"Thinning" by Snail Mail Might Cure My Senioritis

Warning: angst

And by cure I mean relate to so strongly that when Lindsey Jordan’s guitar screams through my earbuds walking down the hallway I kind of forget that high school is killing me. It helps that Jordan was also 17 when the song was released, although this similarity makes me feel really inadequate as I type on Google Docs while avoiding AP Calculus work. At this point in my existence, just four days into my senior year, I really cannot wait to move out and on with my life. By fifth period everyday I cannot help but feel like the school day is an utter waste of my time and energy, and I’m struggling to come to terms with this fact. How original, to be a teenager that hates high school. It’s a right of passage, I guess.  At least I’m finding solace in the fact that this four verse Snail Mail demo understands me in a way my guidance counselor never will.

The track has no chorus but no one would even notice. The lyrics may be simple and dismal, but ultimately surpass plain melancholy by transcending into humor and reassurance. Perhaps what I feel to be the most personally satisfying verse consists of the four lines “I wanna spend the entire year/ Just face down/ And on my own time/ I wanna waste mine.” For whatever reason I love when successful people write about wasting time because it doesn’t make me feel as guilty for never feeling productive enough. If they can be ok with wasting time, I can too. In the next verse she wishes to spend the rest of that year asking “Is this who you are?” Nothing fits a teenager better than by wearing a personality crisis on their sleeve, the transitional point between child and adult looms over our heads with the constant agitation of wondering what it is we are supposed to be. Between each couple of verses Jordan’s Fender Jaguar wails into a solo of notes bouncing between the 7th and 9th frets, bringing a spurt of energy to the track that highlights the restlessness that exists behind her lyrics. Reassurance of her temperament lives in the bridge, where Jordan almost pleads the line “And I don’t think there’s anything wrong” over and over again. This stylistic choice of repeating small phrases or words at the end of the track, commonly referred to as a Middle 8, has become a characteristic of Jordan’s work, and I cannot get enough of it. They serve as a type of counterargument to the misery or hopefulness that inhabits the verses, representing the truth she is struggling to come to terms with. In this example, Jordan gives herself a reality check. She knows she is in a low point, but it would be ridiculous to think she won’t overcome and that it isn’t completely normal at her age. And in turn, I realize it is completely normal for my age as well.

There may be no better feeling than learning someone feels the same way as you. Whether it’s with a friend over the torture that goes by the name fourth period physics, from the boy you wait around for to catch a glimpse of in the hallway, or simply the lyrics to a song that understands and vocalizes your distress. Lindsey Jordan has given me the gift of coming to peace with myself and this strange phase I’m pushing through. It’s ok to feel unsatisfied in the setting you are stuck in, as long as you put in effort to one day get out of that place. Wish me luck on this senior year...