Tuesday, 24 December, 2024
TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of suicide and self harm
On the 26th of July 2024, the legendary EDM producer, Porter Robinson, released an album called “Smile! :D”. This album contains 10 different songs that bring the same vibes of joy and sadness at the same time. This kind of bittersweet feeling is the reason why I’m in love with this album.
“... Art, or music, or media that packs in the feeling of grief, loss, hope, joy, all of them all together that’s the crux of art for me. That’s what I’m interested in expressing and have been for the longest time…” (Porter Robinson, I don’t remember which livestream it is…)
I can say that, he’s really good at making that kind of music, a song that can combine these conflicting expressions perfectly. Almost all of his tracks fall into this category. Including one of his newest releases that I wanted to talk about today, Russian Roulette. The whole album is amazing of course, but this one is special.
Why is it? The lyrics of course. I know Porter is talking about his music career here, but I feel like, It can be more than that. I mean, it obviously is. So, This is how I interpreted the lyrics, and how it saved me from my old arc nemesis, suicidal thoughts.
It's me, smiling for the team
As I stare directly into the storm, oh
It’s me, smiling for my friends, families and people around me. Even though I know ‘the storm’ will come and destroy everything I have. ‘The storm’ is all of my burdens, all of the problems that never stop haunting me.
Trust me, it's a sure thing
Russian Roulette, you won't get bored
I'll do whatever it takes to feel alive again, even if it will hurt me, physically or mentally.
Then I close my eyes
Gamble with my life
Trying not to smile
Maybe this time I won't be alright
Maybe this time
I’m not sure about this, but I think I’ve been “gambling with my life” lately. Never sure if I’ll be alive tomorrow or not. So I close my eyes. Hoping that everything will end. I’m trying not to smile, cuz I don’t know which one will end first. Is it the problems, or my life? I don’t know. Maybe this time, I won’t be…
Now my hand is drawn
I put the gun against the thing that's stopping me
Just like how Porter meant, the ‘thing’ is referring to myself. “For people who sometimes have suicidal thoughts, it can feel like they’re useless and cannot do anything, thus it is better to end what is making their own life so difficult, themselves.” (Quoted from this Genius Annotation). And that’s exactly how I feel. I always think that nothing could fix me, and nothing could change me. So why bother to stay alive?
A bad guy just died
They're making memes about it
Nothing matters now
A little bit out of topic but I want to mention it. This part just reminds me of the book by Albert Camus, “The Stranger”. In that book, the main character is, can we say, absurd. But nowadays I think everyone is just like that. Mostly on the internet tho. The feeling of ‘nothing matters now’ just screams ‘absurdism’ really loudly.
Go fuck myself? I already did
Not literally, but yeah. I’ve fucked so many things in my life, including myself.
My friend lost his head
And what'd I do about it?
And we could laugh about the thoughts that I've been having
One of my friends has experienced something similar to what I've been going through lately. But unfortunately, he lost ‘the gamble’. I know it's not my fault, but this feeling of guilt comes up every time I think of him. At the time I knew he was depressed, but I didn't know what to do. That's why I felt guilty.
It’s funny that now, I’m also having these stupid thoughts now lmao. He’s probably laughing at me too up there.
Now, we’ve arrived at the turning point. This is where my true feelings are showed up…
I wanna see my mom one more time
I wanna play my songs one more time
I wanna lose my phone one more time
I wanna play in the snow one more time
I wanna kiss my cat one more time
I wanna thank my dad one more time
I wanna marry her one more time
I know that deep inside, I still want to live. There’s a reason why I wanted to end my life. But there’s also many reasons why I wanted to stay alive- or reasons why I MUST stay alive.
I wanna live, I don't wanna die
I wanna try to change one more time
If I get a chance to, I wanna try to change. Today’s version of myself is fucked. And I hated myself because of that. That’s why, this has become another reason to not give up in life. If I die now, everyone will remember me as a shitty version of myself. Of course it’s disappointing. And I don’t want to disappoint anyone, especially my parents.
I wanna live, I don't wanna die
I wanna live, I don't wanna die
I wanna live
Of course I wanna live. This world is beautiful, why would I want to end it so quickly?
Of course I wanna live. There’s so many things I want to do. Like, making this blog!
I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna lose to those problems I had. Sure, I can’t escape from it. But there’s a way to solve it, right? I’m pretty sure it is.
2024 has been a tough year for me. Thankfully, Russian Roulette released when I was struggling with my life. It feels like something is pulling me up when I am drowning.
When I first listened to this song, I initially thought, “oh, this is just another upbeat song” and I intended to add it to my “playlist to do my assignments to”. But by the end of the song, I started shedding my tears. Right when Porter said “I wanna thank my dad one more time”. I started digging into this song. And thought that this was the song I was looking for, that could describe what I've been feeling lately.
Finally, I want to thank Porter Robinson for producing such a beautiful song. From the melody, to the lyrics, to the music video, everything is beautiful. I'm glad to find this music on my YouTube homepage
And I also want to thank you guys for reading this blog. Honestly, at first I was confused about whether to enter this blog into Reality.exe or Melody in Symphony. But since it's a blog, it's okay to have a little spice of personal story hehe.
If you have the same struggle, I hope you can get better soon and find your own reasons to continue living. I'm sure there will be!
Oh and remember,
Don't kill yourself, you idiot
- Dz, listening to this song 3x a day to keep his sanity -