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"it's fine to dream" track by track

(listen to the album here)

overture

when I first started putting together the track order for this album, track one was “the same”. it was a decently strong opener but i don’t think it effectively established the emotional rawness that comes later. this song was written specifically to act as an opener, starting at max volume immediately, with “i fucking hate myself” being about as blunt an opening line as i could manage. this song is largely about the feelings of regret and shame that come with grief.

the music box motif first appears here and the melody of "still you haunt me like a daydream" foreshadows industry.

it’s heavily inspired by Heccra. the “love you, bye” voice is my mother.

the same

one of the older tracks on this album, originally in consideration for a scrapped version of glass beach lp3. i dislike how prone i am to misanthropy especially for those who are much like me. empathy can be scary. i like the david foster wallace quote (i know i know) about there being “a lot of narcissism in self hatred”. largely deals with the pathologization of trans identity and trans bodies and the desire to just be understood as you are rather than a problem to solve.

look

daniel johnston was one of my earliest inspirations as a songwriter. he taught me that sincerity will always trump technical skill when it comes to making emotionally resonant music. i saw a video of him playing piano and then having a bit of a breakdown and being unable to continue and couldn’t help but think that a person like him - earnest, weird, often visibly dealing with mental health struggles, and often working in a very childlike style - would not be treated as kindly on the modern internet as he was in the outsider art community he took off in (not that he was even treated that kindly to begin with). the internet has presented a bit of a double edged sword for artists, there is an ease of visibility that can create stable careers, but at the same time when one needs to disappear it can be impossible. it would be a dream to be seen by only the kindest of people.

industry

this started as a “cowboy chords” acoustic song before being turned electronic and then extended into the epic it is now. it’s about the pain of losing a childhood friend, and the broader societal transformations that happen along the way. specifically, the rise of tech in texas, which had been ongoing before i was born but with companies like tesla establishing a heavy presence has become more and more visible, going hand in hand with the global rise of the far right largely astroturfed by these tech billionaires. take that political stuff as background detail rather than the point.

i really did think it was funny when i was a teenager and my friends and i would get called slurs by chuds in pickup trucks. i thought it was funny when i got in a car accident back in 2024 also. it hurts at a delay. you’re not always there when it happens, it’s almost reflexive. usually starts to hurt when someone else earnestly says “that was really fucked up” or something similar, you realize the pain was there in some other part of you you’re scared to talk with. and it’s usually the most hateful bigots who want to touch and grab and hit your body like they own you. two sides of the same coin, really. the dehumanization enables that kind of abuse because it would only be acceptable to treat someone like that if they were less than a person. you learn self respect and it breaks their brains.

sure

a good few of you recognized this one from my website. it was originally made for that purpose hence the lyrics referencing the internet. this version came a little later and was a pretty late addition to the album, as originally industry went straight into why and it just felt kinda relentlessly depressing. the album needed a little moment of levity here. this might be the most open to interpretation song on the album. to me it deals with the layers of abstraction through which we experience reality, especially through the internet, and how odd it can be to try to treat anything we see as solid ground to stand on.

why

not gonna beat around the bush, this song is about the fetishization of death enacted through consensually killing your lover. i might be a bit of a freak for this one. i’ve never really gone wrong from trusting in weird creative impulses i feel a little uncomfortable about though, lol.

lots of this album is pretty evidently about death from a number of angles. this particular song puts some very dissonant perspectives on death into sharp juxtaposition, the desire to die as a form of relief, the libidinal satisfaction of killing, and the tragedy of losing someone you love. it’s meant to be sad and disquieting yet tender, and even oddly triumphant at its peaks. i don’t really tend to write stuff that is sexual and intimate more than in insinuation and metaphor or with a really fucked up messy tone like this. let’s not think too hard about the implications of that. i don’t want to kill anybody even if they asked for it it’s all make believe like a horror movie ok?

i might need to read georges bataille or some shit to be able to better articulate my thoughts on this one. if you’re a philosophy girlie have fun with it and if you’re a psychoanalist stay out of my head please thank you 0:)

headphones

this one is about watching an old friend from a distance, thinking about how you used to be close, though not as your true selves. that even when physically together you could be so out of your body as to have never really known each other in the first place. it’s sort of a mish-mash of my feelings on a couple of former friends, though definitely deals in part with my one friend that many of the songs are about.

