when he was promoting his most recent project, Tension. He said that each record was made with different musicians, and his debut side project record Felt was made with local musicians in mind from around his hometown in Central Florida. Christian looked to friend and Copeland frontman Aaron Marsh to record the record, Copeland’s drummer at the time Johnathan Bucklew and Gasoline Heart‘s Louis DiFabrizio on bass. When Christian debuted his LP, it seemed he had every intention of maintaining this small town sound. But then he moved to Nashville and started associating with other musicians.
TEAR OFF YOUR SKIN. Thebonus DVD release with theCitiesspecial edition shows the portrait of Stephen Christian as a lyricist, jotting down lines in notebooks as he sips coffee in Seattle. Then, in the studio, he’d drink herbal tea and at night inhale vapor for his falsetto notes on songs like “Dismantle.Repair.” and “(*Fin).” Around this time, Stephen Christian seemed particularly prolific, releasing the novel The Orphaned Anything’s: Memoirs of a Lesser Knownand starting a non-profit organization called Faceless International. In 2008, Anberlin released New Surrenderon Universal Republic Records, and the following year, Christian released his debut side project, Anchor & Braille’s Felt. The songs on Felt are songs that Christian had been holding onto for a while. Christian talks about some songs like “Cadence” and “The Haunting” which became Anberlin songs that he had thought suited Anchor & Braille better until Anberlin talked him into sharing those songs with the band. To me, Felt sounds a lot like Cities–songs that Stephen Christian was writing at a time when he took a moment to process life after touring incessantly. There are visuals we get through the lyrics of enjoying old records and reading novels. We get late nights of wrestling with relationships. We get existential questions, and Stephen Christian doesn’t propose the answer like he does in later Anberlin tracks. In other words, Felt feels like a record that doesn’t have to conform with the standards that Anberlin had to.
SUNSETS IN GERMANY. But the influence for “Summer Tongues” seems to go further back than Cities, perhaps even taking influence from the early days of Anberlin. When the band started, there were several rumors band members spread about the band name etymology. The truth, the band set straight as early as 2003 in an interview with HM Magazine was that Stephen Christian was talking about all the places he wanted to visit when the band got popular “London, Paris, . . . , and Berlin,” but dropped the d when saying the last city, pronouncing it as an berlin. “Summer Tongues” recalls those childhood, naïve memories of boring days dreaming about what the future holds. The music Christian and Marsh compose for the track further illustrates this mood, wistfully remembering the Golden Age of Hollywood musicals with a little bit more subliminal guitar. I chose this song today because of the dreams that 2008 held, when Anchor & Braille released Felt. I think about the dreams 0f 2003 and before, when Stephen Christian was daydreaming about all the places he would one day visit, when I too was playing Where in the World Is Carman Sandiego, thinking about getting lost at Kings Cross station in London, sitting in Tiergarten Park in Berlin, or wandering through galleries looking at Italian frescos. It’s for the dreams of 2011, the year before Cornerstone folded, the only time I saw Stephen perform as Anchor & Braille at an intimate late-night show after Anberlin headlined main stage. But mostly it’s for my sister: today’s her birthday. She’s the one who actually talked to Stephen Christian at after the show and got him to sing my copy of The Orphan Anything’s. I don’t really like meeting famous people, but I did get to meet Stephen and get a picture with him—all Cornerstone sweaty. For all those summer dreams and many more, wherever life finds you in 2022, let’s enjoy “Summer Tongues.”
Opening OneRepublic‘s second record, Waking Up, is the experimental track “Made for You.” Release two years after their debut record Dreaming Out Loud, OneRepublic was busy releasing singles even between records. During these two years, lead singer and chief songwriter for the band, Ryan Tedder, started writing for some of the biggest pop stars, including Beyoncé‘s “Halo” and Kelly Clarkson‘s “Already Gone,” which controversially sounded like OneRepublic’s “Secrets” later released on Waking Up. The second album from OneRepublic would answer whether the band was just a passing fad, a liner note in chart history, or mega stars.
