Generation Why: A Drained College Girl’s Playlist

by Yzelle Rose Pada

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Check out the playlist here

Hey Siri, play A Drained College Girl’s Playlist.

Lauv’s Sad forever is now playing

“Daydream

Life feels like a daydream

And I just wish that I could wake up”

No one expected that the pandemic would stay this long, no one anticipated the severe impact of lockdowns, especially its toll on our mental and social beings. In the simplest terms, the pandemic is fatal – in all aspects. Fortunately, there’s a coping mechanism that I’ve developed, in which most people share a common interest: music. The art of music is purely fantastic. It allows me to express my unspoken emotions while also immensely relating to the song's message. It’s as if these songs were written for me; lyrics were sensitively chosen to console my hopeless soul.

Thus far, I believe it’s doing its job seamlessly as I am still on my feet. Now, let me navigate you around my uneventful life as a college student during a health crisis – while also dealing with life crises. But before that, I highly recommend that you listen to my playlist.

1. Groundhog Day by Em Biehold

Em Biehold is one of the numerous artists I’ve discovered over the course of the pandemic, and I instantly fell in love with her songs when I first heard her single titled Groundhog Day which essentially talks about a person being lost while people around her have already unfolded their path. Needless to say, I have empathized with her.

This health crisis revealed to me that my plans were brittle. It can hardly resist challenges - I can hardly stand against challenges.

And I said I'd move out last year

So why the hell am I still here?

Since passing the PUPCET, I was expecting to immediately move out of our countryside house. I desperately want to live independently, that’s why I applied for schools outside our province with that single vision in mind.

And there I was, gasping for air; for space denied to me, constantly feigning my feelings — even around the closest people to me.

2. Numb Little Bug by Em Biehold

Do you ever get a little bit tired of life?

Like you're not really happy but you don't wanna die

Like you're hanging by a thread but you gotta survive

'Cause you gotta survive

I was so proud of Em when she released this song because it was easily a hit! That clearly tells how much people understand the feelings of the numb little bug. For nigh two years now, I’ve mastered the art of apathy. I realized that people don’t actually care, well, for as long as it does not directly inflict them.

A little bit tired of tryin' to care when I don't

A little bit tired of quick repairs to cope

A little bit tired of sinkin'

There's water in my boat

I'm barely breathin'

Tryna stay afloat

So I got these quick repairs to cope

Guess I'm just broken and broke

I did try quick repairs to cope for I’ve got no other options. I was tired, and I still am, and I was slowly dying out of suffocation because of suppressed emotion. Finally, the day I both feared and waited for came: I exploded. For the longest year of my life, I felt like a ticking bomb — enveloping deadly chemicals, emotions in my case. I told my family how I was feeling and how detrimental it is.

Who would have thought that the pandemic, and all that came along with it, is extremely draining? It unapologetically consumed all my energy, and I am afraid that that energy was never returned.

While these aforementioned songs basically summarize how my life went during these trying times, they were only a glimpse of the rest of my mundane life, but admittedly, I have collected a great number of songs that accompanied me to where I am right now. Included in my maximum volume list of songs are Lauv’s Modern Loneliness and Sad Forever, Salem Ilese’s Hey Siri, Conan Gray’s Generation Why, SuperM’s Better Days, and JVKE’s anxiety.

With this amazing list of my comfort melodies, I hereby question the dog’s credibility to be a man’s best friend.