“i borrowed every blue note i wrote into a corner” is a reference to a particular thom yorke-esque melodic quirk i overused on plastic death which contributed to the frequent (reasonable!) criticism of that album sounding too much like radiohead. such is life.

“something more like fear when i saw you” is a bit of a repeating lyrical motif through the album and it started here. it can be very scary to meet people you love because through them you’re forced to see yourself and well maybe we’re all a bit scared and ashamed of ourselves aren’t we? it’s a silly silly thing. with feelings like that the only way out is through. to be alone is very unhealthy.

10 rows of teeth

might be the oldest song on this album, dating back to 2019, right after the release of the first glass beach album. the lyrics were changed a good bit, song structure tightened up, but the title and general sort of concept were always there. i think way back then when i abandoned this song i felt it was just a little too obvious of a “trans song”. well, it’s not really JUST that now. i’ll leave it up to you to take the feelings expressed here in whatever way you personally connect with because it is fairly open ended.

idk why i keep referencing plasticine. i think it just sings well and i always have liked stop motion animation so the word was on my mind.

also idk what the title means. definitely to do with the idea of not being human, but past that it was just a fun title.

much like “sure”, this was intended as a relatively light palate cleanser pop song before the intensity of the next three tracks.

kate said

“kate” was a character in the glass beach songs “bedroom community” and “yoshi’s island”. earlier versions (released in the glass beach demos pack) used the name kate though in the final the most obvious reference is the abbreviation “kay” in bedroom community. both of those songs deal with different aspects of trans experience, and this song is no different, though from a, i guess, perspective of someone who has been out for much longer.

the major theme of this song is the in-group/out-group mentality, and the hostility and inhumanity that can come from that, both at a smaller interpersonal scale as well as at a larger scale - at its furthest extreme of power, fascism, though similar dynamics exist in all societies in significantly less harmful (but still harmful) ways. for reasons i probably don’t need to explain i have taken a real interest in trying to understand the ideologies and mechanics of fascism, particularly where this obsession with borders and boundaries and scapegoating and persecution stems from, and how existing tribal mentality becomes a tool for the already powerful to consolidate even more power. yes it’s a lot. tying this to interpersonal dynamics is very intentionally hyperbolic and dramatic and of the capital-R Romanticism i love to deal in. it’s the feeling that everything is the end of the world. neurochemical reactions that feel like an all out global war. but it is more than just a metaphor, to me at least.

the musical allusion to “industry” is to me meant to contrast the innocence of youth with the somewhat matured yet wounded perspective of the rest of this song.

the last “act” of this refers back to lyrics all across the album to tie them together, now fully in kate’s perspective. it’s a sort of toxically codependent relationship that comes from isolation. the trauma of rejection leading to an unhealthy attachment to those who do stick around that can be off-putting enough to continue that cycle of ostracization.

it’s not an autobiographical song exactly though it does pull from my own experience, just, combined with those of many other girls i love and care about deeply, all expressed, as i often like to, through an entirely fictional character, one that i guess is part of a broader j “canon” at this point. i really like this song a lot and could probably write several more paragraphs about it but i’ll keep it brief.

you are an angel

oh boy. this was one of those songs i wrote for myself and can’t help but feel a little embarrassed about actually releasing. the last of those was “abyss angel” from plastic death, or, hell, like half of the “c” album, in some ways. like i’ve said again and again in this writeup, it is very scary to be this raw and earnest but it is always worth it to me for others to be able to relate and get something lovely and beautiful out of it!

i’m going to be honest, when my friend first disappeared, became uncontactable, i didn’t really think much of it. she hadn’t dropped some weird meme in our discord server that morning like i had gotten used to. then local friends couldn’t reach her. then her roommates couldn’t. i took longer than i probably should’ve to shoot her a dm.

but, who among us hasn’t needed to just disappear for a bit? come back hours later shaken, not exactly talkative, but more or less fine. it’s just a bug in your brain sometimes. something that kind of takes over you. there’s a feeling of peace in the focus and clarity that can be honestly relieving. and look, i never really got up on that rooftop with the intent to jump, it was more, like, i wanted to present myself with the option and see how i felt about it. it was the fear of surviving a fall more than anything that stopped me, but i made the right choice in climbing right back down after a half hour or so. i got to see her again one last time right before tour wrapped up and it was very nice as strange and nervewracking as it was to see someone i’d known all my life but hadn’t seen in person in so so long.

