when i was a teenager i remember feeling sad that i wouldn’t have a crush on ben kowalewicz forever.
ben kowalewicz was the lead singer of billy talent, and they were one of my favourite bands when i was 16. he was a compact man, puppy dog eyes, aggressively whiney voice, floppy hair… i loved him.
i wrote in my diary one evening about how i had such a crush on him, that it made me sad to think of myself in the future, not having a crush on him anymore. it made me feel future-nostalgic.
and i was right. it’s 15 years later and i no longer have a big crush on ben kowalewicz. i still listen to billy talent, but not everyday. the tastes of my 16-year-old self have changed and faded a little.
i think what made me sad, more than the prospect of not rewatching billy talent music videos on my ipod ad nauseam, was the knowledge that i was gonna grow up and change. the things which were important to me then would be less important to me later. and when you’re a teenager, those important things feel SO IMPORTANT. you live for the friends you have, the tv shows you watch, the outfits you wear, everything feels so important and life-affirming.
i would like to tell my teenage self that, although i no longer have an ipod and i no longer watch billy talent’s surrender mv every day, i still love the music i listened to when i was 16. and there are a lot of inconsequential things i’ve left behind, but they’ll always be a fond memory. like my sequinned hoodie from forever 21, or msn messenger being my main way of contacting friends.
when i picked up my guitar this week i wanted to write a song about how the things we love become different for us over time. how we end up leaving things behind that we thought we’d never want to part with. especially our favourite bands:
remember the album liner pasted on your wall
high rises replace those shopping malls
now you can’t sing the choruses at all
words fade, i heard you moving on
the analogy i was trying to go for in this song, with the sedimentary rock, was this: rocks feel final, to a lot of us. i mean, we have the phrase “set in stone.” it often feels like our tastes and obsessions are fixed. but stones can change, be covered up by new layers, metamorphosed or scoured out and washed up on a new beach. and the things we think will last forever will last forever, just not in the ways we expect them to. i still love billy talent, i just don’t love them in the way that i used to. they used to be part of my bedrock, and now they're a beautiful fossil on my beach.
that sounds kinda sad, but i mean it in a hopeful way. we’re always changing, and we love old things in new ways.
things i love
✶ i went back and listened to billy talent whilst writing this newsletter. this song is from their 2016 album and sounds like MUSE and BILLY TALENT togETHER. it makes me happy.
✶ if you follow me on instagram you will know i am absolutely OBSESSED with google’s dall-e mini, an ai that generates images from a text prompt. so naturally, i type in things like this:
“BLOOEEBEEBEOEBEEBOEBEOBEEYYYYY”
✶ i liked this article about maintaining friendships
✶ a piano jazz album featuring a man who literally cannot play piano
✶ “A young rainbow demon wanders the countryside, disturbed and elated, after demolishing his first castle.”
congratulations! you made it to the end of this week’s newsletter. click on the ❤️ heart ❤️ to claim your….. prize?
DUDUDNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUNDUDNDUHN,
olivia 🎸
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