WORRY.

by Jeff Rosenstock

There's a lot of awful bullshit going on all the time and I fuck up a lot trying to get through it. In the end I act like a cornered little rat who let society and capitalism and all the overwhelming ills of being a human get too big for me to handle. Our identities can get manufactured and marketable and the more you slink into the system of working just to live the less you feel like you're a person worth paying attention to or worthy of an iota of self-respect. So we get depressed, lonely, deep into self-medication, defeated, hungry and easy to push around so we can give up easier.

Getting out of how that feels can be tricky, and it's difficult to tell someone the world is worth sticking around in, especially when you give in to what people keep trying to get you to give in to. Is listening to an album enough to get you out of it? Probably not. The things that can at least raise our heads a little bit are deeply important, though. I have mumbled "capitalism won in the end" to my girlfriend during really low moods after we've talked about the tangled web of Sociopolitical Human Terror and the next day I have listened to this album and felt like, "yeah fuck that shit but I HAVE to keep moving." So I appreciate and hold this album close for a lot of reasons, especially for not just talking at us and pacifying, but instead being pissed off with us, and reminding ourselves of our own capabilities.

This album is evergreen and powerful and beautiful. Also Jeff Rosenstock is like, excruciatingly talented? But in a cool, friendly way.

(P.S. If you haven't watched this video essay on WORRY. and have like 15 minutes, give it a shot?)