Navigating Heartbreak Series 2/5: Behind the lyrics of "HAPPY4U"

One of the most frequent pieces of advice I’ve gotten throughout this heartbreak of mine is to bury myself in things I’d always wanted to do. To try and think past the hurt and remember what I liked to do before it all happened. Well, at the center of my person is a writer, artist, and musician. I’ve always wanted to write a song, perform it, and do something with it. So when NPR announced their annual Tiny Desk Contest, I knew I wanted to enter it with a guitarist friend of mine. I’d known that he had a chord progression he was fond of, so I wrote some lyrics over the course of a few days, hit him up on a Thursday, we had our first rehearsal on that Saturday, and did our first screen test that night. Fast forward to last night (the following Wednesday), and we put the above video together with the help of a videographer friend. You can see our submission here.

Shit, now that I read that back to myself, we created a whole-ass song in under two weeks. I wonder if that’s par for the course in the music industry? Idk. All I know right now is that art—and writing, in particular—has always brought me catharsis. This song has brought exactly that for me when I needed it most. Anyway, what I wanted to do was explain how I came up with the lyrics for the song—if for nobody else, just so that I can write it down and see it unfold in front of my own eyes. Here goes:

Happy For You
By Interstate Eighty
Lyrics by Alex Basa
Guitar by Chris Clark

Verse
Hi there, stranger! Are you broken just like me?
Have you come into this building seeking heartbreak therapy?
Did the man down in the lobby greet you using your last name?
Did he know which floor you needed and say “Elevator A”?

People only come here when the sadness is too much.
Do you wake into your nightmares? Does your life fucking suck?
I’m sorry if that sounded forward, or if it sounded rude.
I don’t know how to flirt with girls; can I try with you?

Wait! Don’t go. I know that’s why you’re here,
But like the last girl that I loved, you’ll be leaving me in tears.
Now, I’m alone. Just like every other day.
And since the doctor picked you first, I have something to say:

Unsurprisingly, the inspiration for this song actually came from a therapy session I had. In fact, the whole song takes place in the therapists’ waiting room on the 10th floor of 388 Pine Street in San Francisco. Maybe you missed it, but there’s a bit of angst hidden in the lyrics of the song. I remember walking into the building before one of my sessions, and the man behind the counter in the lobby actually recognized me, knew which floor to send me to, and told me the elevator to take. At that point, I knew that meant I had gone through enough therapy sessions that reception was able to pick me out in a crowd. I wouldn’t say I was embarrassed, per se, but it definitely did not make me feel super great. It’s a good thing I was headed into a therapy session…

The literal elevator that inspired that lyric.

Anyway, I was sitting alone in suite 1010 when this girl walked in. She flipped her therapist’s switch—which was right next to the switch I’d flipped when I came in—and sat down in a chair in the opposite corner of the room, as far away from me as the 8’x8’ box would allow. She was actually kinda cute, and my love-starved brain’s first thought was “I wonder if we’d be compatible? I should say hello.” My immediate next thought was “what the fuck is your problem, dude? She’s in a therapist’s office trying to get over something. She does not want to be flirted with right now.”

Eventually, her therapist came to the door to let her into the second area (where all the therapists’ offices are), and I was left sitting in my shame and sorrow. What a fucking dumb, pathetic, jackass thought that was—no matter how brief.

Chorus
I’m happy for you.
So damn happy for you.
Really I’m happy for you.
Sad for me, but happy for you.

Okay, fun fact: the chorus (and title of the song) sort of started out as a snide tweet I made when Justin Bieber announced his engagement to Hailey Baldwin some time ago. I joked that I was eagerly awaiting Selena Gomez’s future hit-song “Happy For You.”

Obviously, that song never came, but I really liked the idea behind a melancholy song that wrestled with the complex emotional state of being happy for someone, but sad for yourself. Little did I know that I’d be using it for myself in a little under a year, lol.

Verse
I open my phone getting sadder as I swipe.
I didn’t pay them so that means this app paid for my life.
They’re cashing in on carnal cravings: a parasitic plot.
Dating apps don’t work because I’m cute, but I’m not hot.

I still feel the ghost of the ring I used to wear:
A poignant, persistent reminder that you aren’t there.
And my entire life is something that I would have shared.
I fucking hate the fact that I will always fucking care.