growing up we had written plenty of songs together that were just silly fun, not all doom and gloom. but i feel any time we let ourselves be honest, more serious, there was a potent fixation on death. this album references three of those songs by her, most obviously Midnite Diner 3AM by Friendship Bracelets where the title of this record comes from, but also Village Kid (also Friendship Bracelets) and Sputnik Heart (from the band we played in together back in high school). i listened to those three songs as well as anything else by her i could find over and over again while crying my eyes out for those weeks i spent in bed in a pile of plushies in the immediate wake of losing her.

i couldn’t help but hear the sadness in so many of those old songs for exactly what it was and wished endlessly that i could’ve said more. i wished i could’ve pushed harder against her reflexive self-deprecation. i wished i could’ve gotten over the feelings of cringe and just said i love you once or twice. i wished i could’ve brought her along with me somehow when i left Texas and let her play with me in the ONE band i had that actually turned into a career instead of all the ones that almost nobody cared about. at the very least i wished i’d said that even back then those songs meant the world to me and more over that SHE meant the world to me.

i felt like a terrible fucking person for months but after tearing myself down and putting myself back together a million times over i knew that the only way forward was to proceed with love in my heart. that is, to be a kind, empathetic person not just to others but to myself, to let all those around me know how much they mattered, to keep myself healthy and focused to the best of my ability, to center my art around love for those most in need of it. this album was the result of reckoning with all the ways i felt i had gone off track and lost focus on what really matters.

i have to hope that it’s clear that i am happy. those who talk to me regularly seem to get that impression, at least. music for me has always been a bit of an outlet for feelings that are hard to deal with in regular life and i invite others to use my music as catharsis for those feelings. i would never want anyone else to go through the pain i and so many friends went through when we lost her, nor the pain of watching someone they love go through their life visibly unwell and emotionally repressed. you, too, you reading this, please be kind to yourself first and foremost. that love that is within you will spread to others. you don’t have to hurt yourself to make others happy.

fuck this was supposed to be about a song lol

escape your hometown by any means necessary

i really, really, really, really, really like GUNS by Friendship Bracelets. maggie was one of the best songwriters i’ve ever known, and tanner and carter absolutely gave it their all as well. it’s a shame that album never got the appreciation it deserved. it’s a bigger shame to me that the band kind of fell apart and maggie never really continued to finish any music in the years after. this song especially could’ve been so beautiful and perfect. “that place in your head” immediately makes it not just about physically escaping your hometown. it’s about that internal disconnect between your old life and your current one, a feeling that has continually been a source of both inspiration and profound sadness for me.

i can only imagine it meant something a little different to her. after all, her hometown was not my hometown, she moved to my hometown at a relatively young age. there is a lot of the story i don’t know and i don’t wish to get into so publicly. my version of this song is in conversation with whatever the original intent was.

the verses and prechorus are my main contributions here and are written directly to her. it’s funny, “paramilitary police” was a little bit of an exaggeration when i wrote this, feels less so now. art can feel kind of useless against the real power, ie the guys with guns, but it is worthwhile regardless.

“lying face down in a cul-de-sac” is a reference to a picture of her we took for an album cover in our high school garage band. i still think it’s a pretty great image. yeah i reference cul-de-sacs a lot. so much of who i am is a product of spending more than half my life barely leaving american suburbia. sorry, i guess

catch the Sputnik Heart reference it makes me cry

(outro)

an instrumental culmination of many of the musical ideas throughout the album. try to catch them all!

i suppose this is a decent enough place to talk about the return of chiptune on this record. yes, back in the day when i released music as “casio dad” i considered myself a chiptune musician primarily. it was a whole thing. maggie was the one to get me involved in that scene to begin with, introducing me to Crying and another band i won’t name here. when i first started making music inspired by those artists (as well as by Bomb The Music Industry and Jeff Rosenstock’s other projects, who maggie introduced me to), it was the chiptune scene that first took me in and gave me lots of publicity as well as stages to play on for the biggest audiences i’d ever performed for. the chiptune on this album could be seen as both a tribute and elegy to that scene and moment, as well as a reconciliation of the “old me” and the “new me”. i have no shame for my past. i’m happy to be who i am and to have been everybody i was.

thank you so much for reading this and (i’m assuming) listening to the album. it really means a lot to me in a way that is tough to articulate through text. i have big plans for where i go next with you are an angel and other projects as well. happy to have you along with me on this journey. much love ૮ᵔﻌᵔა
-j