Why am I talking about an album that came out in January, in November?
Because I’m still listening to it on repeat.
“Heard It In a Past Life” by Maggie Rogers is the soundtrack of my year. It feels like Rogers took my heart out of my chest and gave it back to me in song form.
It took me awhile to give it a chance, but once I did, it changed my whole life.
1. “Give a Little”
Best lyric: “If you would open up your heart/Drop your weapons, drop your guard/Just a little trust is all it takes”
Rogers said on Twitter, it’s “a song about empathy. In the midst of all this fear and hate, what if we got the chance to re-introduce ourselves? What if somebody listened?” She wrote it on the day of the national school walkout for gun control. A bop that’s also a subtle political statement!
2. “Overnight”
Best lyric: “’Cause people change overnight/Things get strange, but I’m alright”
“Oh yeah, the synths in the verses are made up of glacier and frog samples,” Rogers said. I’m pretty sure that fact is convincing enough to listen. She called it a “love/heartache/panic/ecstasy letter” from her new self to her old, which is me in a song.
3. “The Knife”
Best lyric: “Oh, the knife of insight brought me to my knees/ Broke me down and taught me how to see”
“This is a song about dancing it all out with your friends,” Rogers said, and makes me want to do exactly that. It’s fun and groovy and I want to dance just like she does in every live performance. Also, as a poet, her metaphors are so clever, and I’m jealous.
4. “Alaska”
Best lyric: “Cut my hair so I could rock back and forth/ Without thinking of you/Learned to talk and say whatever I wanted to/And I walked off you”
If you have heard anything of Rogers’ before, it’s this song. She played it for Pharrell Williams in a masterclass at NYU and went viral overnight. It makes me want to run away, cut my hair, change my name and live my dreams.
5. “Light On”
Best lyric: “And I am finding out/There’s just no other way/ That I’m still dancing at the end of the day/And if you leave the light on/Then I’ll leave the light on”
Rogers always introduces this song in concerts as a love letter to the people who stuck by her after she rose to fame. It’s a promise to keep being vulnerable as long as she has people to listen, which is everything I want from my music.
6. “Past Life”
Best lyric: “Saw my old life and my old friends/Saw the haunted, call me back again/Oh, maybe there’s a past life comin’/Out inside of me”
This song used to be my least favorite. But once I looked into the lyrics, my heart hurt with understanding. It has the kind of magic that you only pick up on if you listen closely.
7. “Say It”
Best lyric: “I felt it burning in a way/I held on when you pulled away/I couldn’t say it to myself”
BOP. The grooviest song on this album. It makes me want to do body rolls for three minutes straight. The ideal dance song about falling in love with someone way too soon.
8. “On + Off”
Best lyric: “Take me to that space when I need someone/When I’m shaking or my mind starts coming undone”
The song about finding the person who can calm you down no matter what, with a ton of ridiculously cool rhythms.
9. “Fallingwater”
Best lyric: “Hold on, I thought that I was doing so well/Oh, like everything was under a spell/Now it’s getting harder”
“It’s about the power of vulnerability a cry for help and a battle cry at the same time,” Rogers said. I couldn’t have summed it up any better.
10. “Retrograde”
Best lyric: “Ooh, here I am, settled in on your floor/Quieting all the world outside your door/And I am reckoning”
Everyone who loves astrology should be all over this song (and the whole album). It’s my favorite to dance to, especially during a hard time. My “things are hard but I am stronger” song.
11. “Burning”
Best lyric: “Oh, I was reckless, once was breathless/Running from that day I snapped”
I had this song stuck in my head almost instantly after hearing it. I air drum to it more often than I’d like to admit, just because the percussion is so cool. To me, it’s about falling in love with your life, finally.
12. “Back in My Body”
Best lyric: “This time, I know I’m fighting/This time, I know I’m/Back in my body”
This is the song that made me love the album. Yes, I love all the songs, but this one sings my thoughts back to me with clear honesty. It makes me simultaneously want to scream along with confidence and cry hard (I’ve done both). As Rogers said, “this is a song about coming home to yourself.”