It is safe to say that Wet Leg has shot up to become one of my top artists in recent months. Addicting, raw, and relatable lyrics, every song hits hard, and I will continue to devour each masterpiece. Speaking of relatable, Valentine’s Day is coming up, and I want to talk a little bit about what it feels like to be in love or something close to it. Whether it be a situationship, long-term, just friends, or whatever you want to call it, it is overwhelming to say the least. Feeling emotions like love comes with almost every side effect imaginable.
I’ll admit, it would be much easier to sit back and relax while someone else takes on autopilot in stressful situations like this. Unfortunately, human technology has not advanced thus far, and I am left with the duty of feeling these emotions. Researchers from Harvard say that the “[l]evels of the stress hormone cortisol increase during the initial phase of romantic love, marshaling our bodies to cope with the ‘crisis’ at hand.” It is a fact that our bodies begin a season of stress and extreme emotional turmoil when we begin to experience romantic love. I would much rather be going on coffee dates with my friends instead of wrestling with my emotions and feeling the result of my stomach holding a gymnastics competition each time I think about something they said, did, or recall our most recent date.
If you haven’t listened to “Being In Love” by Wet Leg, I implore you to do so NOW. When I heard this song for the first time, I couldn’t stop thinking, Wow, this is exactly what (being in love) feels like. This song makes me feel seen, understood, and at the same time a little insane. The chorus is intoxicatingly eerie, making me want to give in to my delusions and start creating an entire fantasy world for myself. Am I succumbing to delusion, or am I just experiencing the feeling of what it’s like to be in love?
“I need a lie down / Only just got up / I feel so uninspired / I feel like giving up.”
These lyrics perfectly describe the immobilizing feeling of having your emotions take complete control of your body. The lines continue to shape the intimate feelings, irrevocably controlling you.
“I feel like someone has / Punched me in the guts / But I kinda like it / ‘Cause it feels like being in love.”
I know that I have experienced this overwhelming feeling, that my insides are churning out, being so struck and unable to escape my body’s anxiety whirlwind. Is that just what being in love feels like?
“The world is caving in / And I’m kinda struggling.”
The first real date I went on was with a boy whom I had a crush on for over a year, so the pressure was on. On that date, I couldn’t control the anxiety that ruled my body. My legs were shaking so badly that he offered me a blanket, thinking I was cold. I felt like in the past hour I had fallen ill with some mysterious disease. The dramatic weight of the situation made me feel more and more out of control, my body not being able to discern whether it was just going on a simple date or something life-threatening.
Wet Leg sings,
“I think I lost my shit.”
As I mentioned before, during this season of “love”, even if that’s not how you’re experiencing it, I encourage you to listen to this song. Think about times that you have felt so deliriously in love, lust, or simply delusional. Let yourself be swept away by the melodies that swept me away the first time I listened to this song, then immediately add it to all of your playlists and play it on repeat just as I did. I hope you feel some element of crazy like I do, and I hope you embrace it. After all, as Harvard proves, stress is a natural way to help us cope with this crazy “crisis”, and it makes us more human when we are in love.