Summer has officially come to an end, and now we’re starting to throw on our corduroys and oversized sweaters with tea or coffee in our tumblers. While you either walk to the bus stop or get a ride to school, these are some songs that can get you into that Sweater Weather feeling.
The Coward Forgets His Nightmare by Chanel Beads is a very fresh, unique-sounding song; the genre is Alt Shoegaze pop. It came out on the first of October this year, and Chanel Beads is quickly rising to be a prominent figure in the Alternative Shoe-Gaze scene. The song goes over the feeling of wanting to just hide away instead of confronting the trauma that haunts deep inside their being. Throughout the song, we begin to reach this hope that Chanel can reach the acceptance of the grief of this trauma–he learns it was all just for show.
I Still Do by The Cranberries is next up, and this is a classic yearning alternative rock song from the ’90s. This is personally my favorite Cranberries song and has been for a couple of years now, from when my cousin first showed me it on Thanksgiving in 2022. This song’s story is a yearning to end an endless cycle of wanting to be with that person who you just can’t be with. You forever love them, but just know that being with them is hurting you more and more. You thought it would be easy to end it, but it becomes more difficult mentally to finally cross that person out of your life.
Old Recliners by RoleModel is another song that feels like a crispy breeze, a crunchy leaves type of day. This is an Alternative pop song that feeds off the nostalgia of past relationships, where now you have too much free time to yourself. RoleModel uses imagery of old recliners in the yard where you just sit and let time pass by. I’d like for you to read this bridge in the song as it’s one of my favorite bridges in a song: “You get by nine-to-five in the city, Making rent with no money to spare, Do you think ’bout the nights sharing Whitney?, With the end of July in the air, now you cry all night ’til the morning, in the arms of someone you settled for, couldn’t let it go if I forced it, What do I do, oh, what do I do?”. This bridge is purely personal to Rolemodel, and it shows that even in that solitude where you try to accept being single and happy, you can still be angry and upset with the other person for the simple fact that that person is no longer the person you had believed them to be.
The final song I’m sharing is Affection by Between Friends. This is a Synth indie pop song that goes over a friendship where you both treat each other like a Romantic relationship, but in the end, you know it won’t be them, and you both don’t want to further it to that level. They’ll continue to look for the affection in the wrong places, but at the same time, they keep that friendship close as a backup plan for if they continue to “look for affection in all the wrong places, And we’ll keep falling on each other to fill the empty spaces.” which is the chorus of the song which give both a friendship but romantic innuendo to what they are.
So, whether you’re savoring the crisp air or just trying to stay awake through your 8 a.m. class, let these tracks wrap around you like your favorite sweater that maybe got gifted to you by a heather to make you feel better during these cold, emotional next harsh weathered months.
