Music
Weeks before Spotify dropped the yearly Wrapped playlists, I already knew what my top song of 2020 would be. In fact, most people in my life knew what my top song would be. When I checked mine on December 2, sure enough, there it was.
My most played song of 2020 is Caroline Polachek’s “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” from her 2019 album Pang. Streamed a whopping 127 times since January 15, it has been the one song that has remained on my On Repeat playlist in spite of the new releases brought about by the year.
“So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” is sung from the perspective of one-half of a long-distance relationship, a half that yearns so fiercely that just the thought of the other pains them. The lyrics are simple and a little ridiculous (one of the lyrics is “show me the banana”), but paint a vivid image of a lover that feigns nonchalance but actually cares deeply to the point of behaving a little unhinged.
What I love about this song is how, when taken in the context of the rest of the album, it sticks out like a sore thumb. Pang as a whole is a slower, more haunting record that I once described as “spooky pop.” A lot of the songs’ imagery parallel or tie into each other like Door and Hit Me Where It Hurts. “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings,” on the other hand, is goofy and reckless. It can be seen as a drunken voice message at 2 AM or a butterflies-in-my-stomach journal entry. Polachek spills her guts with unabashed love and invites the listener to do the same.
I discovered the song in January, which was a much different time than now. In January, I had grand plans for the year. I was going to go abroad, kick off my final year of college, get drunk at friends’ 21st birthday parties, and fall in love with the sights and sounds of youth.
Safe to say, I had no idea what was coming. I did go abroad but couldn’t do much in a city I love. I came back and was shuffled off into my house, celebrating birthdays on Zoom, and extending my college stay by one more year. It has been stressful, lonely, and oftentimes, depressing, watching a year of my “roaring twenties” slip away.
What this song gives me is a comfort zone to belt my heart out with pent-up reckless abandon, the yearning for a life that could have been. 12 months later, I still get a dopey smile on my face when this song plays, even in the middle of a breakdown, because it makes me so incredibly happy. I dance around my room and look forward to the day I get to dance with my friends again. A friend of mine has told me repeatedly that she thinks when we see each other again in person, the song will play like a soundtrack. I kind of hope it will.I’m not one to have a single favorite song. I tend to like a lot of songs all at once and play them on repeat until I get sick of them and move on. “So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings” has not been one of those. Its wit and energy has cemented its place as my favorite song, my song of the year, and I love every second of it.
