I'm Afraid of Americans – The Bookish Mutant

Sunday Songs: 10/11/26

Posted on October 11, 2026October 11, 2026 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles!

This week: This is a long one, but I did this to myself by putting Phoebe Bridgers, Soccer Mommy, and Bowie all in one week. You’ve been warned.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 10/11/26

“God Break Down the Door” – Nine Inch Nails

Noisier, more metal-adjacent music isn’t usually my forte. I used to hate most forms of industrial or metal music when I was younger, up until about high school. This was true for all but a few Nine Inch Nails songs (admittedly, I did love a handful of songs from Pretty Hate Machine in middle school…fitting, and also, “Head Like a Hole” will always be a banger). To this day, I still can’t decide how much I regret not seeing them with the rest of my family back in 2018, at a Red Rocks show where they ended up playing one of the only live performances of “The Perfect Drug” up until that point. Cruelly, it took me until a few years ago to like that song, too.

Nowadays, I can appreciate Trent Reznor much more as an artist, having gone from the throes of addiction to sobriety but still keeping true to his mission of making art to exorcise pain and create a safe space for those working through similar issues. Anybody with that mindset automatically has my respect. But of course, everything goes back to Bowie with me—I think I heard “I’m Afraid of Americans” around the same time as I started sort-of-kind-of liking Nine Inch Nails, and I don’t think there’s a way that you can come away from that experience without thinking that Bowie and Reznor are the coolest people on Earth. Hearing “God is an American” for the first time in the Trump era was certainly pivotal. But to hear of their relationship—Bowie taking Reznor under his wing, seeing pieces of his younger self in him and helping Reznor work his way out of his addiction and help his artistry blossom—is such a critical part of the Bowie and Nine Inch Nails story that a lot of Bowie fans who only fixate on the ’70s or ’80s woefully miss. The ’90s marked a turning point for Bowie musically and personally, with his no-holds-barred dive into experimental music and the peace of his private life, which allowed him to become that stable mentor for people like Trent Reznor, and many others afterwards. And then, of course, there’s the legendary tour they did together.

So understandably, Bowie’s death left an indelible mark on Reznor. Even before I got into Nine Inch Nails, I could understand that if anybody could, nay should cover “I Can’t Give Everything Away,” it was him. That’s not even mentioning his concrete song about grieving Bowie, “This Isn’t the Place.” Yet even if “God Break Down the Door” wasn’t directly about Bowie, it kinda still is, in its warped way. It’s a writhing mass of tentacles frenetically squirming ever outwards towards entropy. Reznor’s blares of saxophone are the most obvious Bowie (specifically Blackstar) callback and a connection point between them, as they both played the instrument in their younger years. But amidst all of the seemingly disparate aspects of the track—the writhing beats (almost goes into yoinky sploinky territory), the marimba, the persistent drone of it all—it creates something so singly whole. That fleeting beat of silence amidst Reznor’s droning and the explosive exorcism of sound that comes afterwards bottles a kind of feeling that I can only describe as a black hole being reversed, like all of the matter of the universe being shot back out from the point of oblivion. It’s the door that God’s broken down, from my interpretation. But to me, it’s not just the sound of Bowie that Reznor inherits: it’s the floodgates of creativity being busted open in the ’90s, wiggling free of all corporate and fan expectations to create something nobody expects.

It’s very succinctly summed up in this YouTube comment:

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Redsight – Meredith Mooring – “God break down the door/Everything all at once/There aren’t any answers here/No, no, not anymore…”

“Jane” – mary in the junkyard

mary in the junkyard is a band I expect to come forward with something fresh lyrically, whether it’s feral people in the woods, reincarnated mice, or people turning into trees. Clari Freeman-Taylor has an eye for the left-of-center, the unloved creatures and inherent weirdness that reveals itself once you peer beyond the space between branches; her songwriting cradles spiders, mice, and impish creatures and nurses them back to health, patting them on the head when most people would run away and abandon them. So it’s no surprise that “Jane” is similarly unique. It hung in unreleased but often played live-limbo, where it was introduced by Freeman-Taylor as a love song about her period, who she named Jane and is “too annoying and honest.” Ain’t that the truth.