PUT PEN TO PAPER, EVERYTHING WAS SINKING. “Made for You” opens the record. It’s a lyrically sparse track full of mood and ambiance. OneRepublic quickly steps up their sound, a band of some classically-trained musicians and a penchant for hip-hop beats. Whereas, Dreaming Out Loud was co-produced by hip hop producer Timbaland, is mostly produced by the band and a few pop producers. “Made for You” certainly isn’t single-worthy and is not designed for the radio. Instead, it serves as an extended introduction to the band’s first single and the second track on the record, “All the Right Moves.” The song feels like it came out on the verge of writer’s block cracking, and when it cracks, the song serves as the album’s opener. Like Sufjan Stevens’ “Death with Dignity,” the opening track invites the muses to lead the record wherever it must go. The end of the song simply features variations on the theme of the band’s first hit from the record, chanting “All the right moves in all the right places” and a recording of a children’s choir singing the song.
CAN YOU FEEL? The surprise hit from the record was “Good Life,” which didn’t even match their number 2 hit of “Apologize.” “All the Right Moves” peaked at number 18 and “Good Life” at number 8. But thanks to the record they released four years later, Native, the band achieved another Hot 100 hit with “Counting Stars.” On the podcast Inside the Studio Tedder talked about his writing process with other musicians, and the headspace and the conversations he sparks to get a good songwriting session started. With so many songs to Tedder’s credit, it’s no wonder that OneRepublic takes long hiatuses. The difference between Waking Up and Native is maturity and security. During Waking Up the band perhaps felt the need to be hitmakers, to hit hard and hit fast. They were a new band and had a lot of potential. And Waking Up this year has been one of my go-to records. But with Native, the band decided to take their time. Youth versus experience. Which is better? This coming on a day that I’m writing very hastily to make my deadline, and the quality will have to be made up for on an editing session. Which is better? Waking Up or Native?
Today we enjoy another track from Shura‘s debut record, Nothing’s Real. While Shura is an out and proud lesbian, she decided to release her first record mostly with ambiguous second person pronouns which can be interpreted by listeners however they wanted to interpret the song. Several songs on Nothing’s Real refer to the same break up, and today’s song “What Happened to Us?” refers to the drifting apart in that break up.
I WAS NEVER READY FOR YOUR LOVE. The Madonna for millennials as one magazine article called her, Shura’s vibey first record captures the wonderment of growing up, even if there’s a little pain involved. I’ve talked quite a bit about Nothing’s Real and even did a track-by-track analysis in April. Today, I’m going to look at this one track and how it captures an unhealthy nostalgia about our past. At the core of the song, Shura talks about falling in love with someone who is a “fiction / someone [she] made up.” The pre-chorus says: “Funny how we remember things / How we hold on to the good / But throw out the bad stuff.” In the past, the speaker has idealized this person and may still to some extent; however, she realizes that the person who lives in her mind is different from who the person really is. In the first verse, the speaker realizes that the other person is perfectly content on herself; she has found a perfect sense of flow, which does not include the speaker. The speaker partially appreciates this, but is mostly sad because of her taciturn ex.
I’M NO CHILD, BUT I DON’T FEEL GROWN UP. The album Nothing’s Real centers around Shura growing up. The ambient intro and interludes placed throughout the record are of Shura as a little girl. They come from the young singer’s father, an English documentary film maker, taking home videos and Shura’s fascination with recording. The synthesizers backing the tracks are a bit eerie, but they capture the innocence of youth and contrast with the pains of growing up. Immediately listeners are introduced to Shura’s panic attack in the second track, the title song “Nothing’s Real.” Today’s song seems to tell a story about high school or college, when the speaker is having lunch with a lover who is breaking away from her. The song speaks about how the memories are idealized and really the relationship was probably unhealthy. Maybe they outgrew the relationship; maybe it was toxic. There will inevitably be good memories, but it doesn’t excuse what it’s become or what you are realizing was there all along.
Anberlin‘s Blueprints for the Black Marketwas a strong debut for the band. The circumstances, the tours and the connections from those tours, though transcended the first record’s success. First Anberlin headlined the Tooth & Nail Tour when Further Seems Forever dropped off due to lead singer Jason Gleason leaving the band; this was Anberlin’s first major tour and they were upgraded to headliner. The band toured a lot on their first record and gained a considerable fan base. But touring came with the price of not being there for the band’s families. Touring paid off, despite the hiccup of one band member getting too involved with the drugs and partying to fulfill his duties in the band.