No. That’s not true. It’s not something that I mean.
Any vitriolic lamentations I say are obscene.
In the future when the pain subsides I hope we reconvene,
And as your friend I hope you know this one important thing:

Chorus
I’m happy for you.
So damn happy for you.
Really, I’m happy for you.
Sad for me, but happy for you.

This verse is inspired by something that I’ve come to rue since having downloaded them at all: dating apps. I originally downloaded them to feel like I had some control over my situation, but they were only fun for all of like, 20 minutes. The ensuing days (and weeks) of using them just began to gross me out more and more as one point became all the more salient to me: I’m a kid in a candy store with the wrong kind of currency.

Even the most optimized dating apps cater to a single, primal human desire, and that’s finding an attractive mate. Nobody really gives a fuck how much you like dogs, how funny you think The Office is, or how sarcasm is “like, totally your second language.” If you’re not a 9/10 in the face+body department, you might as well be swiping right and left on paint swatches at your local hardware store. Me? Conservatively, I’m probably like a 7/10 on looks alone. Hence the lyric: “dating apps don’t work because I’m cute, but I’m not hot.”

Have you ever heard the phrase “if you’re not paying for it, then you’re the product”? A really good, sickening example is how nightclubs will charge guys a cover fee, but let girls in for free. Dating apps are a lot like that. My female friend told me about how she was getting certain “complimentary” perks from the “premium versions” of certain apps—”trial periods” of the full service the apps provided. That shit never happened for me, lol. And even if you exclude that bias, when you realize that these apps are making money by means of a superficial swiping gallery, it’s just a little bit depressing. I realized that every time I sized up a potential mate, I would read her short bio (if she had one), and I would compare that brief snippet of information to the 9 year long relationship that I’d just been forced to exit. Naturally, there can be absolutely no comparison, and every “candidate” just made me realize more and more that none of them were the person I really wanted.

Which brings me to the second stanza in the second verse—and perhaps the one that hurts me most day to day: “I still feel the ghost of the ring I used to wear: a poignant persistent reminder that you aren’t there.”

I’ve worn a “promise” ring on my left hand for the last nine years. Ask anyone who frequently makes use of a cell phone, or watch, or any sort of everyday-carry object how they feel when that object isn’t on their person. They’ll tell you that they feel “naked” without it. When you don’t feel that object, there’s a slight moment of panic as your body instinctively searches for its familiarity. Multiple times a day, I find myself feeling like something is missing from my left ring finger—because something is. And every time I do that unconscious freakout, there’s no sense of relief that follows it. All that follows is the reminder that she’s gone.

It’s frustrating beyond measure when your own body betrays you like that. I want to cut off my finger to teach it a lesson for constantly telling me what I don’t want to hear. Sometimes that frustration ratchets up to anger and resent that extends in all directions, including at the woman I love so dearly. Fortunately, I’m pretty good at reeling back those visceral emotions when they flare up. I’ve tried to approach this whole experience with love and understanding, because I do care about her and want her to be happy. I’ve supported her through undergrad, grad school, and everything few and far between. I want to support her, now. But it hurts. There’s no way I can just jump into caring about her solely platonically right now. Maybe in time. But it’s the time that kills me.

Verse
It’s not me, the one you love, and that I must accept.
But darling, over you, I’ve wept.
The songs that I love paint a portrait of what we were
And I can’t listen to them without crying, that’s for sure.

Maybe this is fine. Maybe it’s what we needed.
But I regret the day you left and that I had conceded.
There’s not a thing that I won’t do for you and that you know.
I guess that means right now, I’ve gotta let you go.

So I’ll be fine in time, don’t mind the way I write these rhymes.
Out of this hole you’ve dug for me I’m certain I will climb.
I even might forgive the piece of shit that did me wrong,
But for now, trust the words of this melancholy song:

Chorus
I’m happy for you.
So damn happy for you.
Really, I’m happy for you.
Sad for me, but happy for you.

Solo section

I feel like this section needs the least amount of context to understand well. She loves someone else. I think the angriest line in the entire song is in this verse, though: “I even might forgive the piece of shit that did me wrong.”