Writing affectionately about your period is a daring undertaking, given that it’s the bane of pretty much every AFAB person’s existence. But I think that the same tenderness Freeman-Taylor offers to the unloved creatures translated naturally to menstruation, which frequently makes you feel like an unloved creatures, and is a kind of unloved creature in her hands. The understated combination of electric guitar and Saya Barbaglia’s plaintive viola makes it feel like an apology, the sort of intimacy of cupping your hands over somebody’s chin as they weep. (Which, once again, very much a period feeling.) For me, it evokes the fear when I went through puberty as a young girl, developing at a rate that felt entirely too fast for the uncertain body I was in, doddering around like a foal: “It’s hard to be a woman, is it harder to be here?/It’s hard to be someone when everything is new.” To me, it’s both about that womanhood/AFAB experience as well as Jane herself being new in the world, emerging like some nocturnal creature every month. I never considered that my sentient period didn’t want to be brought into this world either. Maybe I’m the bad guy. Nobody’s having a good time here. But that’s where “Jane” finds sympathy, for both herself and Jane being constant, confused, and cramping companions.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Greenteeth – Molly O’Neill – to be honest, I haven’t exactly read many books that are a) about menstruation, or b) sentient periods, but Greenteeth gives me the tenderly, whimsically dark yet sympathetic feel of a lot of mary in the junkyard songs.

“Rings of Saturn” – Soccer Mommy

Have I gotten to the point where I’m ambivalent about Soccer Mommy? I don’t think so, but I think I’m dangerously close. “Rings of Saturn” is a nice song. That’s about it. It’s a nice Soccer Mommy song. But I feel like it’s not a huge leap from any of her other work. I feel like this could be an outtake from color theory, which isn’t necessarily a complaint. Yet with somebody like Soccer Mommy, I expect at least something new with each new release—there was the color-coded concept behind color theory, the experimental daring of Sometimes, Forever, and the acoustic grief cataloguing of Evergreen. Other than the production, there’s not much that separates “Rings of Saturn” from the rest; but I do enjoy the production, with its spacey, retro graininess. The lyrics are solid too—certainly relatable, and they would’ve been even more so when I was in high school. “Rings of Saturn” is perfectly fine, but I just wanted more. At worst, Evergreen’s tracks blended together, and I’m just afraid that it’ll happen again. Then again, back when she released “Shotgun,” it felt like she was playing it safe, and then came Sometimes Forever. So who knows? I want more from “Rings of Saturn” because I know she’s capable of something more. Tentatively, I’ll follow Soccer Mommy wherever this constellation leads.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

This Is the Year – Gloria Muñoz – “The stars, they hardly shine/In the city lights, but I/Point my finger to a halo in the sky, I see your light/Rings of Saturn, do you hear me when I cry?”

“‘Tis a Pity She Was A Whore” – David Bowie

Blackstar was always going to be an album that I needed to sit with. It took me years to even listen to it all the way through. A second time around, and I could barely handle the crushing weight of grief coupled with the ecstatic art-jazz-rock freakouts. And then I bought the record because it was within my self-imposed budget, a fine addition to my collection, etc., and that final piece clicked for me. Granted, most of the tracks still make me cry like a baby, but once I vomited up that initial onslaught of sadness, I could peek back and not just appreciate but genuinely enjoy the artistry behind it. It’s not that I didn’t get it before—even while I was actively weeping, I recognized all of the snatches of odd time signatures and how flooring pretty much all the lyrics are—but the immediacy of it had worn off.

I hate hearing the sound of breathing. Not even consciously heavy breathing, that’s obvious, but just any audible breathing. It’s very much a sensory issues thing, but hearing breathing (nay, any kind of mouth noises), chewing, sniffing, it all makes me fucking squirm. Something about it sets my perpetually askew nervous system on high alert. And that’s how “‘Tis a Pity She Was a Whore” begins. David Bowie breathes into the mic, then licks his lips. You can almost hear how chapped they are. It’s laborious. The exhaustion, the energy sapped out of him, is immediately apparent in seconds, and even when the saxophones and pounding drums kick in, you can hear him heaving. Bowie never gave a statement as to what the lyrics were about: all he ever said about the track was that “if Vorticists wrote rock music, it might have sounded like this.” Keeping the art movement in mind, characterized by cubism, harsh angles, and secrecy, it’s very apt. But that no-frills, human panting and breathing inclines me to believe one of the more popular interpretations of the song; Bowie describes a woman (in quite disparaging terms) who “punch[es] him like a dude” and “steal[s] his purse with rattling speed”…what could said “whore” be if not cancer?

