This is undoubtedly my #1 song of 2024. It’s already the top track on my Replay 2024, and I have no idea how anything could unseat it.

I’m not really a fan of Ty Segall, and I can’t say I even enjoy this album (Three Bells) very much, but this song (and one other, “My Best Friend”, paired with a video of Segall’s dachshunds) is a laser-guided missile directly into my id. I’ve listened to it at least 30 times, which is 2 solid hours of “My Room”, if you add it all up. So, yeah, I like this song a lot.

I love everything about how it’s structured, how the layers build and complement each other. I’ve been trying to make some of my own music this past year, and some part of my motivation is how insanely proud I would be of myself if I made a song of my own that I like as much as I like this song. It doesn’t have to sound like this song, I just want to like it as much.

I wonder if such a thing is possible? I feel like I’ve read so many interviews with artists who say they don’t watch or listen to their own work. (Are there authors who read their own books? Outside of when it is necessary?) On the other hand, I remember reading that one reason for the existence of The Dandy Warhols was that they wanted to make the kind of music they wanted to get drunk to.

I suppose it seems absurd, thinking about it more, the idea that some possible majority of people are making music that they don’t want to listen to themselves. You’d hope, since the act of creation is so deeply indebted to our influences (I, too, want to make the kind of music I want to get drunk to), that we’d always be appreciative of the outcome.

On the other hand, every time I hear my own voice singing, I am aghast, it does not remind me of any of my influences. But perhaps I have yet to discover the proverbial voice within me, that sounds unlike me even to myself, or at least that summons some reaction that causes me to call it “the voice” like Michael Stipe does. Oh, let’s set a low bar, shall we?

Anyway, I like this song a lot.