A hollow that pulses, unnamed but undeniable.
You keep flipping through old records, or driving the long way home, or standing still in the middle of your room like an idiot.Okay, that’s a lie—I don’t drive.I lost my license—long story and not really important.
The point is that I’m in a place where I need something and I don’t even know what the fuck it is.
So, give me your top five.
Songs for that feeling.
When the questions are bigger than the music, but the music’s still the only thing that doesn’t lie to you.
Make me believe it’s possible to name the thing you haven’t found yet.
ChapterForty-Four
Private Message | EchoZone Internal Chat
From: StringTheory27
To: DeadStrings
Date: May 15th, 1997, 1:08 AM
Subject: Re: Still Here
I know that feeling.
Like your skin doesn’t quite fit and the world feels slightly off-axis, and you’re not even sure if what you’re missing is a person, a place, or just a version of yourself that never got to exist.
Here’s my list.No logic.Just instinct.
Working title: “Songs for When You’re Looking for Something and Can’t Even Name It.”
“In Your Eyes”—Peter Gabriel
I’ve heard it a hundred times and it still hits like someone whispering the truth you’ve never been brave enough to say out loud.You’re not looking for a person—you’re looking for yourself reflected back in someone else’s gaze, and you don’t know if you’ll survive it when you finally see it.
“Wishing(If I Had a Photograph of You)” —A Flock of Seagulls
People think it’s just synth-pop, but it’s desperate.It’s not about a photo.It’s about holding onto something you already know is gone and hoping a frozen image will make it come back.
It won’t.But you keep staring anyway.
“Souvenir”—Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark
This song doesn’t operate like a traditional pop song.It doesn’t build to a climax or tug you forcefully toward a conclusion.Instead, it creates a moment frozen between memory and movement.The synths are soft and cyclical, looping like thought patterns you can’t shake, and Paul Humphreys’ delicate vocals carry no demand for resolution, no urgent questioning.Just for you to be there in the now.
This “floating” quality is what sets the song apart.It drifts, like your mind does when you’re driving alone and the world outside the window becomes both a blur and a mirror.It’s not melancholy in a loud way, but it’s undeniably tinged with nostalgia that doesn’t ache but lingers.The lyricism lets you project your own meaning into it.
This song is a keepsake from a moment that no longer exists.It’s a feeling, a memory—probably a version of yourself preserved in ambient synth and soft-focus vocals.You’re not asked to remember the moment in detail.You’re just invited to sit with the fact that it once happened.
“More Than This”—Roxy Music
This one feels like a conversation you’ll never get to have.
The vocal is detached and too calm—and that’s the worst part.It’s someone letting go without fighting.Ferry’s delivery is soft, breezy, and heartbreakingly calm.It’s not the voice of someone fighting to stay.It’s the voice of someone who has already left emotionally, even as they’re still physically in the room.There’s no dramatic goodbye.No accusation.Just a soft murmur of what was, followed by nothing.
You don’t even realize how much you wanted to be chosen until you hear him giving up.This is when goodbye sounds like a whisper instead of a scream ...because the passion was already gone.
