Striking a Chord: Songs That Make Us Feel
By: Nuance Media
Tags: Relationships, Love, LGBTQ, Sex, Music

Music is religious to me in the way that I rely on lyrics and melodies to react to my feelings, like prayers. Where there is a moment, there is a song. Where there is fear, there is an arpeggiated sneer to rid us of negativity. Where there is love, there is rhythm and poetry to describe our emotions for us, embody our physical urges into lyrics, and translate confusing thoughts into beats. Love is at the centre of most music, whether it’s love for the night, ourselves, sex or partners. While words are my thing, and I’m working on becoming more expressive through physicality, music has always been my go-to form of expressing love for others. Each layer of production that goes into a song is symbolic and expresses emotions that I want to share but feel I don’t have enough words or knowledge to express.

In other words, songs speak feelings that I struggle to verbalize.

My partner and I have exchanged music religiously since the start of our relationship. Our happiest memories are encapsulated in catchy tunes and meaningful melodies. Like scents, songs bring us back to the early days of our relationship and have always allowed us to document what we share. I’m not much of a photo person, anyways. I love making my partner playlists; and I love receiving theirs, too. It’s my way of saying, ‘Here’s how you make me feel. Here are the sounds that remind me of you. Here are the songs I want you to listen to when you want to think of me.’ Each phase of our relationship has a playlist; some I never meant to share with my partner, but eventually did. The first time we said, ‘I love you,’ has about an hour and 53 minutes worth of music devoted to it. Times we’ve fought have songs too, but I’ve kept those to myself, for now.

Music has meant so much to me all my life because it’s how I perfected the English language. It’s where I saw non-white people creating art I could relate to. It’s pivotal to how I built my identity transitioning to Canada after immigration. I learned how to express emotions through poetry and song before I learned how to do so through prose. So, the playlists I make for my partner are more than just songs to make them smile; they’re me saying, ‘This is the best way I can describe to you how I feel.’

I’ve always been curious to see if other people perceive music the way I do. That’s why I wanted to explore what songs mean for others when it comes to love, sensuality, and intimacy. Music resonates the most for me in these areas in particular. Thus, Nuance reached out to our community to hear about the songs that have influenced our sexual and romantic journeys the most. Thank you to all of our contributors!

The whole playlist is available for listening on your preferred music platform at the bottom of the article.

Take Me To Church — Hozier

Submitted By: Elizabeth

Not so much in shaping as it is confirming how I feel spirituality fits into the conversation of my sexuality. I feel like the song does a pretty good job of playing with concepts of the erotic embodied through theorists like Jacqui Alexander n Audre Lorde. I didn’t know there was a queer storyline in the music video so it only cemented how I loved the song as expression of the possibilities of convergence btw the erotic and divine, esp through queer love.