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A Rare Example of Me Liking Pop Music

When I was around thirteen, I discovered pop music for the first time. And yes, discovered as in never heard it before. My parents didn’t allow us to listen to the radio outside of Classical public radio, not even the Christian music station, which could have been understandable for an reason other than the one we were given: back beats are evil, and they make you do sinful things. In any case, I still discovered a magical world of music I’d never heard. Music made specifically to be catchy and fun and feel-good, with little deeper meaning behind the lyrics. I had various sneaky methods of enjoying myself as a tween and young teenager, like using my portable CD player that had a radio on it, but pretending to listen to an audio book, or looking up music videos or anime on the library computer or at home while pretending to do homework or educational games. I’d already learned by this point that if I wanted to enjoy something, I had to do it in secret.

As an adult, my tastes in music have changed and I tend to stay clear of content with shallow messages of partying, sex, and drugs. The music in recent years feels gross and unimaginative, but somehow I still feel a wave of happy nostalgia whenever I hear a song from my younger years. Call Me Maybe, Wide Awake and Fireflies are some favorites from the time that still play on the radio occasionally. One song I fell in love with was The A Team by Ed Sheeran. It is beautifully sung and well arranged, an acoustic song with no back beat, so I had no guilt in the pleasure of listening to it whenever it came on the radio. The song tells the tale of a poor girl trying to make ends meet, and how those ends were met exactly I was unaware of. I was always lost in the scenery. "They say, she’s in the Class A Team, stuck in her daydream, been this way since eighteen, but lately, her face seems slowly sinking, wasting…" I, too, was stuck in a daydream from a young age. I didn’t know who this girl was or how she’d gotten into this situation, but I felt her empty desperation. I had printed up the lyrics to this song because I loved singing along every time I heard it, and wanted to be able to sing it on my own.

My parents discovered the printed page, and confronted me about it, explaining me how horrible the song was, and what was I thinking? They were gracious when I wailed my explanation, I didn’t know what it was about, just that it didn’t have a back beat so I thought it was okay. I didn’t listen to the song for a long time after that. I felt so silly. Felt like I couldn’t enjoy it the same way, now that I new what a call girl was.

I returned to the song recently and was surprised to find I no longer felt shame towards the explicit content. Instead, I felt her raw survival, and not just from interest in her story. I don’t know how Ed Sheeran managed to write about a drug addicted sex worker and not shame her, but it is wonderful to see the compassion for her in the way he wrote her story.

Having moved out of my childhood home to become an independent adult, it makes sense I would relate to the song on a different level now. I've come to form new beliefs and opinions from what was instilled in me growing up. The girl in the song is no longer a "prostitute" but a sex worker, and she probably didn't become dependent on drug usage because she was sinful, but because she needed an escape from her situation... A situation which I've been close to, in the sense that we both live in a society hostile towards its citizens, especially women, and finding a way out of the poverty and danger we're trapped in can be difficult if not impossible.

I’ve had my eyes opened to the depravity of the country. I am frightened of what could happen, if I were less fortunate, or if something were to throw me against the tides of life in a way that leaves me optionless. Would I too become a "call girl"? Would I turn to substance abuse to calm my nerves, to escape? I’m comforted by the options I have, but I still can’t avoid a sense of discomfort in how easily it could all change.

I like to imagine the girl in the song was freed from her pain in some way.
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