Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #249

Guest Post by Jennifer Lee O'Brien (post emosh) + "GALCHAN MODE" by MANON - 09/23/21

Today we have a guest post from Jennifer Lee O’Brien! She’s a fellow Substack writer who also writes about music and her life. She started following the Shuffle a few weeks back, and we connected over our mutual appreciation for Astrologer/Psychic Rachel Lang’s guest post. So I asked her to do one too! Jennifer’s Substack post emosh is worth a read, especially the latest post about Lorde’s new album.

Here’s a more formal bio!

Jennifer Lee O’Brien is a freelance writer and creative consultant based in Leeds, UK. She is the creator of post emosh — a semi-regular newsletter featuring stories, interviews and essays. Jennifer lives with a rabbit named Pamela Anderson who shares her love of trash tv and sad girl music, probably.

You can find her on Instagram here. View a portfolio of her work here. 

OK, take it away, Jennifer!

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Last week, I was writing about being alone. How equally constrictive and expansive being alone can feel, like string wrapped around a finger too tight. Or Pluto, submerged in icy darkness at the far edge of the solar system, revoked of what I’m sure, in space world, is an extremely coveted planet status.

I’ve been writing about aloneness for a long time — but especially during the months of March, April, May of 2020. After that, too; last week, even. But during those months, the aloneness was shiny, strange and new. It was a weird and new time for everyone — so many of us locked in, washing groceries, being anxious, tweeting about Tiger King. It was a weird and new time for me because I was doing it all, for those three months — in a country that is my home but also not — from an Airbnb. From the couch (not my own) I could see my only belongings: an opened suitcase stuffed with summer clothes in Safari tones; three books stacked along the tv stand; a bottle of Amarula. As to why I was in an Airbnb in a city I’d lived in for 9 years — with a wardrobe mostly consisting of khaki — is a long story, sort of. What’s important is that while I was lucky to be there, I also felt pretty fucked up about the whole thing, what with it being a global pandemic.

It was from the couch that I ate take out (lots) and scrolled (limitless). And listened to the Thursday claps of neighbours. And watched every episode of Teen Mom OG and half of Grey’s Anatomy from; because the UK government, and many others, said to do something was to do nothing at all. It was from the couch that I started to do SadGirlSunday.

SadGirlSunday wasn’t planned or cohesive or even real. Thinking back now, it was one of the ways I ritualised aloneness during that time. To make it performative and push it beyond the walls of my Airbnb, so that the air within felt lighter. SadGirlSunday mostly consisted of drinking Malbec and watching films that seemed to fit the theme. I think it began with A Star is Born but there was also the First Wives Club, Death Becomes Her and Moonstruck and probably like 10 more that I can’t remember; probably because it was a while ago but also, the wine.

I’d listen to music, too. I’d post the songs out on Instagram because of course there’s no performance without a platform. I also created a playlist that I mostly listen to in the bath or on days when I feel that my heart is pressed too hard against my sternum. Last night around 3AM when I woke up thinking about the passing of time, I decided this playlist would be today’s to shuffle. 

Don’t Turn Around — Biig Piig

This song is a great car song, although admittedly I’ve never heard it played in a car. It has a familiar sound, both because it samples Montell Jordan’s 1999 “Get It On Tonite” but also because it’s the soundtrack to driving away from hot heartbreak that’s quick cooling to confidence. This song, to me, is city nights turned neon; a fast-floating highway. It reminds me of dance floors and feeling alive again.

Norman Fucking Rockwell — Lana Del Rey

When I listen to Lana Del Rey because I want to feel my emotions in a very aesthetic, nostalgic and branded way (specifically American). Lana Del Rey could sing a song and it would be like: Diet Coke straws, Marlboro cigarette, I’m an aging beauty queen, you left me for LA in your Corvette.

And I’d be like: Yes Lana, I know exactly what you mean. 

Much like Lorde, Lana is what I put on when I want to stare in the mirror and let singular, mascara-stained tears roll down my face. Which never happens because my face crunches up when I cry in a way that fucks up the home-VHS-style cinematography that I’m imagining. Also, the first line of the lyrics to Norman Fucking Rockwell is what I think heartache would look like if it was dressed in Gucci and had winged tips. Peak Lana.