So, I like to refer to my performance as “the character,” here. Because I’m not as resentful as I’m portraying in the song. Yes, that was definitely a thought that I had. The person I got left for 100% flirted with, courted, and eventually crossed a bunch of physical boundaries with my then-girlfriend, knowing that she was in a committed relationship. And you can argue that it takes two to tango, but the actual situation is a bit more complicated than that. What I’m trying to get at here is that…

I don’t know. Fuck it. Maybe I am that angry. I’m allowed to be angry. But I’ve never acted on that anger in an unhealthy way. I’ve never been prohibitive or nasty towards the two of them. Maybe the nastiest thing I’ve done is write that line into the song. But you know what, I don’t owe either of them any more courtesy than I’ve already given them. I’m reclaiming my life and sanity in the only way I know how: by making art.

Wow, okay, that was a bit of a tangential rant…. Anyway, the last thing that I wanted to talk about is how we chose to end the song. Chris and I went back and forth between abruptly ending it in the middle of the chord progression (symbolizing the jarring and abrupt way my relationship ended, from my perspective), ending it on the last chord in a nice, open resolve (symbolizing the end of this chapter in my life), and ending it on the fade out—which is what we went with. We chose this way because we felt that it represented the most optimistic truth of this entire sad song: just like the chords of the song, life goes on, and so will I.

Anyway, thanks for listening. A few people have reached out and told me a bunch of really nice things about the song—the most touching for me is that people have said they were able to relate to the lyrics. They say misery needs company, and if we were able to give someone the chance to commiserate with us, then we accomplished our goal of making some great art.

In short, if the song made you feel good, then I’m happy 4 u <3

Continue to Navigating Heartbreak Series 3/5 »

Oh, we called ourselves “Interstate Eighty” because both of us live along that interstate. That’s pretty much it.

Paramore has stayed weirdly relatable while growing up

I remember the moment that I realized I was a big Paramore fan. Don’t get me confused when I say that—I want to emphasize the word realize, there. Looking at their full discography and reconciling the dates with what I can remember about myself at the time, I’m pretty sure I onboarded as a fan around 2007-2008 (during the Riot! era), when I was either an 8th grader or a freshman in high school. I just didn’t know how big a fan I truly was until I was in my early college career (around 2011 or so). I was organizing some playlists I’d intended on putting on my new phone, and I’d noticed that I had all three of their albums that they had out at the time. Not only did I have all three of their albums, but I realized I knew the words to pretty much all of their songs.

For 2011-Alex, that was actually pretty abnormal. I didn’t really believe myself to have a “favorite” band, and the only two full-albums I’d ever bought with my own money (which was basically allowance money, but I’ve digressed) up to that point were Sara Bareilles’s Little Voice and Eminem’s Curtain Call (Yes, I realize those are two very different genres of music). Most of the music in my collection was comprised of singles from artists I’d liked here and there, or maybe a few songs from a few albums… But I didn’t know I’d owned three consecutive albums from any band or artist. Sure, my parents probably bought them at the request of either my brother or myself, but it didn’t change the fact that I knew all of their songs. Like I said, as a non-committal to any artist or band (before my introduction to Taylor Swift), that was a pretty big deal to me.

Recently, it got me thinking about my relationship with Paramore, and how—out of every band or artist out there—I’ve always related to their music, no matter how old I was. That also struck me as strange, because—like most people—I went through phases of liking music/musicians. I had an Avenged Sevenfold phase. I had a Disturbed phase. I had an Eminem phase. I had a Frank Sinatra phase. I even had a weird showtunes phase. And while I still listen to all those things intermittently today, none of them has endured as constantly or in as high volume as Paramore has for me. I’ve literally never been disinterested in picking up the “next” Paramore album, whereas I don’t think I’ve even downloaded an Eminem song since Stan.

Hell, I guess you could call me a Paramore stan.

And I think the reason why my interest in Paramore has endured so vehemently over the years is because their music grew up with me, too. A lot of those other artists and genres stay pretty static, in my opinion. There isn’t much change to their music, album to album. But I’ve noticed that Paramore’s lyrics have had a subtle emotional evolution, much like we do as we grow up. So, in this blog post, I wanted to reverse-engineer my fascination with Paramore, and how I related to their music as I grew from a superficial angsty teenager, to a self-actualizing adult with a more complicated fear of the world. That being said, let’s start with where I remember being introduced to Paramore—with Riot!