WHEN YOUR ONLY FRIENDS ARE HOTEL ROOMS. Never Take Friendship Personalturned Anberlin from a ‘90s-rock leaning band to an Emo band. The title of the opening track and the record come from the band’s decision to kick out guitarist Joey Bruce. Besides the opening track, all the lyrics on Never Take Friendship Personal are much more emotional and concrete than the band’s first record. The lyrical poignancy singer Stephen Christian discovers on this record as he writes about friendships, relationships, sex, lust, spirituality, and temptation rival their fan-favorite Cities but never seem to hit as raw ever again in their career. Anberlin’s sound also evolved. Leaning into their heavier tendencies on tracks like “Cold War Transmissions” and “Glass to the Arson,” Never Take Friendship Personal intensifies the band’s rock sound with tracks like the title track and “The Feel Good Drag,” which contain screaming–the former containing uncredited unclean vocals by Demon Hunter’s Ryan Clark and the latter containing a scream by lead singer Stephen Christian himself.
AUGUST EVENINGS BRING SOLEMN WARNINGS TO REMEMBER: TO KISS THE ONES YOU LOVE GOODNIGHT. Anberlin’s “Paperthin Hymn” is an excellent example of how a rock song can be melancholy and rock too. The band released other songs about loss and depression. They released many other songs in minor keys, but the elegiac lyrics, the Deon Rexroat D minor bass riff build, and Joseph Milligan’s guitar riffs build this song into a simultaneously hauntingly tragic and kick-ass song. Certainly, as the song became the band’s greatest hit in their early career, it must have lost some meaning when played live. According to Stephen Christian’sTumblrexplaining Anberlin’s songs, “Paperthin Hymn” is reportedly about the death of Stephen Christian’s grandmother and the death of Joseph Milligan’s sister to cancer.Lyrically,the song is a reminder to show your affection for the people you love because we cannot know how long they will be with us. The song also laments the cost of the band’s heavy touring schedule as loss of loved ones happened to the band as they were out on the road. There’s an inevitable guilt that comes from pursuing a dream that keeps you away from loved ones.
Teenage Dreamwas Katy Perry‘s marriage album. Perry, along with her songwriting team of Max Martin, Dr. Luke, Et. al. wrote the songs as the singer was dating British comedian Russell Brand. Perry and Brand were married less than two months after the release of Teenage Dream in a Hindu wedding ceremony in India. But Perry’s teenage dream soon became a nightmare, with the couple separating 14 months after the marriage, Brand calling off the marriage via text message.
I USED TO BITE MY TONGUE AND HOLD MY BREATH. The documentary film Part of Meshows a heartbreaking scene in which Perry has just found out that her marriage is over. Not even one album cycle had passed, and Perry’s marriage had dissolved. The single “Part of Me” was released on Teenage Dream: The Complete Confection
expanding the album cycle until she released Prismin October of 2013. But Prism isn’t a morose break up album. Starting with the anthemic “Roar,” an arguably more powerful track than Teenage Dream‘s counterpart “Firework,” Prism is a balanced album in dealing with Perry’s past traumas. That being said, Prism lacks the cohesion of its predecessor, feeling like an imitation or a variation on the near perfect form Teenage Dream set. Perry has yet to follow up the magic on Teenage Dream with Prism’s follow up, Witnessexperimenting more with the formula but with even less cohesion.
I STOOD FOR NOTHING, SO I FELL FOR EVERYTHING. “Roar” uses clichés and mixes metaphors, but between the lines, the song hints at some of the adversity Katy Perry faced throughout her career. In an interview with Ryan Seacrest, Perry said that she felt that there was a time in her life when she “didn’t stand for anything” so she “fell for everything.” Of course listeners can look to Perry’s career leading up to this interview, first as a Christian singer then as an emerging talent marketed to Alternative markets, and finally her ascent to pop superstardom to look for moral compromises. The conservative Christians judged Perry every step of her way. In an interview last year with Inside the Studio Podcast last year, Perry talked about finding a new moral compass after no longer believing in the teachings of the Bible she grew up with. Morality is also overcoming the patriarchy in the entertainment industries imposed as formulas for female success. “Roar” is Perry waking up and taking the reins of her own success, shrugging off the mistakes of the past.
Today we’re going to talk about some repressed memories and the cringy music of my preteen years. Out of teenage rebellion, I started listening to a Contemporary Christian Radio station out of Greenville South Carolina around 1999 called HIS Radio and around this time my family also got the SKY Angel satellite system which gave us Praise TV, showing all the CCM music videos from the late ’80s to the day as long as they weren’t too hard.