Don’t Speak — No Doubt

Honestly, every song on this playlist is fucking predictable. There’s only like 4 hours of songs on here but most of them are no surprise. Don’t Speak by No Doubt is going to be the last shuffle because otherwise I’m going to have to lie in some hot water or go stare at a lake or something.

This is one of those songs that’s hung out in my hippocampus since I listened to it for the first time, about seventeen times, when I was sixteen. It was one of those moments when you feel like you’ve been dumped by your boyfriend because he’s started hooking up with someone else, but actually he was never your boyfriend at all, you just thought that because he invited you to chill out in his basement a few times and you watched 8 Mile together and he also sort of referenced you in one of his freestyle rap battles at a party, and like, everyone from highschool was there (not really), but the content wasn’t really about being his girlfriend, now that you think about it, even though at the time it made you feel like you were a thing, like it was going to get serious. 

But anyway, it’s all ending, we gotta stop pretending, who we are.

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Thanks so much, Jennifer!

I loved this tour through your playlist and psyche.

This was actually the first time I close read a Lana Del Rey song, which I know is crazy, but I f—ing loved Norman fucking Rockwell!

That first line as you mentioned:

Godamn, man child
You fucked me so good that I almost said, "I love you"

Then later:

Goddamn, man child
You act like a kid even though you stand six foot two
Self-loathing poet, resident Laurel Can-you-know-it-all
You talk to the walls when the party gets bored of you
But I don't get bored, I just see it through
Why wait for the best when I could have you?
You

So sad yet funny. Can we name the subgenre of this music and your witty writing about it: sad funny girl?

I also loved that in your description of “Don’t Turn Around” you called out the sample of Montell Jordan because I loved that jam back in the day too.

It actually made me look to see if that was itself a sample, and apparently, it comes from this Claudia Berry disco song from 1976:

“Love for the Sake of Love” by Claudia Berry

Its lyrics:

You...
You and me baby
We belong together
We were made for each other
You really can get it on
Me...
Me and you baby
We're so strong together
Nothing can take us apart
As long as we can share
Love for the sake of love

Are kind of the exact opposite of Biig Piig’s:

Don’t you turn around
And say you need me by your side
If it’s that easy why’d you leave me?
You know I’ve no one to rely on, to rely

Can’t wait for a man, my life’s in my hands, washed
Tryna keep clean
Thought we had lots
Really thought we had dreams
Silly of me though I hope you find what you need

It also made me think of the Ace of Base song also titled “Don’t Turn Around”

“Don’t Turn Around” by Ace of Base

Which is a neo-disco song that incorporates the sad girl music lyrical aesthetic:

I will survive without you

Don't tell me that you wanna leave

If you wanna leave
I won't beg you to stay
And if you gotta go darling
Maybe it's better that way

I'm gonna be strong
I'm gonna do fine
Don't worry about this heart of mine

Just walk out that door
Yeah, see if i care
Go on and go now but

Don't turn around
'Cause you're gonna see my heart breaking
Don't turn around
I don't want you seeing me cry
Just walk away
It's tearing me apart that you're leaving
I'm letting you go
But I won't let you know
I won't let you know

This brings me to my song today:

“GALCHAN MODE” by MANON

It’s a J-Pop/hyper-pop crossover which, even though the lyrics are a mix of Japanese and English, seem to be in the spirit of sad girl music as well!

Here are some of the lyrics:

Quite a synchronicity, no?!

It seems like Jennifer and I are of close enough generations to associate No Doubt with school romances.

But the teenage MANON spoke to Billboard about the “gal” culture of Japan, which the song is partly about, that peaked from 2000-2010 as if it’s from another century:

Social media didn’t exist, yet these girls flocked to Shibuya to hang out, which seems so novel to me. How did they get together? How did those “gal” circles come about? It’s so mysterious. I guess they gathered information through magazines?

Maybe I shouldn’t find it so funny and be so patronizing.

We’re trying to build community now through a mixture of social media and magazines, right?!

Substacks!

Okay, that’s the two hundred and forty-ninth Shuffle Synchronicities.

Today, in Other! Substacks, check out our guest poster, Jennifer Lee O’Brien’s Substack post emosh and her post a bit back partly about The Backstreet Boys!