Remember when music was actually good? As a singer-songwriter, I feel like it’s taken a turn for the worst. Don’t get me wrong, I love bass drops and profanity just as much as the girl next to me in the club, but music nowadays – whether its pop, hip-hop, rap, or R&B – all run on simplicity. The simpler the song, the more acquainted it is, and familiarity leads to more listeners. Generic lyrics, the same combination of chords, and a catchy tune is all it takes for a song to be a hit.

          On a daily, I’m constantly listening to “The Fray” or “Lifehouse” or “Switchfoot” – the bands that were big in the mid-2000’s and whose lyrics ran so deep, your heart would literally dip if you knew the meaning behind them. I miss it when Taylor Swift wrote songs about boys and every girl in the world would comment on her music videos saying, “when did Taylor Swift steal my diary?” because it was just that relatable. Personally, I just can’t relate to Gucci Mane’s cocaine addiction, and I can’t relate to Migos calling up the gang and his fight nights.

          When I write songs, or even papers, I write from experience because I know for a fact whatever I’m feeling, there are hundreds of thousands of people out there who feel the same way. It’s my own form of self-expression as well as it is communication. They weren’t lying when they say music can help get you through a lot. If you read or listen to something you can connect with, you don’t feel as alone. And as much as books or excerpts can give you the same effect, the addition of a tune and a melody resonates with you more. You can more likely recall every word from a song you liked ten years ago as opposed to the main concepts of a biology chapter you learned last week.

          Amongst all the vapid and repetitive songs that are coming out, once in a blue moon there will be a song from Adele or Ed Sheeran that I can just feel, even though sometimes I can’t relate. Adele, for example, has made me miss an ex that I don’t even think about, and Ed Sheeran makes me want to spend the rest of my life with a husband I wish I had. However, it’s refreshing when a girl my age, who only blew up through forms of social media, like YouTube and Instagram, uses her talent to write and sing a song that have a lot of girls around the world, including myself, crying over it.

          Her name is Lia Marie Johnson and she recently dropped her first song “DNA”. When she came out with just the audio and the lyric video, it already had my heart feeling some type of comfort and discomfort at the same time. The main instrument used for basically the whole song was piano, which created a calm and steady vibe, with an emphasis of a soft drum during the choruses to add a more dramatic feel. She sounded the same as she did when she created live acoustic covers prior to her single release, suggesting there was either little to no auto tune. Her voice resembled that of Lana Del Ray, her favorite singer. After listening to it for a couple of times, I figured it was about a boy who broke her heart, because of the line “hate to ask, but what’s it like to leave me behind?” I couldn’t connect with it in anyway. Regardless it was beautiful and a pleasant break from all the overplayed songs on the radio.

          What shook everyone was when she finally came out with the music video; the lyrics of the song just ties together with it perfectly. The song is about her deadbeat father and his drinking problems as well as the domestic violence that took place in her house when she was younger. The first of the lyrics are “dark as midnight, six pack Coors light, you don’t look the same” as the video starts out with her dad coming home at a late hour, staggering through the front door, passing his wife with half a bottle of dark liquor in his hand. A little girl plays Lia, standing in hiding and watching her father yell and shove her mother in the kitchen as the lyrics go “hate to see you like a monster so I run and hide.” It shoots to her mother crying in front of a window, where we can see “blue and red lights come take [her father] away.”

The music video then continues with her in real time, twenty-year-old Lia plays herself at a party, drinking excessively with friends and hooking up with a guy in the kitchen as the lyrics of the chorus plays, “I won’t be, no I won’t be like you; fighting back, I’m fighting back the truth; eyes like yours can’t look away, but you can’t stop DNA.” The lyrics don’t coincide with the imagery, but it’s important because the party scene is just a set up for what will happen later.

          Flashback to the little girl playing young Lia, hanging out and eating ice cream with her dad, the lyrics go “twice a year, you come in crashing, nice to see you too; Johnny Cash and back seat laughing, always ends to soon.” This is followed by her sadly returning to her mother after a fun day and the lines corresponding with it “hate to say hello cause I know that it means goodbye, hate to ask but what it’s like to leave me behind.” The chorus plays again and this time it’s Lia herself, presumably in a relationship with the guy she was hooking up with at the party scene, and she’s angry and violent, putting her hands on the guy after having a couple too many drinks. This aggressive scene plays on for the rest of the song. The bridge of the song, during her fight with her boyfriend, her lyrics read “I’m just so scared you’re who I’ll be when I erupt just like you do; they look at me like I look at you.” Here she’s talking about her dad. She expresses her disgust for his habit, but is also crying for help because she sees herself becoming him in her relationships, hence the title of the song “DNA.”

          This song and its music video hit me so hard because I hate how much I can relate to this. I also hate how a lot of young girls can relate to this. Growing up, I loved doing everything with my dad; I looked up to him. But the older I got, the more things I understood. He wasn’t ever violent to me, but he was reckless and dangerous. When he got angry, he was distorted and foreign to me. My biggest fear is that I’ll become like him, or that maybe the dormant part of me already is. The thing is I can see him in me; his temper and hatred towards everything. I haven’t seen him for ten years now, and I don’t think about him at all, up until I heard this song.

          Lyrics in songs can pull out the feelings you thought you lost. Sometimes they’re good reminiscent feelings – like when you hear a song and it takes you back to that specific time and place – and other times they’re just demons coming back. But feelings are so valid, so underrated. After listening to “DNA” and seeing Lia Marie Johnson’s music video, she’s inspired me to write more meaningful music; the kind of music that on one hand connects with my audience, bringing forth their buried past, and on the other hand, have it have a special meaning to me, where it’s more than relating with the lyrics, it’s the memories only I know when I’m performing my song. And I think that’s what more music these days should be about.