This is part of year end awards extravaganza, the Manelies, so be sure to check out our hub page for everything else awards-show season.
For my second category (publisher’s note, here’s the first), I decided to do something that was a bit more relevant for the times. Honestly, I got inspired to do this category after I heard BTS’s song “Life Goes On.” I tend to associate a lot of my favorite songs with events in my life. So, I decided it would be fitting to make a list of songs that I felt described the COVID-19 pandemic. This list is a bit different than my previous list, though. As this list is meant to describe the journey of emotions everyone has gone through during the pandemic. As such, the first song is quite depressing, but as time goes on, the songs start to become more positive. As I would like to believe that after this pandemic is over, we will all come out better people.
1. Day6 - Zombie (English Version)
“Breathin but I’ve been dyin’ inside. Nothin’ new and nothin’ feels right.”
When this pandemic first started, I think a lot of us thought that it wouldn’t last long. I remember taking pictures of the empty aisles in the grocery store and just kind of laughing, because it just felt silly at the time. However, as time went on, I started to realize how serious things were. Hospitals were overflowing and people were dying. People were scared, people were losing their jobs, and everything just felt kind of hopeless. I feel like this song really describes those early pandemic feelings the best, as it talks about “feeling like I’ve become a zombie.” It talks about someone who is still walking through life, but really feels dead on the inside. The song ends with it saying that “you’ll see me wishin’ to stop.” During this pandemic, I feel like so many people have dealt with feelings of depression from one thing or another. This song, to me, perfectly describes those feelings of hopelessness.
“Many hours have passed, even if it fades, I still remember your voice.”
The reason I decided to include this song on this list is that I feel it describes the feelings of individuals who have lost loved ones during this pandemic. So many lives have been lost this year. There have been so many people that died who just shouldn’t have ever died. We lost people who weren’t able to get medical care, because our medical facilities were overwhelmed. We have lost hospital employees, who died due to not being provided enough adequate protective gear. I feel like this song describes the feelings of anyone who lost someone, as it describes someone who knows they won’t ever forget their loved one. Even if a lot of time passes, they still remember their loved one and they wait “for the day we meet again.”
“Life sucks for everybody. I’m just survin’ everyday right at the edge of losing my mind.”
I was a little unsure if I should include this song on this list, as it’s meant to describe Ha:tfelt’s relationship with her father. I felt it didn’t really fit the overall theme I was going for. However, I really liked the particular line, “Life sucks for everybody.” I liked how it shows that everyone is going through hard times and that you aren’t alone in your suffering. I think it’s important to remember during these times that “life sucks for everybody.” This isn’t meant to diminish anyone’s feelings, but instead to show that we are all in this absolute crap together. I feel like there is a sense of comfort in knowing that.
“Like singing a song, I want to tell myself the words I love myself, I trust myself, the words I didn’t hear.”
Throughout this pandemic, so many unprecedented things have happened. People have lost their jobs, and subsequently, their incomes. I feel like this could have led to a lot of people being unsure of themselves. Despite it not being your fault, sometimes it’s hard to not feel like you could have done something differently. I chose this song because I wanted to show that we shouldn’t be so hard on ourselves for things that are out of our control. We shouldn’t blame ourselves for putting on a few pounds when the world is out of control. We also shouldn’t blame ourselves for losing our jobs, due to businesses closing. Even though things are hard, we should always remember to love and trust ourselves.
“One day the world stopped without any warning.”
This song was an easy pick for this list, as it’s a song about the pandemic. Like I said earlier, it’s even the song that inspired this list. I decided to include this song, because I liked how it describes how we all felt at the beginning. It really just felt like everything kind of just stopped one day. Suddenly, everyone was working from home and businesses were closed. We could no longer go to the movie theater or concerts. Things that seemed a normal part of life just suddenly ceased to exist one day. I really like how the chorus of this song describes how it feels like “there’s no end in sight,” because honestly, sometimes it really does feel like there is no end to this pandemic. Even though we have a vaccine for COVID-19 now, it still feels like we are long ways off from being back to how things used to be. However, one day, “the day will come back around as if nothing happened.”
“I wonder, I wonder about the end. It’s closer, a little more closer. I’m dreaming, I’m dreaming bigger.”
I decided to include this song, because I feel like it describes the emotions we all might be going through right now, as vaccines have started coming out and people haven’t started receiving them. There is this feeling that things may be coming to an end soon and that the horizon is in sight. There are some experts that are even saying that things may start getting back to normal sometime next year in 2021. Things may still seem a little hopeless, but it’s hard to not “dream bigger” and believe that with these vaccines that the pandemic is starting to come to an end.
“Even if the world goes in the opposite direction, we will never lose our way and we will walk in the right direction. Let’s go together.”
We have seen some of the worst in people during this pandemic, but I truly believe that we have also seen some of the best in people this last year. We have seen people sacrifice everything to save other people. We have seen people come together to fight against injustices. We have seen people reach out a helping hand to others when they needed it. Despite everything the world has thrown at us in 2020, I really do believe that we will come out as a better world after all this is done. We have fought together during the pandemic and we will come out of it together.