I will survive
“I Will Survive” is a staple on “Currently.” (“Currently” is a playlist I listen to whenever a guy disappoints me, which is at least once a week.) The source of my irritation is not always personal; this past week, it spawned from Episode 22 of Love Island USA. I had already withstood multiple letdowns from the men in the villa, like when Rob jumped ship to Andrea and immediately forgot his “strong” connection with Leah. Still, this episode tipped me over the edge. Four original girls in the villa stood by the firepit after staying loyal to their couples only to watch the men they thought they had relationships with walk through the arches with a new woman on their arm. This was the final nail in the coffin of my stoicism. I tend to get deep into the lore of reality TV, whether it’s fuming over Harry Jowsey blatantly lying about kissing Melinda on Perfect Match or crying in sympathy as another girl gets left at the altar on Love is Blind because the guy faces “commitment issues.” Yes, I know reality TV isn’t really real, but it reminds me of all the ways that real guys can’t be trusted. Not this week, at least. Not currently!
If I played “Currently” on Aux, I probably would get my Bluetooth privileges revoked due to how incoherent the song order is. The playlist goes from Rihanna’s “Needed Me” to “My Mind” by Yebba. When I was ten, listening to “Counting Stars” by One Republic for the first time, I heard the lyric “Sink in the river, the lessons I’ve learned,” and I fully envisioned sinking in a river. Now that I have a more adept knowledge of English and the way metaphors work, I can see that’s not exactly how the lyric was meant to come off, but in another sense that was soooo real of me, because heartache does feel a lot like drowning. I feel like I have spent most of my life listening to songs but not actually hearing them. “Currently” embraces a wide variety of music because the point is to encapsulate how you feel from one moment to the next, and sometimes that’s learning your lesson and letting go and other times that’s literally sinking in a river.
Recently, I attended a voice-intensive course at UCLA where I spent six hours every day learning how to use my voice to the best of my ability. We spent multiple hours per day watching each other stand in the center of the room and receive critiques from the teachers. My friend Sophie went on the first day. Although she has been a performer for most of her life, she walked to the front of the class shaking from nerves (getting judged in front of a group of peers will do that to you). She passed a brand new piece to our pianist, Zach, and stood in front of the piano, one hand on the piano and the other nervously tugging at her t-shirt. Then she began to sing some classical song in a language I didn't know, like German or Danish or French. My eyes switched between watching her shut hers as she reached to hit a higher note and sneaking glances at the teachers’ judgemental faces. I wondered what there could be to judge in the performance, because as I listened it seemed flawless. She hit the top notes without breaking and had a clear tone throughout the song, and I didn’t know what could have been improved. But, when she finished, one of the teachers stood up and asked, “What is this song about?”
Sophie began to mumble a short summary about how the song basically tells the story of a guy realizing he likes a girl and how obsessed he is with her. “I don’t want to hear the word basically,” the teacher said. “Word for word, what does it mean?” Silence. “I don’t expect you to understand Danish; it’s not your fault for not knowing a language you’ve never learned, but you must always know what the song means.” After that, Sophie and our teacher went word for word, translating each sentence of the song, and we realized that, from the beginning, the lyrics described so much more than teenage infatuation. Our instructor emphasized how the first lines painted the image of a man looking at the girl and becoming speechless when she looks back at him. “Now sing the lyrics again with that image in mind,” he directed. Sophie sang the words again, her sound switching from a longing middle-range chest voice to a more timid head voice. Although I didn’t understand the words she was saying, this time I understood what she was feeling.
The camp taught me that a song’s meaning goes beyond your singing technique. “I'm not going to spend cash to watch you just stand there in the middle of the room,” one of our teachers said. Everyone there knew how to sing correctly, understood the voice as an instrument, so our job at that point was to evoke emotion from the audience. Sure, they can enjoy your voice, but they need to understand why you are singing that song and what it really means to you. I wouldn’t understand any of the songs I sang at thirteen in the same way I know them now three years later – which brings us back to Gloria Gaynor.
When we performed “I Will Survive” for a group of middle schoolers at the Marin County Fair, sure, we got claps from the middle schoolers, but it truly struck a chord with our audience at Hopmunk Tavern. The song’s energy touches people… iykyk. There is an ache in the beat of the drums, but also a steady march forward. The percussion pumps the singer up while the horns and strings add a jazzy flourish, a kind of triumph in the admission of having been hurt. Because like Gloria, like all the singers who covered this song after her and all the audiences that dance along to it, we know the freedom to let go is a victory and it means we’ll be okay. “I Will Survive” evokes the exact emotions that inspired me to make “Currently” in the first place — the idea of embracing heartbreak and turning it into something that fuels you. I have learned that the emotion that music communicates when you truly listen and hear what the song is saying has the ability to outweigh any other problems in your life. Basically, “I grew strong / And I learned how to get along.”
