When I listen to The Weeknd’s new album, I don’t gather that he is ruminating on Death. I think he’s using the it as a literary device. I mean, what is Death if not transformation. It’s a change from being into not being. Or perhaps from living on this plane of existence to living in an afterlife. Change, symbolized as death, is the dominant theme from this record.

Recently, a person said to me, “The ONLY good Beatles song is ‘Get Back’ and this is undisputed.” (*COUGH* co-editor of Olney Magazine *COUGH* *COUGH*) In response to this drastically mistaken opinion, I decided to list twenty of my favorite Beatles songs, with some context added, all mainly for the benefit of one of our editors. This was magnificently difficult considering the unfathomably high number of great Beatles songs, but my hand was forced. You won’t enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed listening to The Beatles, but I hope you might enjoy it a little—somehow.

My first experience being inside of a car, where I KNEW it was more than just metal and 4 wheels, was inside my dad’s early-90s Jaguar XJ. My dad is a welder by trade and my mom was working for Macy’s at the time. We did not have a lot of money. Our socioeconomic status growing up was the shrug emoji. However, my Pops had what he called a “good year”, and found this used example of an automobile at a local mechanics shop in 1995. That was the most comfortable car I had at that point and, even to this day, will ever sit in.

As I waited for my mother to arrive to pick me up, I was lost in a repetitive thought cycle of the steps required to land an Ollie. Bend the knees. Pop the tail with back foot. Turn front foot to the side and drag it up to the nose. Level out. Bend. Pop. Turn. Drag. Again. And again. I was obsessed. I was reborn.

Tirzah’s Devotion has a strange ability (much like Frank Ocean’s whole discography) to tackle all of the messiness that comes with romance in a groovy but insightful and emotional way.