"Garden of Eden" by Rachel Chinouriri

This will be another short post.

When I first listened "Garden of Eden" by Rachel Chinouriri, I mainly focused on the overall sound of the music and her lovely voice. Once I got more specific into the lyrics, the meaning of the song changed entirely for me.

The whole chorus honestly, makes me sad. It's very existential, and very truthfully, painfully honest.

"No point in trying to prove yourself to them /

Why question who you are from deep within? /

No matter what, your youth is gonna end /

My God, it’s sinking in /

There’s no point in anything."

When I actually listened to this without driving, or without it just being background music, it hit me like a truck. I was already dealing with being overwhelmed because of the school semester, and also on top of my depression, this was just such a dreadfully wonderful experience. The mix of the music underneath the lyrics and how the beat falls out from beneath the words just hurts.

The next line after that do nothing to ease the feeling.

"Too young, but too old for this"

It really just makes me realize how fleeting the idea of "youth" is and how it can mean so many different things. Its common to hear within the LGBT community, (mainly the gay men) is that being 30 means you're past your prime, that you're old. They basically say that a gay man being 30 is the equivalent to being 50. It creates such a weird dissonance for me. I'm 23 years old, turning 24 in December, but it felt like my life froze when the pandemic happened. I was 18, and I don't feel any different (besides the back pain getting worse.) I just feel so strange towards age and existing.

Basically, everything feels fleeting, nothing is real. Is there a point in anything? I don't know.