Minor Feelings

Song by Rina Sawayama

## Visualiser

"**Minor Feelings**" is a song recorded by Rina Sawayama, opening track off her sophomore studio album *Hold the Girl*, which was released by Dirty Hit on 16 September 2022. Sawayama co-wrote the song with Lauren Aquilina and Vic Jamieson, and its production was handled by Barney Lister and Clarence Clarity.

## Background

The track title was inspired by *Minor Feelings* from Korean-American poet Cathy Park Hong, who wrote a "collection of essays" with her own experiences to support her arguments on the marginalized community feelings. "It's the name she gives to this collective feeling that a lot of Asian Americans have about racial micro-aggressions, and I really connected with that, because for me it was a collection of all these minor feelings that has now led to a pretty major shutdown of emotions," said Sawayama for Apple Music.

During a listening party for *Hold the Girl* on 16 September 2022, Sawayama revealed that "Minor Feelings" was originally an interlude placed somewhere in the middle of the album, before realizing that it "would be the perfect beginning" of *Hold the Girl.*

## Composition

"Minor Feelings" is a "short, atmospheric" track that opens the album *Hold the Girl* and, according to Thomas Bedenbaugh from *Slant* magazine, it "introduce[s] several themes" that Sawayama will go on "to explore across the album's remaining 12 tracks." "All my life I've felt out of place," Sawayama "croons" over "minimal backdrop", according to David Smyth from *Evening Standard*. The song opens with a sample of the 2019 British coming-of-age film *Rocks*. At the end of the song, with raining sounds, it is transitioned into the next track "Hold the Girl".

Musically, Sawayama wanted to play with the minor and the major chords in the music of the song, "so in the chorus when I say 'minor feelings' it's minor and then major when I say 'majorly getting me down.'"

## Critical reception

While reviewing the album *Hold the Girl*, Rho Chung from *The Skinny* felt that "Minor Feelings" opens the album with a "heartfelt, almost gospel-esque meditation" on traumas that "follow us into adulthood". Comparing the song with "Dynasty", the opening track off Rina's 2020 debut album *Sawayama*, David Smyth from *Evening Standard* felt that Rina might have "calmed down a little." Writing for *Gigwise*, Susan Hansen felt that with "Minor Feelings" Sawayama's existence is "uncovered quite early" on the record. She added, "[it's] a difficult feeling that emerges as a flashback from childhood, but then gets processed through the eyes of an adult."

John Amen from *PopMatters* wrote: "'Minor Feelings' is a promising blend of glammy vocals and synthy splashes, an arena-friendly production that establishes the project’s commitment to mainstream appeal." Jordan Currie from *Exclaim!* felt that the song mirrors similar feelings Sawayama explored on her 2020 debut album, and described it as a "brief but mystical" proclamation of yearning to belong and finding one's place in the world as a queer Japanese-British woman. Annabel Nugent from *The Independent* described the song as a "lovely but uncharacteristically sombre" opener for Sawayama, "an artist whose default setting is 11."

## Lyrics

How am I supposed to feel

When you're telling me that nothing in my life is real?

When you throw your words and hide behind a plastic shield

I just sit and smile

Writing my own fairytales

Building forts between the sofa and the windowsill

Dreaming of the day I'm tall enough to save myself

But I was just a child

What it takes to recognize

Emotions that I try to hide

The more I keep them all inside

The more they bury me alive

All my life, I've felt out of place

All my life, I've been saving face

Well, all these minor feelings

Are majorly breaking me down (Breaking me down)

All my life, you took me for a fool

All my life, you told me what to do

All these minor feelings

Are majorly getting to me now

## References

1. ↑ "Tickets for Rina Sawayama | Galvanizers SWG3". TicketWeb.uk (18 May 2022). Archived from the original on May 22, 2022. Retrieved on May 18, 2022.
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Rina Sawayama (16 September 2022). "*Hold the Girl* by Rina Sawayama on Apple Music". Apple Music (US). Dirty Hit. Retrieved on September 16, 2022.
3. ↑ RINA SLAYWAYAMA [@rinasawayama] (16 September 2022). "Rina Sawayama on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved on September 16, 2022. “#HoldTheGirl Track 1. Minor feelings”
4. ↑ Bedenbaugh, Thomas (19 September 2022). "Rina Sawayama 'Hold the Girl' Review: Artistic Growth at the Expense of Hooks". *Slant*. Retrieved on September 24, 2022.
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Smyth, David (16 September 2022). "Rina Sawayama - Hold the Girl review: An enjoyably unpredictable world". *Evening Standard*. Retrieved on September 24, 2022.
6. ↑ Chung, Rho (12 September 2022). "Rina Sawayama album review: Hold the Girl". *The Skinny*. Retrieved on September 24, 2022.
7. ↑ Hansen, Susan. "Album Review: Rina Sawayama - Hold the Girl". *Gigwise*. Retrieved on September 24, 2022.
8. ↑ https://www.popmatters.com/rina-sawayama-hold-the-girl
9. ↑ https://exclaim.ca/music/article/rina\_sawayama\_hold\_the\_girl\_album\_review
10. ↑ https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/reviews/rina-sawayama-hold-the-girl-review-b2167903.html