Even if the language is more sparse than the usual flowery, cosmic Bowie epic, “‘Tis a Pity” is an epic in every sense. There’s no shortage of aspects to pick apart. There’s the gender dynamic of the cancer personification, clearly marked as a woman but whose violence takes on distinctly masculine language (“Man, she punched me like a dude”). There’s the title, taken from a 1633 play by John Ford, which is only tangentially related to the song’s themes, but nonetheless contains that same undercurrent of violence. The literary references continue with an interpolation of Robert Southey’s Sonnet 1, part of a collection of poems condemning the Transatlantic Slave Trade, where Bowie gets “hold your mad hands.” (Thanks are due here for the no doubt exhaustive research from the blog Pushing Ahead of the Dames.) Through it all, it paints an image of Bowie as a frail boxer, battered but impossibly full of energy until his last breath. It’s a harrowing song, especially with that final ragged yelp he lets out at the end. He sounds beaten. And yet, he was ready to throw those creative punches in the ring until the bitter end.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The DSM-5 – American Psychiatric Association – we all need therapy after this, let’s be real…

“I Can’t Wait” – Phoebe Bridgers

Are you imagining me somehow serenely, sitting stationary while writing this post? Wrong. I’m still vibrating at the thought of Lost Weekend, mainly because I’ve got tickets to see Miss Phoebe (!!!!) very soon!! I’ve come back to the album constantly—easily one of my favorites of the year so far, and it only gets better every time I revisit it. This week’s pick was a real tossup—I could’ve easily gone with the enchanting slow dance (and brief Gracie Abrams diss) of “The Governor’s Waltz,” the bittersweet, country-fied healing of “Haunted,” or the visceral existential pleas of “As Above.” Now that I’ve had almost two months to sit with it, I think Lost Weekend represents the height of Phoebe Bridgers’s powers (no pun intended) so far. Dare I say that it’s better than Punisher? I do dare say it. She’s skyrocketed in fame and artistic ability, a rare combination; she’s only strengthened the emotional, raw pull in her lyrics without sacrificing a subtly adventurous spirit. The soundscapes have turned from artfully sparse to cosmically expansive, doffing shoegaze, country, and electronic hats with an ease that most musicians of her standing couldn’t attempt.

Yet I keep coming back to “I Can’t Wait.” There’s about a million puns I could make about this song and the fact that I can’t wait for the concert, but I’ll hold back. Another aspect of Lost Weekend that endears me is the fact that, in spite of the tragedy that led up to the album’s release, Bridgers has started finding peace of mind. Despite being labeled as such by the press and her fans, she’s frequently chafed against both a static sound and being pigeonholed as a sad girl; and, yes, while that’s part of why I love her, seeing her write songs of unabashed hope and love is like watching a depressed friend start healing and doing better for themselves. “Bobby” is the more obvious example, but “I Can’t Wait” hits me in the gut the most. With its juddering, harmonized sprint at the start, it’s brimming with anticipation. This time, it’s not the end-of-the-world prophecies of Punisher, but being excited for the first time about what’s on the horizon: romantically, emotionally. Bridgers paints herself as more than a little bruised and beat up, but she’s ready to run towards the finish line no matter how much dirt she’s got smeared over her bloodied knees: “I’m not good, but I’m better/Missed my cue, but whatever/It’s now or never.”

