One of my greatest loves has always been music. When I find
a new artist I like, I will pick an album and listen to it every day for weeks.
Last fall, I discovered the beautiful tunes of Nana Grizol. This Georgia-based
band pairs brass-heavy melodies with thought-provoking lyrics. Nana Grizol
focuses on queer issues as a band, tagging themselves on Bandcamp as “queer
pop.” Their album Ursa Minor covers topics
like gentrification, sexuality, and family. The track list includes the song “Tacoma
Center 1600” heart-wrenching exposé of ICE detention centers, referring to the practice of
migrant detention as a “euphemistic package for apartheid.”
I could go on talking about the majesty of this album as a
whole, but I wanted to focus on the song “Photos from When We Were Young.” The
protagonist of the song looks back on their childhood, and how their sexuality
affected their experience of youth. Part of that experience is parental
rejection, eloquently delivered in the line, “you let them refer to your lovers
as friends.” In response to the “patriarch’s curse,” the protagonist builds
their own support network: a chosen family.
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