“I Got a Feeling” by Neva Denova. It’s not a famous band or song, but its so incredibly sad and angry and nihilistic and there’s nothing else that comes close. When I’m feeling really shitty though, it kind of cheers me up. It has this long sing-along outro, “The world’s a shitty place, and I can’t wait to die.” But after repeating this over and over the song ends and someone in the background says affectionately, “I’m just kidding world, you know I love you.” I’ve struggled with intrusive negative thoughts for most of my life, and there is something cathartic about having my internal pain externalized in song-form, and that final line is like a voice I’ve had to develop that fights against all the negativity, to like survive the worst of the blackest depressions. Except instead of taking no small amount of energy to consciously or automatically summon that voice, it comes easy; it’s right on the recording, and it plays every time.

I wouldn’t say I’m embarrassed to tell people about the song, but I do think people would worry about me if they knew I listened to it when at my worst. But it really makes me feel like, “well at least I’m not that depressed and nihilistic,” and it helps.