A Lifelong Love of Lyrics

Back in the newsletter groove

Just over one year ago I left Substack, hoping to find an alternate solution, but also feeling like my newsletter needed a refresh. It turns out sometimes the best tools are the simplest ones: the fancy newsletter platform with all the bells and whistles churned out gorgeous emails but the process of designing each email took as long as writing the thing itself. It also turns out I enjoy writing so much more than I do pushing pixels.

Over the past year, I read a lot of Substack authors who felt similarly alienated by the leadership of the company’s stances (and lack thereof) on important issues, and some of their posts on ‘sticking around’ lingered with me. I have mixed feelings on all of this, but I am somewhat relieved to be back in a familiar place. I’m especially grateful to all of you who subscribed to this newsletter even when the first post was titled ‘Goodbye,’ your persistence in the face of adversity is inspiring.

Anyway, let’s return to the theme of the newsletter, things that are consuming me — and today, that topic is my lifelong obsession with lyrics. The earliest memories of my time on the internet involve going to my Dad’s office and printing out the lyrics to “The Boy is Mine” and “No Scrubs,” so I could pore over each word, sing along to my favorite songs, and understand the meanings behind them. ‘I don’t want no scrubs’ was not literal enough for young Roya, T-Boz could have been singing about medical scrubs. Relatedly, it’s worth mentioning that my Dad is a Doctor, so I was not rolling into a casual desk job with my printing duties. He was in the Emergency Room as I perused Azlyrics and LyricsFreak, printing a few songs with each visit to study and reference. Sigh. The sacrifices our immigrant parents make so we can decide whether we’re more of a Brandy or a Monica (Ed Note: I’m Brandy).

I’m still a LyricsFreak — I just use Spotify’s Lyrics Feature and Genius to source all my info now. Most recently, I was looking at the interpretations of Charli XCX’s latest album brat. I’m less consumed by song lyrics themselves, I like knowing the words and their significance, but most of all, I have a nerdy excitement to share those meanings with others. It’s not enough for me to keep this weird info inside my head. Unfortunately, I practice this compulsion even when a song might be secretly depressing, which somehow happens more often than I’d expect. Some examples:

Janet Jackson’s “Together Again”: This song is the reason I learned about AIDS as a kid — the linear notes of the album mention this song as a dedication to several friends Jackson lost to the disease. This timeless classic seems to play at every party in Brooklyn, and it’s for good reason, it is one of the best songs of all time. Twice this month, the song came on at different gatherings and as friends exclaimed how much they love it, my compulsion reared its head: ‘do you know what the song is about?’ As I explained both times and pointed out a few special lines — what I’d give just to hold you close, as on earth / in heaven we will be together baby. The response from

Aisha Joshi

was ‘I have literal chills’ and we touched her arm hair as it stood straight up.

Train’s “Drops of Jupiter”: This is a hot take, but this is also on my list of best songs of all time. I love this song deeply (Ed Note: I was ashamed of this for several years and then I got over myself). Train’s lead singer Pat Monahan wrote this song after his mom passed away from cancer. His mom came to him in a dream, telling him about her journey through the afterlife and into the cosmos. So, that’s who is back in the atmosphere, back from her soul vacation, tracing her way through the constellations (yeah-ah-ah). That infectious chorus? It’s a son pleading his mother to tell him about her life in the skies: Did Venus blow your mind? Was it everything you wanted to find? And did you miss me while you’re looking for yourself out there? He took something as weighty as grief and gave it levity and ease through music. Is that not amazing? And isn’t it bizarre that the loss of a parent inspires a soaring smash-hit and people’s takeaway is mostly the line ‘the best soy latte that you ever had’ as we sing along to it in T.J. Maxx?

Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life”: This song is about doo doo doo-ing crystal meth. If you feel surprised, the lyrics even say it outright: ‘doing crystal meth will lift you up until you break.’ This sounds like the plot line from a movie about aliens infiltrating our brains with an irresistibly catchy pop song that gets everyone hooked on meth, wiping out the entire population. But it’s just true, hear it from the artist themselves:

Excerpt from a1997 Billboard Interview with the lead singer of Third Eye Blind

Anyway, it feels good to be back.

I want something else… to get me through this,

Roya