Hit Play

By Eda Gunaydin, Out Of School

I listen to The Violent Femmes’ eponymous album a lot, especially when I walk Rozelle Bay, my favourite place in Sydney. I’m twenty-eight now, but I remember listening to it constantly when I was about eighteen. I’d finished my HSC exams and was waiting for my results, waiting to enrol in university and travel and move out of home and kiss other people at the Blacktown Drive-In and go on long car trips. Something about that album captures the yearning and frustration of being that age. I found myself returning to it during the pandemic lockdowns, my mind drawn back to this summer. The only reason I can think of is that I found myself feeling the same way I did then: like I was in a holding pattern, waiting for my real life to begin.