04. 15. 2020
~how i'm feeling~ // Lauv // 2020 // Pop
Modern Loneliness is the final track on Lauv’s 2019 album ~how i’m feeling~ . The song talks about feeling “alone together” in this day and age, especially for those who grew up with the internet. The lyrics and story of the music video really hones into these introspective and relatable concepts. I normally connect with the melody and sounds of a song more so than the lyrics. I don’t really remember the lyrics unless they are poem-like or super relatable, like Modern Loneliness. The first half of the chorus really struck out.
Modern loneliness
We’re never alone but always depressed, yeah
Love my friends to death but I never call, I never text
La di da di da, yeah
Lauv casually sings his thoughts “we’re never alone but always depressed” and “love my friends to death but I never call, I never text”. This really resonated with me since I have the option and resources to contact and get connected with any one of my friends, anytime, thanks to social media and the internet. But I don’t. I wouldn’t really go to the extent of saying that I am always depressed but there are moments when I do feel that I feel that I am alone or not understood despite the close proximity of people.
I think these thoughts resurfaced when I listened to the song again, only this time during the quarantine. Being forced to be separated yet not quite has a very strange feeling to it. I do talk to my friends and see them over Zoom occasionally but it’s not the same as before. This strangeness was cleverly depicted in Lauv’s music video, where we first see the artist lying down on a soft field of grass and yellow flowers intimately singing his thoughts. It’s a slight shock when the camera pans out to reveal that he was surrounded by other people, seemingly in their own bubble of false loneliness and isolation.
I wonder if anyone else felt this juxtaposed sense of isolation and connection after the outbreak?
