By Maricruz Villalobos
Hi! My name is Maricruz Villalobos and I’m glad you’re back for another episode of Behind the lyrics! Where I ask artists to breakdown their songwriting process and share their inspirations behind the song.
This episode features Jessica Mazin, a 17 year old singer-songwriter from Los Angeles. She resides in a genre familiar to many across the world called “sad girl pop.” Her music is catered towards people who are “sad” and “might need some music to not feel alone.”
Stealing silence
Addicted to violence
I guess I should stop messing up every chance I get
This lyric... When I first wrote it, I thought, "what does this even mean?" I just wrote it and it sounded right. Then the more that I thought about it...when I say "stealing silence" it kind of meant, I always thought that I was too loud. Always talking too much when I wasn't supposed to. I always felt like I was messing everything up or being too loud. Just kind of taking up too much space in the world.
I thought I lost her
But I'm still somebody's daughter
It's hard to have faith in yourself if you can't see what's left
There was a period of time when I didn't feel like myself. I didn't feel like I really had anything going for me. Any reason to do anything, really. That's what I say, "I thought I lost her," her being me. Then there came a time, when I realized I'm still somebody's daughter, I still have a family, I still have my mom. That's something that I have to keep going towards. But it's hard to have faith in myself when I can't see anything there. When I can't see what to keep going for, but I just know that I have to keep going. That is hard.
And I would give all I could give
For a chance to be given another brain
This lyric hits really close to home for me. For so many years of my life, I would just sit and question why I was cursed with the brain that I have. Why did my brain work so differently from everyone else's? Why I couldn't just be happy and content the way that other people were. I would give anything, anything to be given another brain and to have one that works.
And I just want a will to live
Something other than living just to avoid pain
There's been a concept, like a philosophy one could say, around for many years regarding humanity. It is that we all live to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. That basic concept can be seen in any of our decisions. Whether it's something large, like we won't go on a roller coaster because it's scary. So we're avoiding that pain. Or we will choose to eat cake, because that gives us pleasure. It could be something as small as choosing what color pencil to use when you're coloring. Every decision we make is based on seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. There was a period of my life where I felt like all I was doing was avoiding pain. I felt like there was nothing that I could do or that I was doing that was in an effort to seek pleasure. I felt like I was experiencing so much pain, that there was no pleasure or even want to seek pleasure.
The camera's rolling
I do it without knowing
A subconscious self sabotage, a horror movie at best
Very similar to the first verse, in that, I always feel like I'm messing everything up. When I say "the cameras rolling," it's kind of like when I'm in social situations and all eyes are on me. In a sense, I feel like there's always something about me, whether it's conscious or not, that's always messing things up.
Curse under my breath
Only the wind knows what I said
A few more screams of rage is all it would take to let me rest
This is one of my favorite lyrics in this song. Because it speaks to the fact that I think a lot of people, myself included, don't really like to talk about issues like mental health. Or even just sadness in general. So I say "curse under my breath," because for so many years I was just not telling anybody about the pain that I was going through. Really, only the wind knew what I said. I didn't even know what I was going through. Only the space and time around me did. "A few more screams of rage is all it takes to let me rest" means I just needed to yell. I just needed to let somebody know what was happening and I just needed to scream. I did! My pillow has heard too much, way too much.
And I would give all I could give
For a chance to step out of the rain
I would do anything to just not feel the way that I did. To not feel so bad. It's pretty simple.
Listen to the episode below!
You can reach Maricruz Villalobos at maricruv@uci.edu !
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