And of course, as if “I Can’t Wait” wasn’t one of Bridgers’s best already, it also solves one of the problems that she’s had for her whole career: her duet partners. She’s finally picked somebody with a lower vocal register than her to duet, and it actually works. They said it couldn’t be done…but if anybody could do it, it was obviously ~~Cameron Winter~~ uh [cough] excuse me, Son-John Johnson, my bad. The beat where the electronic skittering dissipates into folksy embers around a campfire, where Bridgers and Winter’s voices delicately intertwine, feels exactly like the song’s excellent music video; at that moment, the fly that the video’s POV has been from, gets gently cradled in Bridgers’s palms. It’s so secure, warm, and the moment that their voices coalesce feels like home, somehow. Incidentally, that’s where the real love song part of “I Can’t Wait” comes in, but that brimming, brilliant nucleus of hope and genuine excitement for the future gets me choked up. You can change your mind, but you can’t change mine…

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Idolfire – Grace Curtis – “Baby, baby, if you leave me/Can you take me with you?/I can sit in the back seat…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 5/12/24

Posted on May 12, 2024 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles, and more importantly, happy Mother’s Day to my wonderful mama, to whom I owe so much in this life. My gratitude for you will never waver—I don’t know where I’d be without you. Every day, I only grow prouder that I’m your daughter.

This week: there’s no doubt about it…this is pop.

But before that: since I was deep in the trenches of finals hell last Sunday, here’s my graphic from last week, complete with an appropriately dreary color palette:

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/5/24:

Now, back to our scheduled program…enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 5/12/24

“This is Pop?” – XTC

I thought I had a healthy relationship with XTC. I thought my days of playing “The Ballad of Peter Pumpkinhead” on loop for an entire meal straight were behind me. But then this decides to slap me upside the head…damn you, Trash Theory.

Never has a song this indignant been so deliriously catchy…take away all the instruments, and it’s Andy Partridge yelling about how arbitrary categories are in music (reasonable thing to yell about, but please chill, dude, I can see a filling in your molar 😭). But it’s the most danceable indignant song I’ve ever heard—that aspect of it makes it uniquely pop, just as Partridge is content to shout in your face about. In a landscape where music critics threw terms at XTC to see if any of them would stick (punk, post-punk, etc.), they staunchly had their own brand of pop engineered with the genes of the likes of The Monkees, The Beatles, and The Beach Boys, and they had no other intention other than to make pop music, no matter which category the critics shoved them into. Even in the video, at about the 2:01 mark, Partridge has started to look like this recurring experience has pushed him to the verge of his own Joker arc. (“Ahahaha! Ahahaha, call us post-punk one more time, I dare you…”)

It’s a definition of pop that I’d like to think Jeff Tweedy would align with—when describing Wilco’s most recent (and very excellent) album Cousin, he called it pop (specifically art pop), but not in the way most would interpret the definition: “To me, pop music will always be the genre that people used to also refer to as “Bubblegum.” It’s sweet and seemingly meant for mindless consumption, but has a Trojan Horse-like power to transform minds and hearts.” Like them, XTC can crank out earwormy hooks for days, but there’s always something beneath it—Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding always had something poking out from the wooden slats of that Trojan horse, whether it’s skeleton liberation or [Jesus? JFK? Neither, actually]. And if pop was their mission, they had it down to a science—it’s got a stompy groove that’s virtually impossible to not at least try to sway around to. (Can confirm, as I had this playing on my laptop while sitting in bed the other day and the urge still overcame me.) Moulding’s bass constructs the slickest, shiniest jungle gym for the rest of the band to swing around in, and Barry Andrews’ lightning-fast keyboard work leads me to believe that he’d been possessed by the spirit of Rowlf from The Muppets. You can’t help shaking your hips—this is pop. This is also the perfect song for an impromptu, one-man dorm dance party. Methodically tested and proven by yours truly. Does wonders for your mood.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle – Stuart Turton – on the subject of Trojan horses of genre…man, do I have the book for you…

“Red Wine Supernova” – Chappell Roan

Apologies for missing Lesbian Visibility Week by [check notes] about two weeks, but this should suffice, right? Frankly, kinda lesbophobic that it coincided with finals week this year.

Remember what I said about mainstream pop not being my thing? I’m woman enough to admit when I love it. And have I listened to this an unhealthy amount of times? Absolutely. Another banger for dancing alone in your dorm to, only much gayer and raunchier. And honestly? I hope Chappell Roan gets huge. She deserves stardom—her songs are impeccably performed and produced (the amount of gleeful electronic hums and glistening tidbits woven in the background of this song should be proof of that), and she’s got a massive talent for commanding a crowd and coming up with the most deliciously camp outfits (and lyrics). But even if she doesn’t, I do have a testament to her fanbase: a friend of mine officially became an American citizen not long ago (!!!), but the day she went in to take the oath happened to be the same day that she’d gotten tickets to see Chappell Roan. When I jokingly asked her afterwards if it was worth missing Roan for, her answer was a vehement “NO,” and if that doesn’t sum up the loyalty of her fans, I don’t know what will.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Midnight Girls – Alicia Jasinska – somehow, I’ve never come across a book about lesbian magicians (somebody needs to write that), but lesbian monster-witches who eat human hearts are close enough, right?

