a song i liked: "Good Days" by SZA

a song i liked is an essay series that both reviews a new song and interrogates how it may either relate to other musical works or fit in to broader, more personal experiences

The first time I broke up with somebody I cared about I was really, really bad at it. I felt terrible for hurting them and tripped over my words so much we both would have benefited from live-action closed captioning. I remember finally descending from my manic meme-speak and saying, “I just feel so bad for wasting your time.” Gracious as they were, they responded, “It wasn’t a waste. No time with you was a waste.” I should have cried, but instead I left soon after, throwing up finger guns before I exited.

The first time I was broken up with by a friend I was initially really, really bad at it. I had to work hard to be gentle with my self-esteem. I reminded myself that the friendship we shared wasn’t all a scam. But I surprised myself with my ability to give myself grace. I taught myself how to have gratitude for the love and growth I experienced, and still would. I understood for myself that really, no time was wasted.

Still, nothing has tested my patience for wasted time more than my relationship to Americanism. I know you know what the f*ck I’m talking about. If 250 years of capitalist oppression didn’t ring a bell, the unravelling of political truths amidst a global crisis this year must have. My mother confided in me: “Why did we immigrate to this country, if it’s all just the same?” I can’t console her, but I can say that not all of that time was wasted. There have been good days, and still there will be.

Although I’ve happily let her debut album, Ctrl (2017), soundtrack the last three years of my life, singer and songwriter SZA dropped her new single, “Good Days,” right into my heavy rotation. If anyone can convince me of a brighter future, it is this woman. “Good Days” is SZA’s second single of 2020, following her September release featuring Ty Dolla $ign, “Hit Different.” Fans, myself included, salivated over the nearly 2-minute snippet that tagged the end of the “Hit Different” music video. SZA finally released the official song on Christmas Day, 2020 and suddenly I believe Santa Claus is real.

Like she proved on Ctrl (2017), SZA has a masterful ability to shape some of her most vulnerable thoughts into a song that feels like she sent it to you, her good friend, directly from her iPhone Voice Memos. The pre-chorus says:

Tryna make sense of loose change

Got me a war in my mind

Gotta let go of weight, can't keep what's holding me

Choose to watch while the world break up and fall on me

I consider SZA the tough-love friend who yells at me: the war in our mind might as well be helmed by General You and Sargeant You and let’s not forget, Lieutenant You. Like, it doesn’t need to be a war. We can decide that. As much as we insist upon questioning our capacity to feel good, when clearly the world is “fall[ing] on [us],” it is also entirely possible to “let go of weight.” The chorus affirms:

All the while, I'll await my armored fate with a smile

I still wanna try, still believe in

Good days, good days, always

Always inside (Always in my mind, always in my mind, mind)

Good day living in my mind

I often refer to myself as a pessimist. I don’t blame myself for this, for the inclination to doubt. I’ve seen enough times the gradual rust of “sterling silver” to cheap nickel, the refusal of a wine stain to disappear, the destruction of forever by one last ignored text. I, like SZA, have “[felt] like Jericho, [felt] like Job when he lost his shit.” And as a 12-years-of-Catholic-school veteran, those words carry weight for me. But just as I can choose the illusion of sadness on one of my best weeks by listening to Angel Olsen in a dark room, I too can choose optimism, and perhaps happiness. When sh*t is bleak, I can “hold my own.” SZA started to find her way to this autonomy when she wrote Ctrl (2017). On her debut album, she followed her grandmother’s advice and questioned her relationship to control. Here, on “Good Days,” SZA understands that while she can’t control what happens to her, she can control how she feels about it.

“Good Days,” is sonically so different from “Hit Different,” and SZA herself explained in a September interview with Zane Lowe that “Everything [on the new album] sounds different, but it all sounds like me.” I would have to agree. When I first heard the lush strings on this track, it immediately sparked my memory of an Instagram Live SZA recorded sometime this past summer. She sat in a large, sunny room and conducted an ethereal sound bath for her viewers. The echoes of the string production on “Good Days” mirror the echoes of bouncing frequencies from that room.

SZA often refers to energy: of sound, of her being, of her environment. Released just a week before the new year, “Good Days” definitely softens the weight of all the dark energy preceding its release. This year forced me to mentally regress into an adolescent state: my girlfriend and I bought a PS4, I called my mom more than I called my friends, I played Club Penguin on more than one occasion… I even listened to Drake (like, a lot). I relied a lot on nostalgia and simple pleasures. This song feels like the gentle touch of my father’s hand on my lower back, just before he lets go. So I glide forward on my bicycle, encouraged again to hold myself up on my own.