I’m in the business of misery, let’s take it from the top

So, I guess during the Riot! era, Paramore was seated firmly in the Emo genre. Makes sense when you consider songs like Misery Business, That’s What You Get, and We Are Broken. These are all songs that 14/15 year old Alex resonated with hard. I was just finding out what dating (and getting broken up with) was like, and teenage hormones meant that the thing at the front of my mind was navigating a romantic relationship. Not only that, but being miserable and edgy was so in. Naturally, it felt like Paramore understood that when “nobody else did.”

And it's obvious that you're dying, dying
Just living proof that the camera's lying
And oh, oh open wide
'Cause this is your night, so smile
'Cause you'll go out in style
You'll go out in style

—Fences, from Riot!

Well now I'm told that this is life / And pain is just a simple compromise / So we can get what we want out of it

By 2009, Brand New Eyes had come out, and I was full-swing cringey teenager. I was also the gross PDA-ing type of teenager with my first serious then-girlfriend, with whom I would get into shouting matches on campus daily. So songs like The Only Exception, All I Wanted, and Brick By Boring Brick were staples of my personality by this time. I couldn’t be bothered to be told anything by any figure of authority because I was just too damn good for all that shit, man. And I definitely thought I knew everything important there was to know about life—and life was so hard (good god, can I PLEASE take those years of my life back…).

And the worst part is
Before it gets any better
We're headed for a cliff
And in the free fall I will realize
I'm better off when I hit the bottom

—Turn It Off, from Brand New Eyes

And after all this time I’m still into you

Oh man, 2013… By this time, my teenage angst had evolved into emergent-adult angst. With Paramore, the band’s self-titled album, things were not only beginning to change for me, but for the band, as well. In the four years since Brand New Eyes, Zach and Josh Farro had left the band. In my own life, my three best friends had recently just moved to study at UCLA, Cal Berkeley, and Cal Poly, and my latest then-girlfriend had moved off to study at UC Davis—I was insanely happy and proud of them, yet I was also incredibly sad and lonely. I was still stuck in my little hometown attending community college, feeling like I was stuck in a rut of self-disappointment and self-loathing. I was definitely feeling an indescribable mix of emotions.

Unless you were Paramore.

Don't go crying to your mama
'Cause you're on your own, in the real world
Don't go crying to your mama
'Cause you're on your own, in the real world

—Ain’t It Fun, from Paramore

—Side note, while this album contains two of my favorite songs in Paramore’s discography (Ain’t It Fun and Still Into You), it’s actually my least favorite album of them all. Isn’t that an interesting metaphor for my life at the time?

(Hard times) gonna make you wonder why you even try / (Hard times) gonna take you down and laugh when you cry / (These lives) and I still don't know how I even survive / (Hard times) / (Hard times) / And I gotta get to rock bottom

…Which bring us to the current era, as of this writing: After Laughter. Jeez, what can I say about After Laughter? By 2017, I’d graduated from college and was just getting my first taste of the real world. Honestly, I’m still there, now. But I seriously can not sing enough praise about After Laughter. You can tell that the emotions the band are trying to articulate are much more nuanced and undefinable than they’ve ever been. It’s an apt metaphor for being in your mid-20s, because you haven’t quite figured everything out, but you’re also definitely not a naive kid anymore. Songs like the sonically-upbeat Hard Times are sobered up quickly when you listen to the somber lyrics. Forgiveness is about wanting to forgive someone for hurting you but knowing you don’t have the strength in you to do it. Told You So is about eating humble pie when you realize how wrong you were about something. The entire album is layered in denial and self-destructiveness, but in a way that feels cognizant of itself, as opposed to self-bemoaning in the way a bratty teenager would be.

After Laughter is peppered liberally with dancey-vibey tracks that take a second or third read to really see underneath. It’s sort of like being aware of your own melancholy while knowing that it bums people out, so you try to put on a smile so as not to bug people with your sadness. You want to Fake Happy for everyone else’s sake, and perhaps also as a bit of performance art because you know you’re supposed to be happy—just like everyone else is, right? I’m 26, currently, as of this writing, and I can say without a doubt that I’m going through the weirdest set of emotions I’ve ever had the displeasure to confront in my life. I know that I’ve just recently exited life’s “tutorial” stage. I know that I’ve barely lived a quarter of my life expectancy. I know that this is still a relatively easy section of what my life will be. But knowing all of those things doesn’t stop me from feeling sad, or heartbroken, or hopeless, or incompetent. And yet, I feel compelled to fake being happy because I think it’s what I “should be.” I try to be appreciative of everything that’s going well in my life, but the insecurities just scream louder than I can quiet them.

