Song Essays

Teenager by Steven Kidder, Song #4: “Feeling Down”

“Feeling Down”, the fourth track on the album “Teenager” by Steven Kidder, has a sense of triumph in its melancholy. The initial lyrics are striking in their laying bare of the confusion surrounding indolence:

“Don’t want to work // don’t want to play

Don’t want to plan // not sure that I can

Maybe a snack // is the thing I lack

Maybe some friends // gonna help in the end”

This is a song that is filled with questions and few answers. We have all been in this position as people, that space between crippling sadness and general malaise where the ability to execute our day to day tasks can become difficult if not existentially confusing. I love how chill the music is underneath these lyrics initially. Soft piano tones mixed with the signature sonar-like beeps and clicks of this record begin to slowly build from a classic downtempo style to something more soaring. The drums do a lot of heavy lifting in this sense, slowly building throughout the song and dropping out when appropriate to highlight certain lyrics.

There is a sense of tongue-in-cheek attitude at times as well that I really appreciated in this song. (“Maybe a cry//my oh my”, “Maybe some weed//is the thing I need”). I think all good art and music needs to cut the floor out from itself at times, and the way Steven hits that “my oh my” towards the end of the song really helped humanize the art for me.

This track comes towards the middle of the album where things take a decidedly darker turn in lyrics and sonics, setting the table for one of the most complex tracks on the whole record, “Dysfunctional Hell”. I found that it sits in the whole record extremely well and serves as an excellent point of transition.

“Feeling Down” is simply a fantastic track. I’m going to put on a kettle of tea, go outside and listen to it again, and perhaps cry a bit.

-C