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Stories in Beat that you’ll love, handpicked by our team.
Sounds of the Cottage. Runner-Up in The Soundtrack of Your Year Challenge.
The evening that my best friend Julia texted, I was having a glass of wine with my husband. The dogs were sprawled all over us like live rugs, the windows and sliding door were open to let in the spring breeze and we were having one of those ‘intellectual masturbation’ sessions where you randomly discuss nothing and everything about life, including its meaning.
By Marlena Guzowskiabout a year ago in Beat
The Splashback
A Sandwich Short of a Picnic My ears ring. Alarm in perpetuity. The hammer and pluck of too many questions. A fighting chime of chords made from clashing notes of doom and discombobulation. They flow along staves of shady tidal waves, scouring open wounds with salt as they bite down to chew on the rot of my grey matter. Above and below, the moon swims limp and flat, leached of purpose and offering no destination. I howl into its mirror as my gilt- edged tears slosh down my cheeks in rivers of orange. Ironclad life rusting out of me in heavy metal groans—a tinman of brittle bones and weight. My mouth is dumb, filled with a pink marshmallow tongue that has spent too long licking saccharine walls, ceilings, and floors. Searching for doors. My teeth have melted in the constancy of the candyfloss storm clouds that spin, unending, in my lipstick-stained walk of shame sky. Once, I was one note in the dark beating a solitary and expectant rhythm—an incubated womb dweller dreaming of life—reverberating with diastolic and systolic ebb and flow. Harmony, my primal beat, my yin and yang. Then, the orchestra of joy and fear began. As the conductor tapped the baton, I screamed. Will humanity ever fill its void? The auditorium has grown so big, globalised and homogenised. It hums with white noise and hankers for syncopated beats. I cannot find my feet. The light fantastic has tripped out, and I keep falling over in the dark. It has a lot to do with this beige straight jacket of civility. It isn't me. I may drown in the sweat that pours as I try to wriggle free. It's either that, or I will throttle myself trying. Choke holds where blood should flow. Pedal to the metal. A hyperventilated state. Hope has anarchised into a four-letter word. I have tattooed it on my head because no matter how much I pack it with ice into my heart, it thaws its way out of me. A dose of salts seeping from my pores, leaking from my eyes, crusting on my lips. Bittersweet and antiseptic. My heartstrings are soggy. They play loopy tunes that nobody can sing along to, and my picnics are always one sandwich short. I used to know how to make a meal of it. One day, I will have a gathering where everyone laughs at themselves. I shall attend, and I shall arrive naked.
By Caroline Janeabout a year ago in Beat
Hard rain fall
Couple of weeks ago, I talked to some young people about Bob Dylan and the new Searchlight Pictures movie A Complete Unknown. It was clear from the way they spoke that, even if they had heard of Dylan, they were not familiar with any of his music. Unlike (say) The Beatles, Bob Dylan was very much of his generation. Beatles songs continue because they have a sort of timelessness to them and have been widely emulated by the likes of Britpop band Oasis, among others. Dylan's music lived, and kinda died, with the hippy era of free love, peace and anti-war protest. Those young people who have never heard songs such as Like a Rolling Stone are going to hear a lot more of Dylan this year.
By Raymond G. Taylorabout a year ago in Beat
A Bittersweet Symphony
Counting down from December (right now, as at the time of writing) to the beginning of 2024. The beginning of the year that is about to end (2024) is way different and significant than the ending. This may be true to form for some people, where the next holiday season leaves off from the last one somehow. In other words, you are revisiting any unfinished business from the previous holiday season in the current one, whatever shape or form that comes across for yourself.
By Justine Crowleyabout a year ago in Beat
Folk, Love and Hope
The soundtrack of my year started off with the song Alaska by Caiola , an indie-folk singer. I had a new relationship starting to grow, but my fear of commitment to something more was creeping in. One of the lyrics is about resisting the urge to add another affirmation to the list on his lover's wall. Because that meant adding to their life and he asks if they were leaving or just coming home. I resonated with that greatly since I was always asking myself if I was coming or going. Whether I was going to finally stay this time, and had I found my home. He sings about being terrified to let the relationship mature, and wonders if they even should. That became a reoccurring line in my life, and in everything I did. I used to tell myself I was doing the right thing by leaving by hoping to spare them the pain of staying. I wondered if I was worthy of adding another line to their life. Always afraid that I might want to stay for once so I resisted.
By Matthew Mccaheyabout a year ago in Beat
My 2024 Playlist
The year is wrapped in a cloudy layer of memory fog. Where the beginning of the year seems like a distant reality. If anything I see the future a lot more clearly. That being said, I find that I struggle to remember a lot of things because I am shifting; I am transforming. A few months ago, I had the realization that I was not who I wanted to be and I was falling into repetitive cycles of trauma and depression. Ultimately, I was sick of it. I had to make it feel better. And If I was going to grow then I needed to look at what I had been doing, accept that the past served me, but no longer does and move on to what I wanted to become. And even with the year coming to a close, I am not done this change. In fact it is only the beginning. However, I understand that the past plays a significant role in who we become, and since I believe this to be true, than perhaps we can live through it again in the songs I listened too over and over again.
By Lane Burnsabout a year ago in Beat
Shake it Out
I have made so much progress in my eating disorder recovery that it is SCREAMING for control again. With this progress comes WAY more fighting. I thought it was bad a month ago and now I cry when meals are placed in front of me. I'm breaking but I need to stay strong... For myself. I'm doing that through music that helps me. One of those songs is Shake it Out. Almost every line has a deep meaning to what I'm going through.
By Rene Petersabout a year ago in Beat
