This song came to me through my friend and housemate Louise, who, during a night of our house sharing a Spotify jam and playing our crash out songs on the living room speaker, introduced us all to Blake Rouse.
She told us, “Wow, I can’t believe you’ve never heard this!” Well congrats Louise, I sincerely wish I hadn’t: you’ve ruined my mental health.
The day after hearing this song my failed talking stage reappeared in my life after a month of relatively nothing, for the most confusing and awful conversation about all the previous conversations we had obviously just ignored - all while I was two bottles of wine deep in a smoking area. That reignited every single feeling pushed down inside me, and the way that was processed? Through this song.
With a keening guitar line reminiscent of midwest emo staples like Car Seat Headrest and The Front Bottoms, Rouse portrays the desperate need to be seen by another, to be perceived at your deepest biological level, to be loved and accepted for the grotesque innards of what makes you human.
"Oh is it strange
I want you to watch me bleed?
I'd count the times you breathe
Like my job's to keep score
Oh, and is it strange?
You put my mind to sleep
And cut up every dream
Until my head's on the floor."
The dichotomy of this song’s sheer affection and hatred embodies the confusion of someone walking back into your life after causing so much hurt. The feelings seem almost biological: a muscle memory response to their presence in your life that reignites every instinctive emotion you associated with them.
The anatomical imagery strung throughout the lyrics make this song tactile. There are actions of cutting, counting, casting, bleeding; there's a desire to be touched no matter how rough the hands are which do it. The contrast of wanting someone to see how badly you have been hurt by them, to suffer a fraction of the emotions you felt, yet wanting their body to be the one that comforts yours fuels the paradox of this song.
2. ‘Scary’- Bjork
Straight up Bjorking it. One of my favourite mediums of passive aggressive social media is the art of the targeted Instagram note. Posting with the quiet seething and contempt for that one specific person, all in a cute little colour themed thought bubble with an emoji- what a beautiful invention. And ‘Scary’ is one perfect example of a song that went platinum there.
The incompetence of a man is, after all, very scary. The frustration at the sheer lack of care from this person sent me into a bit of a petty rage. I remember absolutely seething at the fact that after a month of talking every day…boom! They’ve disappeared! Mixed signals is the best way I could describe it.
I think this person didn’t know where their head was ever, in their whole life, and I was then dragged into this similar limbo. I was sitting looking at a blank text chat almost every day, with a message I sent that was seen a week ago, asking ‘what even was that?’ or ‘why even bother at all?’
"he means tomorrow but says in a bit
and doesn't show up at all
he sets his watch to a comet's orbit
remember to forget to call"
With Bjork's classic metaphorical lyricism, this song is the anthem of people who are professional ghosters.
1. ‘Mondays (solo version)’- Ethel Cain
It wouldn’t be a Cal playlist if Ethel Cain didn't crop up at least twice. ‘Mondays’ is an unreleased demo which you can usually find through Spotify local files or Soundcloud (top tip, almost all of her unreleased songs are on Soundcloud, it’s worth a look.) Sampling ‘Alabama’ by Current Joys and written in the perspective of Brenda Spencer, the first female school shooter in the United States, this song is probably an unusual pick for a failed talking stage playlist.
Call me dramatic, but I was incredibly angry after everything had ended between me and this person. It’s a feeling many of you can probably relate to, if you’ve stuck around this long in this article. The anger of being thrown up and down emotionally, the doubt of if what you felt was even real or were you just delusional, second guessing every single cue that made you feel something, every flirty comment lingering in your mind that apparently all meant nothing. You start to feel like you’re going insane, thinking, ‘wow, did i actually remember this all wrong?’
"You ask me if I'm angry
Well, hell yeah, I fucking am
It's been too long since I've gotten laid
And longer still since I wanted it
The only time I'll open up is when I'm firing
A bad case of the Mondays
with no silver lining"
This song for me was feeling some righteous anger. The absolute joy of embracing that, even if nothing came out of all this emotional warfare, you’re still allowed to mourn it, be angry, be upset, and eventually you will stop caring.
But until then, I implore every reader out there in the same situation as I was to stop being so kind. Be angry. Let yourself be pissed that yeah, you felt led on, you felt used and humiliated by this whole thing, that this entire thing has made you rethink ever opening up again and convinced you that you should join a convent. Scream some Ethel Cain, maybe hate the human race for a bit, but just let yourself feel it.
