Unapoligetically Messy

I hope they hate the fucking lot.

I'm sitting here in my underwear in a sketchy "apartment" on the Panama border doing my "border run" ballet (the whole thing where you have to leave the country every few months when you're not yet a legal resident lol) now that I have my renewed passport back...finally.

When it's just me traveling, I've always had the attitude of, "Well, I can just go super cheap because who cares, I'm easy, I just need a bed and wifi," but I'm starting to think that maybe I should reevaluate my very low standards because...oof. That's the short version. And I'll be here for two nights. Maybe.

ANYWAY:

This accidentally morphed into a companion piece of “Then go find less…” Shit happens when a song finds you and punches you in the face.

If you’ve been around for a minute, you probably already know that I love discovering new music - either “new” new or new-to-me, whatever, I’m a music junkie.

I mean, 90% of the music I reflexively switch on in the car or at home - when I’m not zoning out to ambient noise that is (only thing that quells the squirrels in my brain when I write) - is stuff that came to me years ago as it’s impacted me in different ways through different stages of my weird life, so sometimes I’m super late to the party with an artist who didn’t land on my radar for some fucking reason, which then I’m like dammit, I’ve wasted all that time NOT ENJOYING THEM when I COULD HAVE BEEN ENJOYING THEM THIS WHOLE FUCKING TIME.

I’ve seen the name Lola Young, a singer-songwriter from London, in my newsfeed several times. It seems like it’s always when I’m mobile so it’s not led to an immediate diving into her music catalog, but I’d click on an article about her, as I do often with random music news stories.

And, wouldn’t ya know it? Shoehorned between comments from adoring new fans going “Um, where has she fucking been all my life,” is the inevitable peppering of misogynistic (internalized or otherwise) comments about her daring to exist in a manner that isn’t, in their minds anyway, worthy of a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition or the Victoria’s Secret Catalog.

Of course, THAT is nothing new. Obviously. Hell, you can be a US size 6 and still be called a fat fuckin whale who has “stopped trying” so none of it actually means anything.

Ah yes. We’ve “stopped trying” to be fuckable to dudes who cry about the “male loneliness epidemic” they’ve crafted for themselves. Blah blah, lather, rinse, repeat.

Anyway, the shittiness didn’t seem to be just about her body. Lola Young carries herself in a manner similar to the title of the 2024 hit that brought her to the forefront of a lot of people’s minds – not mine, mind you, as I’m, once again, late to the party. And she carries herself with confidence. She exudes a clear “fuck you if you don’t like it” attitude.

She’s messy.

She’s a messy, confident, young woman, and there are plenty of folks for whom that will NOT stand, so they scream into the void about how she’s “too fat” or “too sloppy” or her song is an “autobiography written by her gut,” and how she should cover up, no one likes to see that and the whole “unfuckable slut” paradox. How fucking boring.

I’d seen a few snippets of performances – all with the volume down due to multitasking - like her set at Coachella earlier this year, and she always seemed to be commanding the stage like she owned it - mostly because she did.

So yeah, for reasons that probably seem obvious if you’ve followed my bullshit for a minute, I knew that I appreciated her vibe, even if I had no idea what her sound was. I already liked what I thought was her message after hearing absolutely nothing and only having seen posts about her where shitty men and women alike tore her down, again, for existing. Because yes, that is absolutely relevant to my fucking interests. Women of any age giving the middle finger to bullshit expectations? This is my jam.

This morning, she popped up in my newsfeed again, and jesus, ok, I’m at home, I’m not locked into something already, and there’s currently no extraneous noise - I’m going to finally stream some of her music.

The first song up was “Messy.”

And I was not prepared for how that goddamn song was going to take me out.

Because yes, the song is about being unapologetically “messy.” But in a way that was a whole lot more than I was expecting.

I listened to this 24-year-old woman unintentionally illustrating a time in my life at about the same age Young is now. I found myself crying in my office, and it took me a moment to realize that I was shedding tears for my 24-year-old self instead of just being protective of her. Then I got a little mad.