https://genius.com/Daycare-new-year's-eve-lyrics

I thought it would be appropriate for this week’s blog post to run a Genius Lyrics on a song I wrote as part of a collaborative band called Daycare. ‘New Year's Eve’ was a demo we released, recorded on NYE, and written just a couple days prior. You can find it on Spotify if you'd like to listen before you read on.

TW: self-harm

Chorus:

New Year, left it all behind,

Ruby streams, click my feet; I’ll be just fine,

“Ruby streams” is an obvious reference to Dorothy’s ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz. Replacing slippers with streams alludes to bleeding and self-harm, juxtaposing the juvenile connotation of a colourful journey with the bleak reality of human emotion. The speaker then extends the symbolism to the slipper’s required incantation of clicking one's feet in order to express their desire to return to home comforts in a time of distress. On the other side of the clause is the contrasting phrase “I’ll be just fine”, which is both a commonly transparent response to being asked how you are and a reference to an unreleased Daycare song entitled 'Feel Just Fine', where the speaker “said I’m fine, but I think I lied”, while dealing with the existing affection following the end of a relationship. By embodying this empty sentiment, the listener, rather than being placed at odds with the speaker in an exposed dialogue, is brought in by emotive and visceral expression.

Complete me, that was just a pipe dream,

Although “Complete me” is a tribute to the second song Daycare released, “Always Complete Me”, and nods to the foolish nature of past romances, it contributes to the speaker’s desperate sense of self. The “always” has not only been stripped away, but it no longer fits in the speaker’s rhythm. What is left is an echo of an imperative, followed by the acceptance of the unattainable “pipe dream”.

Back to a girl with a guitar and a livestream,

When I first started writing music, I was also learning guitar, and I would practise while streaming it online to a small audience. It was the simplest form of musical expression, and I felt that it relayed to the sentiment of the speaker wanting to contain their expression of identity while still outwardly performing it.

What’s my resolution? 

A question often asked as the year draws to a close is what your resolution will be. What will we hold ourselves to now that the year is new? What do we want to change for ourselves, about ourselves, and how will we make sure that it will last? Holding yourself accountable to a resolution has many similarities with the way one might respond after the end of a relationship. When you first meet someone, you are projecting a part of yourself that you see as valuable and desirable, while hiding that which you consider ugly. As relationships develop, you bring your guard down and hope this person accepts you with your flaws (and most of the time those flaws are far less significant through the lens of others). After a relationship ends, the old connection you had with your own flaws can resurface, as you begin to navigate who you are as an individual without the reassurance of another. Which of these lurking insecurities will you choose to subdue, and which will you fight to the bitter end in order to rectify? Therefore, when the speaker asks “What’s my resolution?”, they are truly seeking a deeper resolve of self-identity, and a solution to the paradox of feeling like they have to move forward in parallel to mourning the year they've lost.

Verse 1:

I’m sorry that I’m late,

The result of straggling back in reflection is the banal and generic response to absence seen in the line above. The intended tone was somewhat comedic, as the premise of being late to the new year is in itself impossible. Like all amateur writers, I pluck comets from the sky to paint their shapes on paper (steal from lived experience), and this particular asteroid struck earth on the prior year's NYE, when a friend of mine declared that he was late because he had to finish his film. I found the concept of having to finish a film before the year ended amusing, yet it also resonated with some truths regarding the sense of urgency that the end of the year brings. You might question if you've achieved all that you aimed to, or if you're the person that last year’s you wanted to be? Will you find closure and completion in the beginning of the next if you don't finish what you've begun in the prior?

I had to tie up a lot of my mistakes,

Don’t know how much I can take,

2023, won’t you give me a break?

Chorus

Verse 2:

It’s the genre of the end,

With Christmas over, the next significant celebratory signpost is the end of the year. It often resonates a similar quality to the dystopian genre, like the whole world’s coming to a close, never to begin again. Everybody becomes energised and excited, despite no real difference between 11:59 on December 31st and 12:01 on January 1st (other than a pinch and a punch). Nevertheless, we embellish the idea of the new in hopes that it will materialise or manifest progress, which corresponds with the speaker’s desire to leave it all behind and be just fine.

Reset, refresh, replenish and I’m beginning to mend,

The words “Reset, refresh, replenish” repeat the rolling consonance of an “r”-sound to construct the speaker’s projecting affirmation. One of my undergrad dissertations, entitled ‘A Rhetorical Analysis of How Modes of Engagement Influence Psychological Change in Contemporary Self-help Literature for Adults and Children’, approached the effect of audience age on types of rhetoric used in self-help books. While children’s self-help focused on defining and building understanding, adult texts additionally consisted of the deconstruction and rebuilding of prior knowledge and unhelpful mindsets. Therefore, utilising words with an “re” prefix, “Reset, refresh, replenish” foregrounds the speaker’s understanding that moving forwards requires some form of processing the past, whether it is through healthy digestion or pushing it down and praying. The new year is a symbol which allows all of us to placebo new beginnings, yet the line “I’m beginning to mend” is willfully overturned by the chorus coming back around, reverting to ruby streams for a sense of belonging.

Got some messages to send,

See you in the next one, you can hear me now, and then you’ll know,

Chorus (alternate):

New Year, left it all behind,

Ruby streams, click my feet; I’ll be just fine,

Complete me, that was just a pipe dream,

Wrote you a song cause I really thought you liked me,

This is one of the only lines delivered to an unknown “you”, and although it may nod to the many muses of Daycare’s music (or more specifically the muse of the previous line’s “Always Complete me”), observing the speaker's other use of the pronoun "you" in these lyrics, provides some insight to whom it may be addressing:"2023, won't you give me a break?". Together, it can be understood that the speaker is serenading a personification of the coming year, and the song that they refer to is this one which they are performing for us now. With this additional line of devotion, we are exposed to the intimacy of the speaker's open dialogue, and forced to face the contradiction of the speaker's undermining of a yearly reset and their desperate queries of resolve into the empty void:

What’s my resolution?

Looking back at a song I wrote two years ago brings me to the state of mind I was in at the time. The first half of 2023 was the end of my three years undergraduate degree, and I was going through all the motions of pressure, stress, eagerness, and uncertainty. Forcing yourself into a creative mindset over years can make you more resistant to burn out, but it also makes you ever more apparent of its lingering presence. Having now completed my masters, I no longer have the pressure to create, and can allow myself to forge a more natural and holistic relationship with my words. Regardless, I still doubt my ability and my identity, but I have accepted the fluidity that is our lives. As a species, we devote ourselves to this idea that a calendar of months we invented (and chose to celebrate at the end of) justifies and encourages sudden transformation. As a result, we feel more able to remove accountability when those drastic alterations leave as quickly as they arrived. Instead of searching for reasons to progress, we should be nurturing organic change.

This year, I will be looking back at the successes I have had, thanking myself for persisting through challenges, and loving myself for creating a happy life and body that is able to embrace the betweenness of change.

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Next week's post will either be a part three of the Europe travel blog or a piece of poetry. Leave a comment on which you'd prefer. Thanks for reading.