Playlist #11: We are like parallel lines

Sometimes memories are all you can hold on to, but even then you remember that everything around you has changed.

I mentioned in last month’s playlist that I have a habit of listening to radio stations broadcasting from the cities I am heading to. It’s a good way to discover music, or at least hear the songs you’ve heard elsewhere in different contexts. As I write this, it’s Hong Kong radio, at least when it isn’t buffering heavily. As you read this, I am either flying to that city or have already landed there.

But this month’s playlist covers my trip to Singapore last month. I mentioned that I was listening to a classic hits station, which meant instead of discovering some new-ish music, I found myself hearing stuff I haven’t heard in a while. I’m sure I mentioned this before, but I grew up listening not to the popular hits of the 90s, but to stuff from the 70s and 80s—the stuff my parents grew up to. I already know a lot of these songs. This hour kicks off with Little River Band’s “Reminiscing”—and it’s a song I’ve always heard on the smooth jazz (more or less) stations that used to broadcast here in Manila.

And then I thought, what if I paired that song with a K-pop track? With GFriend’s “Rough”?

Well, that triggers memories.

GFriend is my second favorite K-pop group (of course, Mamamoo is the first) but I didn’t hear them first. It was the ex who first wrote about them on the old music blog. In my version of the narrative, neither of us warmed to the group immediately, but I’d say I was fascinated with the idea of writing about a group that’s not from a big agency. (Being new to K-pop at the time, I had a lot to learn.)

Their first three singles, collectively known as the School Trilogy, sounded very much alike. You could sing the words to “Glass Bead” on top of the music for “Me Gustas Tu”. We were doing just that as I was driving her to the bus terminal, and it was a pretty fun moment… until a closed van hit our car. Nothing serious—just a fender bender—but we resolved to not sing together while in the car ever again.

Clearly we eventually learned to love the group. My turning point was the group’s third single, “Rough”, released early in 2016. Having experienced (an apparently unusually warm) winter in Seoul just before its release, I kinda had a stronger sense of the mood it was trying to evoke. Also, it just appeals to me: the orchestral arrangement, the vocal harmonies, the way the drama builds—the template GFriend often returned to in their best songs, or at least, what I think are their best songs.

I’ve been going back to them in the last few weeks. “Time For The Moon Night”, “Crossroads”, their first Japanese single “Memoria”—their songs that I like tend to be the melancholic ones, and they tend to be about two people meeting in the wrong time. The first one’s about letting go of someone, but not exactly; the second one’s a bit more hopeful for a reunion; the third one’s about holding on to memories. And then there’s “Rough”, which—setting aside the song’s POV of one who was too young for the other’s affections—is about people who just can’t be together.

좁혀지지 않아 한 끗 차이
We aren’t getting closer, there’s just a small gap
우린 마치 평행선처럼
We are like parallel lines
언젠가는 못다한 말을 전할 거야
Someday I will tell you what I couldn’t say

But I don’t really have to understand the words to like it.

GFriend’s sudden dissolution is why I would never warm to Le Sserafim, even if I like two of its members. I get that my girls aren’t as marketable internationally—never mind the attempts to Hybe-ify their aesthetic in their final releases, nor that their final roll of the dice, “Mago”, has pretty big Spotify stream numbers—but in any case, I felt they deserved a more dignified goodbye than a press release announcing their dissolution in a few days’ time. But anyway, they all have relatively successful careers now. Half of the group is now Viviz—they just released “Maniac”, a song that’s almost reminiscent of WJSN The Black’s underrated “Easy”, earlier this month—and they managed to really mine the GFriend lore in one of their performances for Queendom 2 last year.

And then I lost track of time, because everything else happened. And you know how easy it is to lose enthusiasm for everything, right? (Sorry not sorry, Ive.) But—and regular readers would know this—it’s tiring being about the same thing over and over again. I mean, I can slow down on being angry—I have to slow down on being angry—but I don’t have to forgive. And doing that means looking back, again, at everything that I had to frame in an ultimately negative light just so I could let go, and try to capture what good is left, of what good there was.

I remember attempting to sing “Glass Bead” on top of “Me Gustas Tu” was pretty funny.

The thing is, you do get lonely from out of nowhere, and that derails your efforts a little bit, if only because it lures you into being mad again. Being in Singapore didn’t exactly help. Sure, I was there on a 48-hour business trip and didn’t really leave the vicinity of my hotel for the most part—one exception is me squeezing a lunch break to buy a Billlie album and a Mamamoo lightstick—but the city just felt lonelier than I thought.