YET WE BUILD WALLS BETWEEN OUR BROTHERS AND OURSELVES. The timeline is a little fuzzy, and rather than doing a well-researched post, I thought I’d examine an artifact from my past. Kind of like how K-pop today separates the boys from the girls, so did the ’90s with boybands and girl groups. So did CCM. If you liked Spice Girls, why not try Point of Grace? If you liked The Backstreet Boys, obviously you would love 4Him. But then there was Avalon, a revolutionary co-ed group–and the alternative version of Avalon, Raze, a story for another day! Avalon was formed in Nashville, Tennessee, by a record executive who found four clean-cut men and women who had a love for evangelism and who could sing well together. The group originally consisted of Michael Passions and Janna Potter (later Janna Long) and two other members who left the group before they recorded their self-titled record with Jody McBrayer and Nikki Hassman-Anders filling out the group. Hassman-Anders left the group after their second record Testify to Love. In 2000, Janna married fellow CCM singer Greg Long, and in 2004, Greg replaced Michael Passions.
YOU’RE MY BROTHER, YOU’RE MY SISTER / SO TAKE ME BY THE HAND. Today’s song, “We Will Stand” comes from Avalon’s 2006 record, Stand. Originally performed by the featured artist, Russ Taff, a CCM singer-songwriter whose solo career proceeded Avalon’s by over a decade, Taff and his wife Tori wrote the song in response to racial discrimination toward a black gospel singer. There are a few caveats to the inclusion proposed in this 1983 hit. The first caveat is mentioned in the lyrics: “I don’t care what label you wear / If you believe in Jesus, you belong with me.” Track three on the record, “Orphans of God,” states: “There are no strangers / There are no outcasts / There are no orphans of God.” These two song seem to call all the outcasts to come and experience God’s love. But what about Avalon’s orphan, Michael Passions? In 2004 the press releases stated that Passions had left the group to peruse a solo career, and Janna Long’s husband Greg would be stepping in. In 2020, Passions revealed that he was asked to leave the group due to his sexuality. But solely blaming the members of Avalon for orphaning one of their founding members is missing the point. In his interview with The Washington Blade (see link above), Passions reveals that the record label (Sparrow Records) kept a “tight [sic] rein on [the group] because they created the group, it was their idea.” Hence the contradictory story McBrayer allegedly told in an interview with CCM Magazine when Passions left the group. We could only brush the surface of the scandals in CCM in today’s post, and there seems to be much more to talk about Avalon, Russ Taff, and the underbelly of the industry itself. It’s always interesting to cover Christian music because there’s “Thou shalt not lie” meets the tight reins of PR and image consulting. But instead of directly supporting Avalon, why not check out Ty Herndon and Kristen Chenoweth‘s inclusive version of “Orphans of God“?
The first single from Ariana Grande‘s second record, My Everything, in 2014, “Problem” established Grande as a pop power force. Grande certainly has talent. While appearing in the Nickelodeon teen show Victorious, Grande uploaded covers to her YouTube channel, which landed her a deal with Republic Records in 2011. Her debut record, Yours Truly, was released in 2013 and featured a few modest-charting hits. Listeners could feel a similarity with Mariah Carey from Yours Truly, and for some reason, Republic Records went bigger with Grande’s follow up, My Everything, the next year.
EVEN THOUGH I HATE YA, I WANNA LOVE YA. Rock bands typically have one producer for an entire record. The goal is to produce a cohesive record that is to be enjoyed in one play. Pop records used to be produced like this, and sometimes indie and major pop albums still are. But in order to get a hit, record labels often turn to multiple hitmakers to diversify a pop record. Ariana Grande’s second record My Everything is a prime example of a record label throwing everything at it an album to produce a hit. Working with everyone from Ryan Tedder to Zedd to David Guetta to today’s song’s producers the power team of Max Martin, Shellback, and ILYA. Grande’s lyrics on “Problem” are minimal but memorable with Australian rapper and the featured artist of the day to have on a track, Iggy Azalea, does a lot of the heavy lifting for the song. The Swedish production team then adds Big Sean‘s whispers as an effect in a kind of Timbaland production technique.
