Playlist #2: The Universe Believes in You!
For when you need some encouraging words!
Dear reader,
I don’t know about you, but I tend to to need a lot of encouragement. I’ve got to try to hype myself up all the time, which is easier said than done. If there are days when that’s harder, maybe this playlist might help a bit!
I’ve included a mix of some theatrical pop, indie rock, pop punk, pop, and punk with some songs I really love. I listen to a lot of these on repeat when I need the lyrics and beat to wash over me.
If you don’t believe in yourself today, this is your sign that the universe does!
“The Universe Believes in You” Playlist
1. Left of Your Joy- The Collection (this is the song that originally inspired this list!)
2. Children of the Stars- The Orion Experience
3. Hibernate with Me- Benjamin Scheuer (if wintry cottagecore was a song, it would be this)
4. Rule #9: Child of the Stars- Fish in a Birdcage
5. Masterpiece- Summer C
6. Loud- The Collection (this song appears to be about love, but I also read it as using your voice and getting loud!)
7. Stand Out Fit In- ONE OK ROCK (it appears to be very hard for me to make a playlist without my current favorite band's songs on it!)
8. Make It Up As You Go- The Plain White T's
9. Life Afraid- Set It Off
10. Why Worry- Set It Off
11. The Middle- Jimmy Eat World
12. Irrational Anthem- The Plain White T's
13. Unwritten- Settle Your Scores (pop-punk cover of the Natasha Bedingfield song)
14. History Maker- Caleb Hyles (cover of Yuri on Ice opening theme)
15. Listen- Fickle Friends
16. I'm So- MIYAVI, NVDES, Seann Bowe
17. Prove- ONE OK ROCK
18. Eye of the Storm- ONE OK ROCK
Wasted Nights- ONE OK ROCK (okay, by this point, I should probably tell you to just go listen to this band if you want rich, anthemic beats with pep-talk, go-get-’em lyrics)
Hercules- Fly Away Hero
Oh the Places You’ll Go- I Fight Dragons
Queen of Kings- Alessandra
Roses/Lotus/Violet/Iris- Hayley Williams
get behind this- flor
Superman- American Authors
learn to love you- mxmtoon
Anything Could Happen (Superorganism Remix)- Dylan Cartlidge, Superorganism
My Name Is… - Once Monsters
Look at the Sky- Porter Robinson
coming of age- mxmtoon
Image: Playlist title showing on Spotify with light pink background and hand drawn black ink artwork of a heart.
I drew the cover art for the playlist as I compiled it!
Quote of the Week:
“Where words fail, music speaks.”
-misquotation from Hans Christian Andersen (H. C. Andersen)
Okay, wow. I went on quite a trip to find the origin of this quote. It’s a bit of doozy.
This quote is attributed to Andersen, but it’s not what he actually seems to have written! I’ve been able to find that the original quote comes from What the Moon Saw and Other Tales from 1840 (with a whole host of English translations published in 1866, 1872, 1914, 1919, and more). The original quote has been paraphrased to the standard “Where words fail, music speaks.” However, the actual quote appears to be “Where words fail, sounds can often speak.”
What the Moon Saw is a collection of 32 nights of what the Moon (personified) sees and tells the protagonist to write down in scenes.
It’s also weird. Like, the I didn’t finish it because it weirded me out too much kind of weird. And for that, I would not recommend this story. (I should share that I am not at all a fan of the writing style, and often portrayal of subject matter, from most “classics” of this time period. If this era’s writing is more your cup of tea or if you like other work from this author, you might be fine with this piece. But be warned that the wording of a lot of it is… concerning.)
But, for the sake of this tangent and of knowledge, the misquote comes from this quote describing the Thirty-First Evening:
“… [T]he Moon become visible. He said, ‘I looked down… upon a prison. A closed carriage stood before it; a prisoner was to be carried away. My rays pierced through the grated window towards the wall; the prisoner was scratching a few lines upon it, as a parting token; but he did not write words, but a melody, the outpouring of his heart… as I glanced through the grated window, my rays glided over the notes, his last farewell engraved on the prison wall—where words fail, sounds can often speak. My rays could only light up isolated notes, so the greater part of what was written there will ever remain dark to me. Was it the death-hymn he wrote there? Were these the glad notes of joy? Did he drive away to meet death, or hasten to the embraces of his beloved? The rays of the Moon do not read all that is written by mortals’” (Andersen n. pg., quoted in American Literature, my emphasis added).
At first, I read this passage as the “where words fail” part being what the prisoner had carved into the wall of what I presume to be his cell, but that reading does not work because the writer specifically states that the man wrote a melody, not words. On subsequent readings, it seems that the Moon (and potentially protagonist and the writer himself) simply want to leave it as a “the world (and the somewhat-all-seeing Moon) will never know.”
Logistically speaking, does this mean the Moon understands music notes? Can the Moon read sheet music? Even if the Moon could have seen the whole song, would it have known if this was more of a funeral dirge instead of a joyful hymn just by seeing the notes? Would the man have had time to carve out full music bars with the what key the song is in and such?
What’s interesting here is that music is implied. However, Andersen does not specifically say that music speaks when words fail.
What I’m most curious about is, in the 183 years between today and when Andersen published the story, who altered the quote, and when was it altered, to make it as memorable and powerful as it is now? That’s a game of telephone I’m not sure I can track, as hard as it was to even track down the attribution of this (incorrect!) quote.
Best wishes and happy reading!
Works Cited (MLA 9th Ed.)
Andersen, Hans Christian. “What the Moon Saw by Hans Christian Andersen.” American Literature.com, American Literature.com, https://americanliterature.com/author/hans-christian-andersen/short-story/what-the-moon-saw. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.
“What the Moon Saw and Other tales.” Goodreads, Goodreads, Inc., https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5941818. Accessed 4 Dec. 2023.