Arts Playlist: 5 Songs for Your End-of-Semester Mood Swings

It’s just a short while away from the last day of classes and the beginning of reading period. You see the light of the end of the tunnel — until you check your to-do list, and any ray of light you thought you saw suddenly flickers before completely extinguishing. P-sets? Can’t even remember what calculus is. Research papers? Haven’t found sources yet. History exam? Still need to catch up on reading.

What do you mean, “That assignment was due last week”?

What you really need to do is hunker down in a corner of a library with just your laptop and a gallon of espresso for company, but devious spring chooses this particular week to actually arrive, making the weather too nice to not go outside and make bad decisions. At least you have this playlist to soothe you through your end-of-semester panic.

Listen to the playlist here.

“I’m A Mess” by Bebe Rexha

A song titled “I’m A Mess” could have easily been arranged as a confessional ballad, but instead, Rexha’s punchy, almost aggressive delivery of the lines “I’m a mess, I’m a loser / I’m a hater, I’m a user” paired with timed claps and a catchy guitar riff makes this pop tune a victorious celebration of a dysfunctional state of mind. In the pre-chorus, Rexha proclaims, “Everything’s gonna be okay / It’s gonna be a good, good life / That’s what my therapists say,” which perfectly captures the mild hysteria you experience when you calculate the amount of time needed to catch up on your work and realize that it’s impossible to finish even if you don’t sleep. All the Lamonsters out there who sport dark circles and haven’t showered for a few days, just own up to it like Rexha does: You’re a mess.

“Drunk” by Ed Sheeran

As classes come to a close, you’ll often find yourself oscillating between phases of vigorous determination and loss of motivation. One moment, you feel like grinding through a problem set, and the next, you feel like Ed Sheeran — “I wanna be drunk when I wake up / On the right side of the wrong bed.” Reading period is the prime time to forget you actually have finals coming by going to formals constantly and delude yourself into thinking that break has started. It seems like there’s no better time to catch up on all that partying that you haven’t been doing during the past few months — until you wake up in the morning and realize you’ve dug yourself into a deep hole. Moral of the story? When Ed Sheeran’s deceptively sweet voice starts crooning “Should I, should I? / Maybe I’ll get drunk again” into your ear, try to ignore it.

“Everything Is Fine” by All Time Low

The title of this track may be “Everything Is Fine,” but the actual lyrics speak about being decidedly not fine: a perfect parallel to how you tell everyone you’ve got everything under control while you internally break down over the hundred-and-ten things you need to do but haven’t started. The bright melody of the chorus is accompanied by prominent drum beats, giving the track a 2008 Jonas Brothers feel, but the lyrics strike a sharp contrast, sounding more like Green Day at their peak edginess. “I slept through another day / And it makes it all okay if I don’t care” sounds like an unhealthy coping mechanism, but let’s not pretend that we don’t all do it once in a while.

“Who Needs Sleep” by Barenaked Ladies

Know what’s better than BDE? BCE. No, not Before the Common Era, history nerds — Big Chaotic Energy. “Who Needs Sleep” positively pulses with BCE; the track’s chorus is uplifted by a delightful cacophony made up of twanging guitars, faint toots on a flute, disinterested-sounding claps, and the clack of tambourines. The lyrics of the chorus are sung-spoken in short little bursts, punctuated by beats that strike on every syllable, emphasizing the frustration in the lines “Lids down, I count sheep / I count heartbeats / The only thing that counts is / That I won’t sleep.” With sarcastic cheerfulness, the Barenaked Ladies remind despairing, complaining college students that no matter no sleep-deprived you think you are, you should “be happy with what you’re getting” since “there’s a guy who’s been awake / since the Second World War.”

“R.I.P. 2 My Youth” by The Neighbourhood

“R.I.P. 2 My Youth” is a highly poetic, Tumblr-esque track for those students who feel miserable about the approach of finals, but miserable in an aesthetic way, you know? Right now, you might be thinking that it’s too dramatic to tell your friends, “close my eyes and then cross my arms / put me in the dirt, let me dream with the stars,” but once you’ve spent the night at a library cramming for an exam and halos are swimming around every object because you’ve been staring obsessively at a computer screen like it’s a sleeping Bella Swan and you’re Edward Cullen, you’ll be singing a different tune. In fact, you’ll be singing “R.I.P. 2 My Youth.”

—Staff writer Miranda Eng can be reached at miranda.eng@thecrimson.com