“The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” – David Bowie

’90s Bowie just could not stop cooking, huh?? On this track, at least. I’ve heard that hours… , which was cobbled from songs that were written for the video game Omikron: Nomad Soul, is less cohesive than some of his other ’90s output. hours… isn’t high on my Bowie priority, but dare I say that this song is pushing it higher? I might be setting myself up for disappointment here, but it can’t be any worse than…I don’t know, Tonight?

Or maybe Toy is a more apt comparison, the album that would have been released after hours… if not for it being shelved…then resurrected in 2021 as a largely mediocre cash grab. What struck me on a first listen of “The Pretty Things Are Going To Hell” is that it felt like a more chiseled, streamlined version of a Toy-era track. It has more focus—it’s got a target locked, and it speeds towards it with glammed-up efficiency and power. A collaboration with his longtime musical partner and Tin Machine bandmate Reeves Gabrels, it’s a clear callback to his glam days and some of his longtime collaborators during that era—the driving, Black Sabbath-like guitar notwithstanding, the title is a reference to both “Oh! You Pretty Things” and The Stooges’ “Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell.” Bowie and Gabrels’ idea for the crunching guitar riff came from their desire to make “the simplest Neanderthal part possible,” which…well, to be fair, it is mostly one chord until the chorus hits, but I think it’s doing the power of said riff a disservice. It’s the bones and blood of the song, the meat anchoring down the swirl of percussion and electronics whirling around it like a blizzard.

“The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” also had the potential for an iconic music video, but it was ultimately scrapped; directed by Dom and Nic, the team behind the iconic “I’m Afraid of Americans” music video, it would have seen Bowie performing live, but surrounded by giant puppets of four of his past personas: The Man Who Sold the World, Ziggy Stardust, The Thin White Duke, and the Pierrot from “Ashes to Ashes.” (The video linked above is the incomplete version of the video, containing only the footage of the real Bowie.) Said giant puppets were made by Jim Henson’s Creature Shop, but they were the reason that the video ended up being shelved: according to Bowie, “It was abandoned after we found that the puppets looked like puppets…it didn’t have the east European darkness that Dom and Nic had wanted to achieve.”

What’s that about a “lack of darkness?” I totally didn’t want to sleep tonight, thanks! But it’s a very poignant concept to go with for the music video. The fast-paced drive of “The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” speaks to its lyrics, full of speed-of-light debauchery and living on the edge: “The pretty things are going to hell/They wore it out but they wore it well.” At first, I couldn’t help but almost be sad that that the pretty things of “Oh! You Pretty Things” all but ended up dead in a ditch, but I don’t think that was the end goal; the existence of these giant, hulking puppets of his past selves are proof. It almost seems like an indictment of his youth—not the optimism or boundless creativity, but the reckless, drug-addled, and often downright reprehensible (looking right at you, Thin White Duke) behaviors that he let slip. The choice of the personas for these puppets are key—you have The Man Who Sold the World at the very sprout of his fame, and by the end, you have the Pierrot, a visual symbol of him trying to break free of addiction through “Ashes to Ashes.” There’s no Jareth or Let’s Dance era Bowie in sight—as much as I rag on ’80s Bowie…at least he had a better outlook on life and a healthier lifestyle. At least he was feeling good. But the ’70s lingered with him for all of his life: “I am the blood at the corner of your eye/I found the secrets, I found gold/I find you out before you grow old.” I almost think that the puppets looking puppet-like would have worked if this haunting by his past recklessness was what he was going for—they’re all so gaunt that they look like specters, even if it wasn’t the “darkness” that he and Dom and Nic were going for. Cynical as it may be, “The Pretty Things Are Going to Hell” seems like Bowie reconciling with his past—it’s something he’s trapped in amber (or massive puppets), but they’re false memories now, a version of himself that undeniably left a mark on the world: larger than him in stature, but most certainly less alive than the person he was at the turn of the century.