I KNOW I SHOULD NEVER CALL BACK. Republic Records investment in the 5’3″ Boca Raton native certainly paid off. Although the singer wouldn’t score a #1 Billboard Hot 100 hit until 2018’s hit “thank u, next,” Grande became a consistent hit maker. Listeners might pick up that today’s song, “Problem” the second in Grande’s Hot 100 canon, plays by the Max Martin rule book. The podcasters from Switched on Poptried to map out some of the Max Martin principles in a 2021 episode of the series titled “Searching for Max Martin.” Multiple hooks (from a funky saxophone to Ariana’s soaring vocals on the bridge to Big Sean’s whispering, genre changing), “Don’t bore us, get to the chorus,” a repetitive, memorable chorus, and use of “Blank Space” as an anti-hook hook seem to apply in this case. The mid ’10s seemed to spark a revival for the saxophone. Later that year, Grande would release her collaborative hit with Nicki Minaj and Jessie J, “Bang, Bang,” also co-staring the saxophone. South Korean girl group EXID would release their biggest hit later that summer “Up & Down” (위 아래) and the next year’s hit “Ah Yeah,” featuring gratuitous sax. And of course we’re not forgetting M83’s 2011 hit “Midnight City” or how Carly Rae Jepsen took us emotionally back to the ‘80s with the sax on her 2015 record Emotion. A Max Martin track is all about giving listeners exactly what they want. And in 2014, sax sells!
Survivor formed in 1978 when the lead singer and guitarist of the band The Ides of March, Jim Peterick, joined with bassist and guitarist of a jazz-rock fusion band called Chase, Dennis Keith Johnson and Gary Smith, guitarist Frankie Sullivan, and c0-vocalist/keyboardist Dave Bickler. The Chicago-based band played local gigs including at a local pizzeria called My Pi and released their self-titled debut record on Atlantic Records in 1980.
JUST A MAN AND HIS WILL TO SURVIVE. Survivor scored a minor hit on their second record, Premonitionwith the song “Poor Man’s Son.” The band had begun to hone their sound by replacing the jazz-based drummer and bassist, Johnson and Smith, relegating Peterick to backing vocals and focusing Bickler as the lead singer of the band. The band’s 1981 hit may have faded into obscurity along with the band but actor/writer/producer Sylvester Stallone approached the band to write an anthemic disco-based rock song to be the theme of the actor’s third installment of his Rockyfranchise. Stallone had the idea to use Queen‘s “Another One Bites the Dust” in the film but was unable to secure the rights. Hearing “Poor Man’s Son” on the radio, Stallone found a template in an up-and-coming band, and he was able to commission the kind of song he wanted for his film. Survivor was keen to every suggestion Stallone had for the song, rather than trying to cling to every artistic decision.
FACE TO FACE, OUT IN THE HEAT. Sylvester Stallone’s defining role as Rocky Balboa came with its own fight. Stallone had to insist that he play the character after writing the screenplay and presenting it to United Artists. Stallone wanted to make his film his way, starring himself rather than the studio’s pressure to cast an established star, not an actor who had only been cast in supporting roles. Stallone and his agents won and Rocky was a major success. Six years later, listening to Stallone was a canny decision, and Survivor scored a number-one hit on Billboard’s Hot 100for six weeks with “Eye of the Tiger.” While it’s easy to say that the song’s success hinged on the phenomenon of Rocky III and continues to live on as a meme, I think today’s song is a sold rock anthem every bit deserving of its popularity. The ’80s was a time of cheesy rock anthems from Europe‘s “Final Countdown” to anything produced by Jim Steinman—Meat Loaf to Bonnie Tyler. You seriously can’t take ’80s rock too seriously, and if you do, it won’t stand up to more serious decades. And there’s something about these 40-year-old songs that has 2022’s pop culture missing the summer blockbusters us middle and younger millennials and Zoomers never got to experience.
Bananarama formed in 1980 when childhood friends Sara Dallin and Keren Woodword moved from Bristol to London and met Siobhan Fahey. Dallin and Woodword lived in the WYCA and were out of money until Sex Pistols’ drummer Paul Cook offered them a place to live above the band’s old rehearsal room. Bananarama took their name from the Roxie Music song “Pyjamarama.” The trio were fans of the punk rock and post-punk scene in London and ultimately became a New Wave hit making machine lasting from 1982 with their breakthrough hit as a featured artist on Fun Boy Three‘s “It Ain’t What You Do” (It’s How You Do It) to the early ’90s.
