SmokeLong was putting together a playlist for the issue, and asked me to pick a song to represent “Waiting”! IT WAS THE MOST FUN I HAD ALL WEEK.

Shortlisted songs:


It ended up being between Paloma Faith’s Only Love can Hurt like This, Blondie’s One Way or Another, or Heart of Glass, another Blondie song. I wanted something a bit upbeat and crazy, but with undertones of hurt. Blondie’s One Way or Another is super fun, iconic, and worked the stalker aspect, but Paloma’s paired with the story would play into the nuances of love between friends that can often hold as much, if not more emotional power than that of the romantic narratives we are raised on. I’m interested in female friendships, the richness, complexities and devastation that they can hold, and lyrically, Heart of Glass was the perfect fit: Once I had a love and it was divine / Soon found out I was losing my mind / It seemed like the real thing but I was so blind / Mucho mistrust, love’s gone behind. Hiding hurt behind upbeat punk pop; harboring feelings of betrayal and hurt behind action and obsessiveness. Mmmm. Yum.

I couldnt stop laughing, imagining the editors’ faces if I sent the Paloma song in. In the end I chickened out and sent them all three, and asked them to pick. I’m not good at choosing where to eat either, can you tell?

The issue’s playlist is here.

I was hyping up with my girlfriend Jenna through the entire song selection process – she’s always had excellent music taste, and then got way excited and went down the rabbit hole later that night, with this as the result…


yeah baby

I kid you not, when I made this playlist I got so excited I couldn’t sleep till 8am the next morning – I was bouncing off the walls. I’d forgotten all about most of these songs! I later introduced them to my baby sister, who agrees that they are, indeed, a bop. The music of my teenage years was so sincere – it’s all stuff like, man, i like this girl, but she doesn’t know i exist, etcetera. Nowadays, on the other hand…

x
Jem

PS. I also did an interview with SmokeLong about the story, which you can read here.