#power of lyrics

[ashleyloob]

American idiot by green day came up during karaoke so we handed the mic to the only queer guy in the group

[hinamie]

もう一回、もう一回

[gyrmirr]

can i tell you that i'm empty?

[kacievvbbbb]

Wasteland baby! is the most under appreciated of the Hozier albums and truly what an album to be released just before the pandemic what a song to release before the pandemic. During an uncertain time an album about not being alone in a wasteland the way most of the songs are about devotion, to the point of fault, to the point of personal harm, to the point of manipulation, about doing everything to be with this person even when it's detrimental to you both or even when it's a person you've made up in your head, in a year when we couldn’t go out and see each other. Hozier releases an album that puts the yearning for love in the loneliness of the pandemic into words a full year before the pandemic even happened and we don’t even really talk about it and that should be a crime.

True that love in withdrawal was the weepin' of me That the sound of the saw must be known by the tree

god imagine hearing that in a pandemic and not going insane.

in this essay, I will-

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

My brain is on fire same I can’t sleep and am thinking of this:

The way she writes about marriage/family/commitment through these different situations across the album is soooooooooo interesting.

You have a very intense first experience of it in “The Manuscript,” where it is first dangled in front of her/the narrator’s young, impressionable self as shorthand for real love in a situation that ended up being smoke and mirrors. She’s being told everything she wants to hear by someone who basically thinks it’s just foreplay. In the end, when it’s clear that the other person has no intention of actually making a life with her, it makes her feel used, but she forces herself to recalibrate and become the girl she thinks he and all the other hes want her to be. Easy breezy cool. But there’s a sense of loss in realizing those hopes were merely banter to the other.

You have the “grown up” version of it alluded to in “So Long, London” and “How Did It End?”, the years of putting in work to save a relationship and the “deflation of our dreaming leaving [her] bereft and reeling” leading to them “calling it all off.” The implication is clearly that they built a home together with plans for next steps at a point in time, but the commitment is shattered. (Obviously to me it sounds like marriage.) She’s bitter at spending her “prime” years with someone who ultimately didn’t want to be there, even if he couldn’t or wouldn’t admit it himself.

She felt like she did everything she was supposed to, but they were learning the right steps to different dances at as it were. Those dreams were at one point shared, but in the end they weren’t right for each other and she admits that, though bitterly (“I founded the club she’s heard great things about” eg the years she put in for him to help him grow up will end up benefiting his new lover, “but I’m not the one,” “you’ll find someone,” etc.). Mixed in with all this of her resentment of him wasting her youth (sacrificing herself at the altar), and his resentment of her for reasons less defined, and insinuations of betrayal in the shadows. The fantasy of the whole package disappears into the ether, yet she still has no answers as to how they got there.

Then in comes the wolf in sheep’s clothing in many of the rest of the songs, the one who promises her all those things she’s dreamed of since she was a kid instantly. After years of moulding herself to other men’s desires, someone comes in and tells her exactly what she wants to hear at the most vulnerable time of her life, as though the universe is answering her prayers, like some sort of cosmic payback for all she’s suffered, and it’s the most intoxicating drug of all. She’s gone from her wish for a family life feeling like she’s in a way being used for her body, to it being used as a chain to a relationship gone sour, to having someone put a metaphorical ring on her finger and tell her he wants to have babies with her, fuck those other guys.

In her grief and stupor, it’s too good to be true, which is exactly why she falls for it. But of course, it’s all an illusion, because this wolf is an amalgamation of the worst of all the men who came before him. He tells her everything she wants to hear not to make her dreams come true, but to make his. He takes the worst parts of these scenarios to make his move: he’ll stand by her, he’ll commit, he’ll do it out in the open under the spotlight’s glare (all things desperately lacking in her last relationship), but after he beds her he stabs her in the back in private and leaves her. He got what he wanted at the expense of her losing everything she wanted, this time as her world caved in seemingly for good. She feels like she gave up everything she thought she might have had for a chance that this is where the universe has been point her all along, only to be left broken for good (you represent the loss of my life as I knew it).

Then there are two sort of codas to this. In “But Daddy I Love Him” we get a sassier reimagining of “Love Story,” where the girl with the scarlet letter is mouthy and crass and tells everyone to go fuck themselves for cursing her in the first place, choosing her love above all else. And no, those haters can’t come to her wedding. Her daddy may have come around, but they sure can’t. Finally it seems someone is choosing her and will someday give her these things, and she’ll be able to show all the naysayers. (Also interestingly one of the more fictionally-veiled songs which ends happily vs the diaristic ones that don’t.)

Then of course there’s “So High School,” our first glimpse into what the future holds. Probably the only unabashedly happy (nay… electric?) song on the album, it’s all about reclaiming the buzz of youth (which is a whole other post) with a new lover. “Are you gonna marry, kiss or kill me? It’s just a game but really, I’m betting on all three for us two.” It’s, er, a direct nod to a certain now-infamous interview, but again, she’s staking her claim on her future, if not certain then at least hopeful again. This time the prospect doesn’t come with a “but.” It’s not, we’ll be pushing strollers but actually you’re too young. It’s not, we had these dreams for our future but actually I can’t move forward. It’s not, I’m going to promise you a ring and a baby but only until my needs are met and then I’m out. It’s, I know what I wanted and I’m not leaving, and thanks to that now she stays too.

The album dealt with the theme not at all in the way I expected, but is absolutely fascinating.

[isbergillustration]

Anguish, Unfounded

[ourstaturestouchtheskies]

Lucretia Borgia Reigns in the Vatican in the Absence of Pope Alexander VI – Frank Cadogan Cowper // I am not a woman, I'm a god – Halsey

requested by @peggyvan ❤️

[vicxxmmii]

a girl like that as a mother, it must be tough ⋆ a problem child, i was rough ⋆ but what do you do with a difficult grown-up?

✭ “lucky” (2024) by halsey ✭

[osteochondraldefect]

"Your pet on Earth"

cell shadingless + lines version :] and fun fact, originally i wanted to caption this with "IT HIT THE SLAY BUTTON, FLEW THE MOTHERSTROID INTO THE EARTH AND CAUSED THE SECOND CUNTACLYSM but a part of me decided against that

[ribbitbobo]

what is this guy looking at!

[catras-breakup-song]

i am the monster you created

why don't you love who i am?

well i hope you know we had everything

and you broke me

and left these pieces

i want you to hurt like you hurt me today and

i want you to lose like i lose when i play

what could've been

(inspired by me rewatching the arcane S1 finale and then being reminded of this AMV existing... anyway SPOP S3 supremacy!)

[tolerateit]

BELLS IN SANTA FE | HALSEY

[fleshblanket]

‘get a room!’

they cant. the bus isn’t here yet. its cold. mind your business. its for survival reasons and not because they’re helplessly attracted to one another. you’re crazy. your mother and i are very disappointed in you.

Click for better quality, as always

[twoheadeddavghter]

“the lighthouse” x “arsonist” // halsey ꩜

[newwavesylviaplath]

i want money, power, and glory.

[meraki-yao]

Inspired by Dani @mossy-fae !!!

My 2024 top songs as RWRB [Part 1]

[Part 2]

Comfort - Nicholas Galitzine

Sleep Well - CG5

Loser Baby - Hazbin Hotel

get him back! - Olivia Rodrigo

Clara Bow - Taylor Swift