This Year’s Been Hell

Kirty is a dream pop sensation. She wrote this song about losing a family member and released it at the tail end of 2020. In December of that year, I was social distancing in a dingy studio apartment, had come down with COVID, and was eating primarily Indian food — “I just want to feel (taste) SOMETHING!” I was simultaneously preparing to travel halfway across the country by rental car to meet my dad in St. Louis. My goal was to get to the window of safety (aka: non-transmissibility) in time for Christmas and to meet my niece for the very first time. This song bottles that moment of surrender, when resignation transforms into release. Release from suffering and the “swift machine” of life, more literally. Or coming out the other side of something with a renewed sense of purpose and will to live, not just to survive. If 2025 has been hell for you so far, this banger is for you.