On Fridays, we take a deep dive into a song that really makes us feel. Welcome to Friday Feels.

Feelings from The 1975

I like The 1975, but I’m not someone who listens to them all the time. I can’t tell you the names of all of their songs, I can’t sing along to every song they have…but they have a couple of songs that I really connect to.

“Girls”

Without going too deeply into my brief relationship history, my first boyfriend was very into ’90s German metal. I didn’t hate listening to it but he also complained about all of my favorite music. Thrown back onto the dating scene, I would use my favorite obscure bands as search terms on OkCupid or whatever I was using. My whole late teenage/early adult life, I thought I might meet someone at a concert. But that just didn’t happen for me. Maybe it’s some of the music I listen to…not the most socially active male fans.

The next best thing to a concert though…I met my husband at a karaoke night, where he performed “Icky Thump” and “Song 2.” Alternative crowd pleasers for sure, but we weren’t at the kind of bar where people did alternative music (or my pick, Joni Mitchell for that matter). Those songs weren’t the reason we got together, they just made me more receptive to giving him my number.

I do not remember why he recommended “Girls” by The 1975 to me, I just know that when I listened to it after only hearing “Chocolate” previously, I was blown away. I loved the jangle of the guitars, the audible “pop” joke that kicks it off, the changes in tempo. Primarily though, I loved the fact that I had finally found a guy who actually had good taste in music.

“Girls” gives me a warm feeling inside. It makes me think of the early days of our relationship, the discovery of each others’ interests and personalities. The discovery of what kind of music we each liked and how good we were at picking recommendations for one another. I had made mix CDs for crushes in the past, but we just exchanged songs to stream in the digital age. At some point, I started making a playlist of songs that reminded me of our relationship: though not “Girls” for what I think are obvious reasons. 

Actually, that brings me to another thing I now ponder over and over when I listen to “Girls.” My best friend told me she thought the song was misogynistic. I could see that, but I interpreted it another way, and still do. My interpretation is that this man is in love with a younger woman and he’s lying to himself that he’s not. The mantra of “they’re just girls” etc, seems more like he’s trying to convince himself that he’s not falling for her. If my interpretation is correct, that makes it an even more fitting song for the beginning of our relationship, when we were both fresh out of bad situations and trying to avoid falling in love so quickly after.

“Give Yourself a Try”

Like I said, I’m not an expert on The 1975 by any means. So this one flew under my radar for a while. I was producing my old radio show, One-Mind Tracks, and the episode was “We Don’t Have to Grow Up,” a collection of songs about staying young at heart. During my research, I came upon “Give Yourself a Try,” a song written to encourage younger fans to have some faith in themselves, and to encourage millennials that it’s normal not to feel confident in “adulting” just because you’re an adult in age. I related it back to the playlist because it was largely focused on my generation’s relationship with being adults.

But man…I actually connected to it a lot more than I expected to. Maybe not at first, but I’ve now actually gotten chills from this song. At least part of the song was autobiographical for Healy, but the chorus of “Give Yourself a Try” feels like such an honest plea both to his audience and to himself to have more confidence and faith in themselves. Plagued by anxiety and feelings of inferiority for most of my life, I really felt connected to this instruction and to the verses that touch on irrational fears and having trouble explaining to your younger self that things didn’t quite pan out how you’d expected they would.

If you’re interested in reading more about that playlist, you can find my old blog article here.

I’ll be at the show at Nationwide tonight, so if you see me, say hi!

-Just Emma (JustEmma@CD929FM.com)

Concept for “Friday Feels” by Mia Ashby