Single Saturdays: February 24, 2024

Single Saturdays is Five Cent Sound’s weekly roundup, where our staff members share a song that they’ve fallen in love with and make their case for why others should give it a listen.

“16 Carriages” by Beyoncé

By Norah Lesperance

What did you spend 10 hours and 40 minutes doing this week? Homework? Exercising? That sounds awesome and productive. Me? I spent 10 hours and 40 minutes listening to “16 Carriages” by Beyoncé. 

Beyoncé surprise dropped two singles and announced her 8th studio album, currently known as Act II, following her feature in a Verizon Super Bowl commercial. I’m obsessed with the history-making “Texas Hold ‘Em” too, as Beyoncé has become the first Black woman to top the U.S. Hot Country Songs chart, but “16 Carriages” has an unwavering chokehold on me. According to my Airbuds weekly recap — an app that tracks your listening habits — I streamed it 164 times during release week. If my shoddy journalism major math is right, that’s just under 10 hours and 40 minutes.

This deeply vulnerable yet powerful single explores the impact that Beyoncé’s career has had on her personal and family life. Constant touring and stressful investments have taken their tolls, but she sings her way through with perseverance:

“Ain't got time to waste, I got art to make

I got love to create on this holy night

They won't dim my light, all these years I fight”

While consistently performing in sold-out stadiums and releasing chart-topping records isn’t relatable to the everyday listener, this theme of pushing through exhaustion in pursuit of your passions certainly is. Coupled with a booming backbeat that I can’t help but groove to, “16 Carriages” is just what I needed to push through a bleak winter. The rest of Act II will be out on March 29th, and I’m setting aside at least 10 hours to give this album the attention it deserves.

“I Believe (Acoustic Version)” by Caroline Polachek

By Daniel Zapata

Look over the edge, but not too far.

This line opens the original art-pop version of “I Believe” on Caroline Polachek’s 2023 album Desire, I Want to Turn Into You. However in this acoustic version, the line is placed only at the bridge and at the end. I see it not only as a touching conclusion to the album’s recent reissue, but also as a strongly emphasized tribute.

As stated by Polachek, the original song is about protection and immortality. She dedicated it to her late friend, transgender Scottish music producer and hyperpop pioneer SOPHIE, hoping to capture the sounds and emotions that embodied not only SOPHIE, but the dramatic and symphonic sounds of 80’s pop music. 

The acoustic version of “I Believe” borders more on folk music, but Polachek's fluid vocals remain. If anything I believe this version complements them even more, allowing listeners to identify more with the emotion of wishing you could see someone again. The instrumentals here should not be ignored; while the synths in the original version invoke a vibrant nostalgia, the guitar and strings here bring a cinematic listening experience that makes one feel sad, but confident to carry on in an unpredictable time. 

I intially found the choice to replace the pop characteristics in this new version to be interesting, but the more I listen to both versions, the more I begin to find appreciation in each. In this new version, I feel that Polachek solidifies the idea that in mourning we wish immortality existed, but instead it is what we experience and look back on in this life that gives us a feeling of permanence.

And I'd have said it was impossible

To find you in this life and keep you just enough

“Forever” by Noah Kahan

By Rachel Hackam

Noah Kahan’s latest song “Forever” is the perfect closing to the Stick Season chapter. The album Stick Season is all about growing pains. It focuses on returning to places from your past while in a new chapter of your life. It talks about being a different person but coming back to places that haven’t changed. 

The chorus of “Forever” is about knowing you won’t be alone for the rest of your life. It’s about realizing that people will love you even if you’re not perfect.

In the second verse Kahan sings “We can’t make rent so we window-shop in the Upper West Side, oh my god.” The way Kahan sings “Oh my god” is so sonically satisfying, the blending of his voice with the instrumentals creating a pleasing sound. 

This track encapsulates the messages of Stick Season, an album about embracing change and reconciling the different versions of yourself in places that feel foreign despite never changing. 

“Drunk” by Keshi

By Hollie raposo

This song speaks to the emptiness of a continuous cycle of going out and getting drunk with your friends and then coming home and feeling alone. Keshi talks about having a few loves and, based on the song, they did not last long. He was used to coming home to this girl, but now only comes home to his bed. He feels grief for this past relationship. Even his friends are going out and having fun while he is working hard every day, and this leaves him in his loneliness. It is “hard to carry on” from the past loves, but he must because they are not going to happen. But he feels that sadness engulfing him when coming home, and dwells on getting home.  

This is a perspective that I feel when coming home from the studio or rehearsal and feel alone. It is easy to get lost in the hustle and bustle of city life and all the organizations we are a part of, the loud exterior of the streetlights and cars honking their horns that you got lost. “Drunk” represents such a vulnerable time in our lives that nobody really talks about — after hanging out with your friends and coming home to a dark and melancholy room. I have been feeling this a lot recently being a transfer to Emerson as a junior and not knowing anyone. There’s an  expectation to catch up to everyone in my year, and I feel like I have missed so much. I need the reminder that everyone goes through that and needs time to themselves. Also, part of the feeling comes from being away from my boyfriend when we used to go to the same school. Spending a lot of time with one person and now not having anyone can be a lonely world. Keshi gives us a reminder that it is valid to have these feelings, expressing the normality of the situation. No matter what we are going through, it will get better, and it is okay to be lonely. 

“Spring is Coming with a Strawberry in the mouth” by Caroline Polachek

By Hazel Armstrong-mcEvoy

Does everybody remember that Saturday a couple weeks ago when it was freakishly warm? Yeah, I do too. And since then, I have been waiting ever so patiently for spring to come, and for the weather to feel just as sweet as it did on February 10th, 2024. Luckily, there's music to help us all cope with that feeling of waiting and wanting Spring. 

On February 14th, Caroline Polachek released the "Everasking Edition" of her album Desire, I Want To Turn Into You. Within this collection, Polachek shares her rendition of "Spring Is Coming With A Strawberry In The Mouth," the original song written and performed by Operating Theatre in 1986. The piece shares a beautiful story of loving and longing for someone to come back into your life, with hope that they are doing okay in the meantime. This cover shares classic Polachek vocal solos, behind a funky danceable beat to preface the story conveyed. The song, in my opinion, represents those same feelings of loving and longing for the beloved season of spring, and Caroline Polachek's remake adds pop and alternative styles that weren't included in the original version. Hearing an optimistic tune during these sad, cold months only makes us feel better about what will come in the very near future. Spring is coming, and yeah, maybe it does have a strawberry in the mouth.