IT’S TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT. Bananaramawere on the pop side of New Wave along with some of their friends in the music industry Wham! and Duran Duran. In 2020, the remaining members of Bananarama, Sara Dallin and Keren Woodword wrote a book about their experience throughout their almost fifty years of friendship and nearly forty years as a band titled, Really Saying Something: Sara & Keren – Our Story. On the Talking Successpodcast the duo talked about the process of writing this book, being autonomous women in a music industry that preferred female artists to submit to the direction of managers and labels, and their reconciliation with the band’s third member, Siobhan Fahey, who left the group in 1988 to form the alternative band Shakespeare’s Sister. From this interview, listeners, especially us not alive or cognizant for the early crashings of the New Wave, can get a sense of what it was like to be an ’80s pop star when MTV was still young and exciting, when the band’s fashion was whatever they could afford from their day jobs. We can experience what their Top of the Pops success looked like and whaat it was like to be a self-curated fashion icon when it didn’t matter how cheesy the video was as long as the song had a hook.
THE CITY IS CROWDED, MY FRIENDS ARE AWAY. Bananarama’s debut record Deep Sea Skivingproduced several hits in the U.K., but it wasn’t until 1984 that they made an impact in the United States. The song was “Cruel Summer,” which was the opening track on their sophomore eponymous release. “Cruel Summer” was a #8 single in the UK in the summer of 1983, and due to a key placement in the 1984 film The Karate Kid, the song reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1984. Bananarama shot their music video in Brooklyn, and according to singer Siobhan Fahey in the 2011 book I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolutionby Rob Tannenbaum there is quite an interesting story behind the video. Fahey explains that the video was “just an excuse to get us to the fabled city of New York for the first time.” True to the nature of the song, the video was shot during a 100-degree heatwave. The group set up base in a bar under the Brooklyn Bridge, shot all morning, returned for lunch at the bar only to make friends with dock workers who shared cocaine which was their lunch, and they got back to shooting the video. “Cruel Summer” is not the typical feel-good summer anthem. Dallin said of the song in a 2018 Guardianinterview, that the song is about the “darker side: it looked at the oppressive heat, the misery of wanting to be with someone as the summer ticked by.”
Until June‘s self-titled debut record is still available on streaming services. The band released the record in 2006 on the Christian record label Flicker Records, then distributed by Sony Music. Six years later, the band released their follow-up, Young & Foolishon Madison Line Records. Then in 2014, the band ceased all activity, but never declared a break-up. Currently, Young & Foolish is unavailable on streaming services.
IF YOU FALL FROM ME, WOULD YOU LOSE CONTROL? “Summer Lover” certainly isn’t the first song about wanting more than a summer fling. Songs about falling in love while on vacation as you slip away from the friends or family you are there with only to be excited by someone new and interesting and unavailable in your current life situation make us sweat those tepid summer evenings away. The speaker of the song wants more than just a vacation, there’s also more to it. In this very short song, there’s a vague spiritual urgency for the listener’s fidelity. Not only does he not want her to be only his summer lover, but also he wonders if she will fall from him if she “will lose control?” If this were just as casual as we were led to believe from the airy rock guitars, we would probably say something like, “Lighten up, dude. You probably should check your patriarchy at the front desk.” But is this the whiny voice of God in this song? I can just picture the sermon title, “He wants more than a summer lover.” He wants your whole heart. Let’s hope that this is a spiritual relationship because it kind of falls apart if it weren’t, but it certainly doesn’t go with a mujerist interpretation of scripture.
I WANT MORE THAN A SUMMER LOVER. It all started with a sermon. It was probably the last sermon that I let myself take too seriously when I thought that I could still fit into the stoic format. If I were faithful, somehow my life would feel fulfilled. I tried to fix things on my own, and held myself back by dating the best I could, and in my case, it was a guy who believed in God. I even insisted that we pray together on the phone at night, but was that before or after we jerked off together? But of course, I was dating a man, having sex before marriage, and if it even mattered, he wasn’t Seventh-day Adventist. And yet this relationship had become vapid as it was bound to become. A relationship based on physical touch when he had been put on an assignment that kept us apart for a long time. A language barrier. An age gap of about 15 years. A true lack of a sense of future. And yet he’s kinda sorta Christian. I wanted more. I wanted not to feel alone. I wanted to enjoy the last of my twenties, uninhibited by a restrictive religion that told me to contort myself into something that was so foreign to my body, and for longing for what was natural for me was unattainable? Yet I feared the consequences. The STDs, the shame. So if I could stay faithful to my man, to my God, and just delete Grindr. But it was just too addictive.
Mixtapemotions 