This is a level of cursed I didn’t anticipate when I started writing this post

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Off With Their Heads – Zoe Hana Mikuta – if not for the fact that they’re already in hell, said pretty things would be on the fast-track…

“You’re still breathing but you don’t know why/Life’s a bit and sometimes you die…”

“My Fun” – Suki Waterhouse

It’s one thing to release a catchy, feel-good single, but it’s another to do that around a week after giving birth. Damn. A huge congratulations to Suki Waterhouse & Robert Pattinson on their new baby!

I almost wish this single was pushed back at least two months—partially to give Waterhouse a bit of rest, but also because “My Fun” is the perfect summer song. Or maybe it’s a gracious move: she’s given everyone enough time to add it to their summer playlists before the weather gets consistently warm. Either way, it’s one of the most carefree songs that she’s released in ages. Most of Waterhouse’s songs have been so meticulous and slick in their production, from the smooth glide of “Good Looking” to the sweeping, dress-twirling grandeur of “To Love.” By contrast, “My Fun” feels pasted from the same images as the music video—a collage of bright, silly imagery, cut-out pictures dancing in circles around each other. There’s bits of that “Authentic™️” raw audio here and there, with no sign of the sheen and polish of most of her catalogue. Instead, we’ve got an image of her that’s much more willing to let loose, unafraid to stumble around the place, even if it is curated. I never thought I’d see the day where we’d hear a recorder (and not just for a bit—it sticks around) in a Suki Waterhouse song, but I can’t think of many songs beside this one that make me think, “hmm, this would unironically be enhanced by a plastic recorder peeping in the background.” I guess shittyflute beat us all to that revelation, but that’s…much more front and center, shall we say. But it matches the carefree, poolside atmosphere of “My Fun”—sunbaked ease, with no worries plaguing you, save for when to set out on the next unplanned adventure.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Just Your Local Bisexual Disaster – Andrea Mosqueda – warm, carefree, and full of confusing love in unexpected places.

“someone to” – Adrianne Lenker

i won’t let go of your hand – EP is available exclusively on bandcamp—all proceeds go to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund! Chip in what you can—the EP is pay what you want, so long as it’s $10 USD and up. Free Palestine.

I’m woefully behind on my Adrianne Lenker content—I’ve been so swallowed up in this year’s multitude of fantastic albums that I haven’t gotten around to listening to Bright Future, though I’ve loved most of the singles that came out of it (see 12/31 for my review of “Ruined”). It’s high time that I should—after all, the self-effacingly titled songs was my top album of 2023, according to Apple Music, so even if the data is screwy and that was just because I played “forwards beckon rebound” so many times in September, that ought to mean something. In the meantime, I bought i won’t let go of your hand – EP, since a) it’s Adrianne Lenker, c’mon, and b) any money sent to help Palestine is money well spent, in my book. The title is an apt one—the lo-fi acoustics make the whole EP sound like it’s being played from somewhere in a secluded cabin, which, given that this was the exact process that birthed most of the songs from songs, seems like a process she’d repeat. It’s a fruitful sound—and one suited for her personal lyrics. On the EP closer “someone to,” she speaks the lyrics as though she’s hiding inside of a cupboard, pressed against pots and pans as she rolls out her confessions: “Could you come forgive me? We get angry and hide/All of this lonely living, someone to walk beside.” Even if the instrumentals aren’t as intricate as I’ve come to know her work, the vulnerability remains front and center; “someone to” is a plea for forgiveness, peering through the dark to realize that all of the turmoil created from whatever relationship this song stemmed from has left her lonely. At around 2:21, she makes some percussive noises that, from what I can tell, came from thumping her fist on a counter or a similar surface—with the faint metal clangs, you can almost see cutlery and hanging pots rattling on their hooks, echoing through a cramped, wooden space. All of this adds to the log-cabin atmosphere that Lenker has mastered so beautifully—even if she didn’t return to the same cabin in Massachusetts that songs marinated in, she’s an expert at making the most of scarcity.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

The Infinite Noise – Lauren Shippen – “Could you come forgive me? We get angry and hide/All of this lonely living, someone to walk beside…”

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!