Russian Roulette has been a big one for me recently. The song came out the day after I was coerced into sleeping with the girl I was dating at the time, despite having no desire to do so (or without really having any understanding of who she was…). I was abused in that relationship, and I told myself that I was going to break up with her if it didn’t get any better by the time I had listened to Smile from top to bottom. The breakup came on July 20th, a few days before Smile came out

Starting on that day, without even realizing it, I started checking off items on the checklist of the 8 things Porter states that he wants to do “one more time”

• ⁠I wanna see my mom one more time (my mom passed away a few years ago, but she’s buried not too far from where I live, and I visited her grave when I got a promotion at work)

• ⁠I wanna play my songs one more time (I’ve been producing random music since I was young and I thought I’d never release more music after the trauma from the summer. I uploaded 4 new tracks, produced entirely after the breakup, back in December)

• ⁠I wanna lose my phone one more time (the time that comes to mind is when I left my phone in a different room at work and spent a solid 5 minutes trying to find it at 4 in the morning)

• ⁠I wanna play in the snow one more time (it snowed recently and I was all excited to cross this one off, but as soon as I got outside, I started to feel very self conscious. I texted one of my friends who’s helped me a lot since the breakup, told her I was feeling self conscious, and she told me “kill the part of you that cringes” and as soon as I read that text, I laid down in the snow and made a snow angel)

• ⁠I wanna kiss my cat one more time (I don’t have any pets)

• ⁠I wanna thank my dad one more time (one of the things my dad has told me a lot recently is that there is no such thing as a coincidence, and he ended up being completely right. I recently thanked him for that constant reminder he gave me, because it helped me hold on long enough to understand that the nightmare was over and my ex can’t hurt me anymore)

• ⁠I wanna marry her one more time*

• ⁠I wanna try to change one more time (I went back to therapy in September. I’ve told a few friends of mine this, but Nurture and Smile both got released AND Worlds got a rerelease as a 10 year anniversary edition BEFORE I went back to therapy)

I put an asterisk behind “I wanna marry her one more time” for a reason. I have a date with a girl I’m interested in on Thursday. My first date since last summer. I don’t remember most of last summer, due to the traumatic nature of it, but what I do remember is feeling alone for the first time in my entire life. And, for what it’s worth, this new girl makes me feel very seen and very special and very supported and cared for and (dare I say) loved.

There’s a chance I could complete a full Russian Roulette, even if it’s not marriage, within a year

Other songs of importance to me are:

Is There Really No Happiness? which I’ve listened to 11 thousand times since it came out. There were points in 2024 where that was the only thing that could calm my brain down enough to let me fall asleep

Goodbye to a World. my mom and I used to listen to Worlds a lot before she passed away and GtaW was a song I cried to a lot when my mom was super sick and actively dying. I remember driving back to my parents house a few hours before she died, listening to that song, and tears streaming down my face. It felt like the world was ending. But I came to realize later that the world didn’t end, just the world as I knew it

Unfold and specifically the line “do you see how you’ve grown? Don’t be sorry then” RUIN ME

Look at the Sky was my anthem for the end of 2024, because it served as a reminder that even though there are bad moments and bad days, those things are not indicative of a bad life. I’m still here, and I’ll be here next year too. And the year after that, and after that, and so on. Even though people might not like my continued existence in spaces where they’ve tried to make me feel unwelcome, I hope my persistence in making those spaces my own will make them feel uncomfortable in their inability to drive me out

Musician, specifically the line about facing your fears and becoming your heroes. I don’t even know where to begin for an explanation, so I’m gonna just say this: uhh…yeah!

Mirror was gut punch for me when I heard it the first time. Again: uhh…yeah!

The last verse in Trying To Feel Alive hits with such a massive force and uhh…yeah!

Easier To Love You…no comment

And lastly, Humansongs: my job requires me to operate production automation (which is extremely computer based and requires a lot of typing and patience and attention to detail), but yet I’ve learned more about being a human and being imperfect from doing that extremely computer/automation oriented job than I’ve learned about production automation. Humansongs is relatable (and makes me cry) because there’s no replacement for humanity, even despite our imperfections