Music Junkie chronicles

Too close to home and still not home

ICYMI

How Tory Lanez trial bloggers are shaping the conversation around Megan Thee Stallion: While this is an older article, I got two things from this story- The first was Meg’s legal name is Megan Jovon Ruth Pete. The second was her message to people reminding people she was still mourning the loss of her mother while in the middle of the trial against Tory Lanez. “It might be funny to y’all on the internet and just another messy topic for you to talk about but this is my real life and I’m real life hurt and traumatized.”

Music Junkie Chronicles

I rarely write about music. Partially because I don’t want to critique music. I’d rather experience it for whatever moment it calls for. Something changes with music over time. Some of the songs mean one thing one moment and as we grow with them mean something else or become background noise to drown out other noises.

I have been enjoying to Tyler the Creator’s song “Thought I Was Dead”, from his latest project “Chromakopia” because it encompasses the thing that makes life worth living— proving that you’re not dead, that whatever is trying to kill you hasn’t succeeded, even if that thing is you.

And for your information, yes, I did look up the lyrics (even if they are incorrect). I needed to know what he was saying. Pretty sure I may not ever remember the words anyway so it was useful.

The song features Schoolboy Q and Santigold both opening the song in different ways. Since it’s release in late October this year, it has become my theme song. The opening lines “You don’t want to go to war with a soldier”, a sample taken from an army basic combat training video from 2021 followed by the first horn that sounds like the calling of troops.

That opening line is a segue to another sample “There’s more to life than just working, bro” and honestly, I couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. [Insert shameless plug to whatever I wrote relating to that.]

The song is a battle cry for creating a different type of soldier. This one has seen more than they want to and is really tired of hearing the same narrative over and over again. Being “dead” may not always mean a physical death, it may mean that something is dying and he is trying to prevent it from happening.

For Tyler (and for me), its not an ego death. It’s the death of the perception that any of us, soldiers included have to be exactly what our titles was given to us say we have to be.

This seems to be a continuing theme, particularly for people who have tried multiple times to reinvent ourselves and try on new identities. This time, being a soldier means fighting for his soul. It doesn’t matter if its the soul of his music or his actual soul someone has to put up a fight and it might as well be him.

In the current, economy and with the labor issues that we are facing in this country I think we all are. He’s just saying it louder for the people in the back of the class, who haven’t caught up yet.

This is a song for anyone who just wants to have the chance to recognize that creating something that should matter to them. I can assure you, someone, somewhere knows that feeling.

It’s the moment where the stalls, the stops and lack of momentum that seemed to slow everything down, turns into movement and the change that everyone wants to see in themselves first.

The lessons of time become very real and it seems as if I’m hearing someone whisper, “Keep going, you’re almost there” where ever “there” may be. I would prefer it sooner than later because “almost there” is often too far away for anyone attempting to survive longer than today.