Songs I’d Like To Put In A Movie One Day: Inspired by Kaash Paige’s ‘Teenage Fever’
Graphic by Halima Jibril / Image from NPR
One day I’d like to make my own film. One day. I remember reading an editor's letter from Uniquely Aligned, written by Vivian Chambers that really made me feel seen. She wrote that “God willing, I will write films and make films.” She continued by stating something a friend said to her: “Movies are just stories. You don’t need a fancy camera to tell a story, but fancy cameras desperately need stories.” That section of Vivian’s letter has been my pinned tweet on my private twitter since 2019. It reminds me of my future, and what I'm working towards, whenever I feel lost. I have a tendency, and I think it’s because I'm a dreamer (a daydreamer to put it more accurately), to listen to music and create movie soundtracks in my head, or think about what type of scene would fit this song. I even have a playlist on Spotify filled with songs I’d love to put in a TV show or film one day. So today I present to you a shortlist of songs that I’d like to put into a movie one day, inspired by Kaash Paige’s Teenage Fever.
Kaash Paige’s debut album Teenage Fever perfectly encapsulates how I felt as a teen and came out in August. It feels like a lifetime ago, but realistically, I only stopped being a teen a year ago. Teenagehood is so romanticised, people say they’re the best years of your life. You kiss people, you go to parties, you stay out too late and you find yourself. But Teenage Fever, tells you a much more accurate and relatable depiction of what it’s like to be a teenager; about how misunderstood you feel, unloveable and troubled. You go on a whole journey with Kaash in this album, but with each song, there's a yearning to be loved, to be understood, to be successful, to be listened to and to be seen. “London”, the opening song starts with a question, “did you miss me enough to drink?” In “Grammy Week,” there's a longing in her voice as she exclaims that “I just wanna be successful.” “Lost Ones”, which is personally, one of my favourite songs on the album, has a rock n roll edge but is brutally honest and vulnerable. It follows the album's theme of longing for something and someone, “I’m tryna find the lost ones, lost ones, so maybe I can love one, touch one.” Nobody tells you how isolating it can be, being a teenager but Kaash explores that well-known feeling in one of the last songs on the album “Mrs Lonely.”
The album ends almost cinematically like you’re being spoken to by a big sister. Kaash ends the album with “Karma” and speaks to the listeners candidly “You are now entering Teenage Fever, which is where all the teenagers go through a stage of life, bein’ unnatural and not knowin’ what’s really goin’ on.” It’s a reminder that it's okay to feel this way, to feel stressed, to feel lonely, to feel confused and unsure in your own skin. But realistically it's how all teenagers feel, and there's a lot of comforts to be found in that confession. And I personally found a lot of comfort in this album.
‘Teenage Fever’ is a beautifully honest and confused account of being a teenager. This is why, while listening to it I kept thinking about making a movie about black teenagehood. Here is a short list of some of the songs I’d put into that movie:
Lost Ones - Kassh Paige
Didn’t We - Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
Day Dreaming - Aretha Franklin
Inside Friend - Leon Bridges & John Mayer
She’s Gone - Daryl Hall & John Oates
By Sade Hamilton
(she/they)
Edited by Halima Jibril