This World and Me

Song of the Week #12 is "RPG" by Sekai no Owari . Sekai no Owari is a Japanese pop band whose name translates to "End of the World". The band is so named because Fukase, the lead vocalist, was in a period of depression at the time he founded the band. He saw making music as the one thing left for him during a time that felt like the end of the world. I stumbled across Sekai no Owari because they once did a couple collaborations with the American musician Owl City. Anyone who has been a friend of mine for a while, or who has been a reader of this blog for a while, will know that I used to be quite into Owl City. (Owl City has not released new music since 2018, so my interests have since shifted, but it looks like he may be on track to release some more music in 2022.) In 2014, Sekai no Owari featured on an Owl City song called "Tokyo" , and in 2015, Owl City (under his real name Adam Young) was the producer of the Sekai no Owari song "Mr. Heartache...

Song of the Week #11 is "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)" by The 1975. For a long time, I thought this was a love song. In my defense, there were several factors that misled me towards this incorrect conclusion. For starters, the song is on an album entitled A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships (2018). Additionally, the title of the song—"It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)"—gives the impression that it is about a person. To top it all off, the song sounds happy . If you fail to pay close attention to the lyrics (as I did), you might think it is one of the most upbeat songs on the entire album, if not the most upbeat-sounding song in The 1975's entire discography. It is all a clever deception. The song is about drugs. Specifically, "It's Not Living (If It's Not With You)" is about the former heroin addiction of The 1975's lead vocalist, Matty Healy, who co-wrote the song with fellow band members George Dan...

Song of the Week #10 is "Deine Nähe tut mir weh" by Revolverheld . When I first did this song of the week thing back in 2017, I wanted to avoid repeating artists. However, that immediately proved a futile endeavor. I have written about the German band Revolverheld no less than three times on this blog before now: check out my posts on "Das kann uns keiner nehmen" , "Ich lass für dich das Licht an" , and "Bands deiner Jugend" . All three are from the 2013 album Immer in Bewegung , and the song I discuss today—"Deine Nähe tut mir weh"—comes from the same album. In my view, Immer in Bewegung is quite the masterpiece within German pop music, and there is not a single song on the album I dislike. I got into Revolverheld after one of my German instructors in my freshman year of college introduced me to them. "Deine Nähe tut mir weh" is in German. The title of the song means "your closeness hurts me". The song starts with ...

Back in 2017, I published a series of blog posts that discussed one song every week. I had eight of these "Song of the Week" posts until I lost interest. I would like to resume the series. Song of the Week #9 is "Borealis" by Madeon . Released in 2019, "Borealis" is the last song on the Good Faith album. In my view, it is the spiritual successor to the landmark song "Shelter" by Madeon and Porter Robinson. I wrote about "Shelter" on this blog in May 2017. [Verse 1] A light from dark, In a land by the sea, Came from the sky. You'll be named after me. I discovered "Shelter" at a particularly timely moment in my life: when I was just about to leave my parents' house for the first time to attend college thousands of miles away. Whereas "Shelter" was a song about expressing appreciation for one's parents, "Borealis" is something of a reply from the parent to the child, who is named af...