“Musicians have poked and prodded from every angle the emotional toll of life’s unstoppable transformation from carefree youth to the overwhelming responsibilities of adulthood.”
This is how the Oregon-based band Joseph introduces their single “Shivers,” an ode to the all too familiar feeling of growing up and not feeling prepared.
I’ll admit that this hits a bit close to home – even at the ripe old age of 21, I’m constantly struck by how unprepared I am for the milestones I’m “expected” to hit.
Natalie Closner Schepman, one of the three sisters who make up the band and is quickly entering into her early 30s, says that the song is about the feeling that the world just pushed her out on her own and said, “good luck, kid,” and left her to figure it all out on her own. Even though I’m quite a bit younger than her, I completely understand where she’s coming from.
It’s not hard to see how the brightness of youth dulls as both culturally and physically we are forced into a far less exciting time of life and how unprepared we are for responsibility, loss of carefree times, and an overall feeling that we are too old to have fun in the same way as before.
This is not an uncommon feeling amongst the age group that the Closner sisters come from. Millennials have created lots of music about the longing to go back to simpler times where not everything was up to us to take care of.
However, it is important to notice that Joseph, unlike those other artists, think that this type of longing is not entirely a good thing. It’s a reliance on others that is not only creating a codependence with these friends and significant others, but it is leaving you in a position where you are not prepared to take on the world alone:
“Warm nights turn to winter
(Stayed too long in endless summer)
Put my own arm ’round my shoulder
(July fireworks for lovers)
Used to wake to someone else’s sunrise
(Suddenly I see it’s not mine)
I know I’m alive when I feel the Shivers.”
The imagery chosen by Joseph, of the fire and warmth contrasted with matches and winter nights, is very well reflected in their choice of instruments: a warm, deep guitar and their cool, husky voices. That’s it, and that’s all it needs. But despite the hopelessness and loss of direction, there is a place where the song points out that aging is not just all doom and gloom:
“Flint to steel
I strike my own light
Even if it’s not quite as brightI’ll still be cold tonight
But I know I’m alive
When I feel the shivers.”
Joseph is very clearly saying that forging forward on your own is not a bad thing – and it may be less bright and less warm then using someone else’s light, but at least it’s your own. And that that feeling of uncertainty and the small light, not enough to completely fulfill you, is not the end of the world. No one is perfect, and to not be perfect is to feel alive.
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