And I think Paramore gets that.

Reality will break your heart
Survival will not be the hardest part
It's keeping all your hopes alive
All the rest of you has died
So let it break your heart

Hold onto hope if you got it
Don't let it go for nobody
Hold onto hope if you got it
Don't let it go for nobody
And they say that dreaming is free
But I wouldn't care what it cost me

—26, from After Laughter

Conclusion:
It’s been an interesting decade-and-some-change being a fan of Paramore. While most artists I’ve listened to over the span of the same time have seldom strayed far from the beaten path, it feels like Paramore has had an uncanny ability to gracefully wander to and fro, exploring different musical stylings while still speaking true to the relatable experience of being miserable—but also growing up to realize that there’s complexity to that misery. It’s not just vitriol and “you don’t understand me, mom!!”

I think being aware of sadness and allowing yourself to be with it for a time is really the only way of getting past it. Denying yourself a moment to grieve over whatever you need to grieve over is a fast track to becoming angry and resentful over things that are out of your control, and that can lead to hopelessness or worse. I’ve experienced a unique catharsis listening to Paramore at different stages of my life, and I think it’s because Paramore has an intimate understanding of what it’s like to be sad at different stages of growing up.

Maybe the most poignant example of this is a tweet Haley Williams sent on July 20th of 2017—a date which likely haunts fans of Linkin Park.

Why I think "All Too Well" resonates with Swifties

I walked through the door with you, the air was cold,
But something 'bout it felt like home somehow and I
Left my scarf there at your sister's house,
And you still got it in your drawer even now.

It’s been years since Taylor Swift penned All Too Well into the minds and hearts of Swifties everywhere, yet two eras later (at the time of this writing), it’s still the song that gets her fans sobbing uncontrollably while shouting the lyrics at the tops of their lungs. Being in a sea of ugly criers as Taylor deftly navigates the entire dynamic spectrum of vocal prowess—from what feels like an intimate whisper, to a rueful exclamation—is perhaps one of the more awe-striking things I’ve ever experienced at a concert, vicariously or otherwise. It’s always fascinated me as to why and how All Too Well became the singer-songwriter’s unofficial fandom anthem, but I think hidden in the answer to the song’s success lies the greater allegory of why Taylor Swift, herself, has endured as such a treasure to her fandom—snake emojis be damned.

Oh, your sweet disposition and my wide-eyed gaze.
We're singing in the car, getting lost upstate.
The Autumn leaves falling down like pieces into place,
And I can picture it after all these days.

When you look at the lyrics of All Too Well, one thing is obvious: this is a very specific vignette about Taylor’s life. There’s no pretention, here. Taylor is putting her own agony on display—something over which I imagine most record labels would find apprehension. “It’s not relatable! How will fans sing along to something so specifically not about them?” Yet to this day, All Too Well is one of the most participated-in songs at her concerts. It’s not a single. It’s not even an up-beat song. So what’s the deal? Why is it the loudest song at every show if it’s so “unrelatable”? I think it’s because it’s not trying to be.

And I know it's long gone,
And that magic's not here no more,
And I might be okay,
But I'm not fine at all.

'Cause there we are again on that little town street.
You almost ran the red 'cause you were looking over me.
Wind in my hair, I was there, I remember it all too well.

No matter what you think about Taylor Swift, she is adept at making her fan base feel like they’re more than just her fans—she makes them feel like they’re her friends. And if you think about your friends, I absolutely guarantee that you’ve been there to commiserate with them about a traumatic event in their lives. Taylor even said in an NPR interview that “people have essentially gotten to read [her] diary for the last 10 years. [She] still [writes] personal songs, and sometimes people like to put a very irritating, negative, spin on that—as if [she’s] oversharing; as if it's too much information—when this has been the way [she’s] lived [her] life and run [her] career the entire time. So [she does] think it's really important that [she continues] to give people an insight into what [her] life is actually like, even though it comes at a higher cost now.” And that’s what friends do—they share their lives with you. All Too Well is a snapshot of Taylor’s life. As her “friends,” we sympathize with her, and we want her to feel loved and validated, so we do that in the only way we really know how: we sing along. Loudly.

