Ugh, Those Feels Again

After the second request from yet another person I deeply respect, I decided to deep-dive into Snoh Aalegra’s set, “Ugh, those feels again”. The first time the request came, I listened in earnest as my best friend prepared all of his ingredients to bake one of his otherworldly, finger-licking good carrot cakes; he promised I would not be disappointed. When “I Want You Around” began to ooze through the speakers I got excited, because I had been listening to that particular track for a few months and loved the way the kick of the bass drum carried both the song and me into a place of peace, promise and pleasure.

 

I knew the lyrics, because I’d lived them. They brought to life the duality of wanting to love and the fear of love; the promise of love and our intent—sometimes consciously—to do away with it. I understood her, and it seemed she understood me—because as amazing as we humans have made love out to be, it was and has been the single greatest unsolved mystery in my life. I want you around, yes, but only if it comes without pain.

 

As the tracks continued one after the other I truly appreciated the production quality and continuous melodic ease the set delivered. As my best friend had promised, I found myself nodding incessantly as I settled comfortably into her voice and flow. But as someone who has been committed to healing: voice, rhythm and flow are the dressing to any musical endeavor; much like my best friend’s cake, it’s the icing. The true sustenance—the part that nourishes and satiates our heart and mind—is found in the lyrics, words to which we connect so deeply they carry their meaning far into our conscious and unconscious mind and influence the way we see ourselves, the other, the world and our collective experience. So while her music was rhythmically sound, and easily gained access to my soul, the lyrics were a constant struggle, both to hear and to feel. Snoh was hurt; and she communicated this hurt in the most melodically seductive—and if I were not careful—addictive way. 

 

I didn’t bother to share my resistant thoughts with my best friend, if he loved it, I was happy. But it was a request received via text from my cousin, whose message: “Cousin you have to listen to this album. Tell me what you think when you’re done! Promise you’re gonna love it.”, cajoled me back for a second listen.  

 

This next time around I promised to listen more deeply to see if on first listen I had unfairly misjudged her, and, the substantive lack of wellbeing I believed underscored her music. 

 

And well I was right, the first time. This is not soul music. This is wounded-heart music. It’s music that tells the tale of love from a broken, disenabling—it’s your fault I’m unhappy and miserable because if you had been better to me, for us, then I’d be in a better place! But because you haven’t, or can’t, I am angry and bitter and confused and will find somebody else, somewhere to love me because it seems you can’t or won’t or ugh here are those unresolved, unacknowledged, unexamined “feels” again that I just can’t seem to escape—type of way. And honestly, after doing the excruciating work to begin to unlearn the toxic misunderstandings I once held about love and committed to since comprehension, this music is a hard pass for me. 

 

But listen, don’t get me wrong, “Ugh, those feels again” is filled with beautiful music, incredible vocal flows/stylings and honest feelings. But, you will also find deeply flawed, unexamined emotions that allow the vocalist to place her frustrations and experience of love squarely at the foot of those she’s tried to love but, could not, without assuming any responsibility for her part in the partnership. As I listened, I kept thinking "this is wound-mate music”: its fantasy-ladened, interminably blind, with the kind of willful-naiveté that repeats itself ad nauseam while simultaneously passing it’s self off as “love”.  

 

Thich Nhat Hanh is quoted as saying, “to love without knowing how to love, wounds the person we love”. I’m almost certain Snoh has felt the emptiness of words and gestures from people who spoke of love but was offering any and everything but love. I’m sure these experiences left her wounded, and intensified feelings of uncertainty while simultaneously trying to navigate, and save face in an excessively active arena called “love" for which she was never fully prepared.

 

The truth is we’ve all been there. We have all found ourselves wounded by our understanding and mismanagement of love. Some of us take these woundings as a sign that love isn’t to be trusted, and that it’s important to keep our feelings and emotions to ourselves and out of harms way. 

 

And then there are those of us who decide to pull back the layers of an experience to understand how we got to a place of brokenness, in order to redirect to a place of wholeness. It’s called healing. And I hope one day Snoh Aalegra finds herself there, so I can marry her incredibly infectious vocal stylings with the sustenance that gives my heart, mind and soul peace, promise and pleasure.