Consider that my hotel is along Orchard Road, the city-state’s shopping district. Usually bustling, this time around the malls weren’t as full as before. A lot of the stores were closed. (Thankfully the uncle that sold ice cream sandwiches across Ngee Ann City is still there, although I never got a chance to pass by.) Even Clarke Quay, a tourist trap for those looking for a night out, is quiet and partly boarded-up. Some locals told me it’s the advent of online shopping; others said it’s the high rate of inflation. In any case, It feels different from the last time I visited, seven years ago… although, sure, it was a layover on the way to four days in Kuala Lumpur with the ex.

But maybe the parameters have changed. This was my first international trip since the pandemic struck. The last time I flew out was to Hong Kong in 2018—and even that city seems to have changed drastically thanks to pro-democracy protests and the resulting crackdown. I’ll get back to you on that. Again, I am in Hong Kong as you read this. Another work trip.

That said, I should be grateful I have another opportunity to get out of the country, to bust out of the routine, to do some of the usual things in a different setting. I certainly took advantage of the three-hour flight to listen to some albums I haven’t had the chance to properly listen to… although I only got to half of my six-album list in the end.

I finally got around to listening to Clara Benin’s Befriending My Tears record. A darling of Filipino indie who somehow manages to float beyond the hype, I am thankful to her for kicking off the old music blog’s Five Songs I Can’t Live Without feature—and for replying quickly. Anyway, the new album feels richer than the last full-length record she released, 2014’s Human Eyes, and yet it somehow keeps its intimacy. It’s the sort of thing that hopeful ears believe would make it big, given the right circumstances… although I feel she doesn’t care for fame that much.

Manila’s airport woes mean I had finished the album before my plane could even take off, so I was still on terra firma when the closing track, “Don’t Hurt Yourself Trying To Get It All Back”, came on. I never expected that track to set the stage for all that I’ve written on here. Not that I wanted to get anything back. I mean, what for? But Clara manages to both tell her story and impart her lessons—again, I don’t think that’s what she intended, but she will reassure you in one way or another.

I also managed to listen to new albums from Wheein (which I, half-surprisingly, did not like—as a whole) and CMAT (which, as you’d know, I’ve been raving about the past few months). And then I realized there were Bob’s Burgers episodes on the inflight entertainment system, and watched those instead.

This has been too long, so before the rest of the playlist, a shoutout to

Monia Ali

who recommended Patrick Wolf’s “The City” when I had a call-out for songs that bring them to their happy place. I thought it’d be perfect if it played as I landed in Singapore… but unfortunately, it’s not available on Spotify in the Philippines, so I wasn’t really able to do that. But the feel matters, so on to the playlist it goes.

We’re almost at the end of the year, so I have not one, but two playlists coming up. First, my Heavy Rotation playlist—an hour of my favorite tracks from the past twelve months—will drop on 4 December. Then, my usual monthly playlist drops on 18 December. As always, you can keep in touch through the Once Monthly’s socials—where I will explain some of my other song choices, as always—or email me at nicksyoncemonthly@gmail.com.

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On the playlist

• Little River Band—“Reminiscing”
  Sleeper Catcher (1978)

• GFriend—“시간을 달려서” (Rough)
  Snowflake (2016)

• Arlo Parks—“Just Go”
  Collapsed in Sunbeams (2021)

• Suki Waterhouse and Belle and Sebastian—“Every Day’s A Lesson In Humility”
  To Love (2023)

• Sufjan Stevens—“So You Are Tired”
  Javelin (2023)

• CMAT— “I… Hate Who I Am When I’m Horny”
  Crazymad, For Me (2023)

• Patrick Wolf—“The City”
  Lupercalia (2011)

• The Cranberries—“Dreams”
  Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can’t We? (1993)

• Alex Lahey—“Don’t Be So Hard On Yourself”
  The Best of Luck Club (2019)

• Clara Benin—“Don’t Hurt Yourself Trying To Get It All Back”
  Befriending My Tears (2023)

• The Belle Curves—“Private Oceans”
  single release (2023)

• Jenny Owen Youngs—“It’s Later Than You Think”
  Avalanche (2023)

• Hannah Cameron—“The Wrong Way”
  Holding Pattern (2023)

• Faye Webster—“But Not Kiss”
  single release (2023)

• The Mongols—“Bakit Nga Ba?”
  Buddha’s Pest (2003)

• Vaundy—「トドメの一撃」 (Finishing Strike) (featuring Cory Wong)
  single release (2023)