Photo album on the counter, your cheeks were turning red.
You used to be a little kid with glasses in a twin-size bed
And your mother's telling stories about you on a tee ball team
You tell me 'bout your past, thinking your future was me.

And I know it's long gone
And there was nothing else I could do
And I forget about you long enough
To forget why I needed to

That being said, I believe that All Too Well (and, frankly, Taylor’s entire catalog) is far more relatable than people give it credit. Think about a really good movie you saw recently. Now, think about the plot of that movie and ask yourself, “is this relatable to me?” Chances are that maybe you relate to the protagonist of a story, but I bet you don’t relate to the specific story—very few of us are billionaire superheroes, but we wrestle with complex ethics and morals daily, so Batman and Iron Man feel relatable to us. Taylor Swift has done to her music what filmmakers have been doing to their movies throughout all of time: craft a sympathetic protagonist.

Is Taylor Swift a perfect paragon of relatability and innocence? No, probably not. But what interesting character (or human being, for that matter) is? Batman is mired in the complexities of living a dual life; Iron Man is often the victim of his own hubris (ahem snake emoji ahem). Music that is perfectly agnostic and interchangeable between the artist performing it and the listeners consuming it is fine and dandy. But the satisfaction behind that can be superficial and ephemeral. We crave elaborate narratives because the drama is intriguing, and that intrigue has longevity.

'Cause there we are again in the middle of the night.
We dance around the kitchen in the refrigerator light
Down the stairs, I was there, I remember it all too well, yeah.

Maybe we got lost in translation, maybe I asked for too much,
And maybe this thing was a masterpiece 'til you tore it all up.
Running scared, I was there, I remember it all too well.

Okay, so we understand that from a relatability standpoint, Taylor’s music is relatable in an evolved way past being cut-and-paste stories into which we can substitute ourselves. But what about musically? Sonically, Taylor Swift’s music falls squarely in the category of four-chord pop. On the surface, All Too Well is about as simple as it gets. For the musically inclined, it doesn’t stray from the I–V–vi–IV progression once. But there’s something else incredibly interesting about it that satiates the hunger for variety, and that’s its lyrics.

Hey, you call me up again just to break me like a promise.
So casually cruel in the name of being honest.
I'm a crumpled up piece of paper lying here
'Cause I remember it all, all, all too well.

If you listen to the song, you’ll notice that it’s missing something fairly integral to most pop music on the airwaves today, and that’s a chorus. As Bo Burnham eloquently put it, “America says we love a chorus / But don't get complicated and bore us / Though meaning might be missin' / We need to know the words after just one listen / So repeat stuff.”

All Too Well’s only repeated lyric is “I remember it all too well,” which is preceded by what could be interpreted as a chorus, but lyrically and melodically, each of those sections is distinct from another—so it’s not a chorus. All Too Well is five minutes and twenty-eight seconds of pure storytelling—no filler, and we. are. FED!

Time won't fly, it's like I'm paralyzed by it
I'd like to be my old self again, but I'm still trying to find it
After plaid shirt days and nights when you made me your own
Now you mail back my things and I walk home alone

But you keep my old scarf from that very first week
'Cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me
You can't get rid of it, 'cause you remember it all too well, yeah

'Cause there we are again, when I loved you so
Back before you lost the one real thing you've ever known
It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well

Wind in my hair, you were there, you remember it all
Down the stairs, you were there, you remember it all
It was rare, I was there, I remember it all too well.

Conclusion:
Taylor Swift’s All Too Well is pop music’s shining beacon of what a melancholy ballad should aspire to be. It follows the sonic conventions of successful pop music while providing the narrative satisfaction of great cinema and evoking a multi-dimensional sense of social connection (to Taylor and other Swifties). Whether or not you like Taylor Swift’s music, it is undeniable that she is a master of her craft, and that as long as she keeps writing songs that are authentic to her experience, her fans will unwaveringly stand right beside her.

And I think she knows that all, all, all too well.