u/skeletyngun

I’ve never understood the misconception that most of his music is sad. Race isn’t even really sad. You have songs like salt where the song is lyrically sad, but sonically there’s an emotional disconnect from the lyrics(this is a compliment). His unreleased stuff usually sounds a lot sadder than anything he’s put out, but most of the stuff he released is hopemaxxing if anything.
The song “Hope” is about his friend overdosing, but obviously, as the title suggests, it’s a super hopeful song.
I guess I’m just wondering what songs people are listening to that Alex has actually put out officially that make them think his music is sad.

It was after school and my older brother had a basketball game. My parents would be in the bleachers watching, but usually I’d wander off and do something else I found more entertaining. Normally I would hide under the bleachers and climb on the beams for fun, but for some reason, this time, I decided I was bored of that. I remember I had recently noticed a statue of St. Clare outside of the local Catholic church in our town. She was not depicted entirely realistically. Her neck and arms were too long. She had a smile like one of the people in old renaissance paintings. She wore a head covering that draped down and covered one breast and the other side of the scarf went down her back.

That was in my head while I decided what I wanted to do this particular night while my parents watched my brother play. I think these days schools take security more seriously now that school shootings are so common, but back then, at least at my school, they had no night watchman. I wanted to go into the school basement. I had never been down there, but there were rumors that nuns had dug tunnels in the 1800s that connected beneath the school and that those were still there today.

So, I wanted to locate these tunnels and see if I could get in. I went down a hall and through some double doors to the stairwell, down to the basement. It was dim, but they had lights down one hall, but down another there were no lights on and no windows and no light. I remember staring down at what looked to be simple pitch black nothingness, but I was too afraid to actually keep walking to look for the tunnels, so I just stared for a few minutes. I couldn’t hear the sound of anyone from upstairs and all I heard was the ambient noise of the school’s air ducts. My eyes created shapes in the blackness, swirling and swimming in the vacant air.
I heard a creak from down the dark hallway and my heart jumped, but my curiosity kept me still. I was afraid of getting caught where I knew I shouldn’t have been more so than fear of any real danger. I knew that if someone did come from down the dark hallway I could simply run back up the stairs and back to the gym and I’d be fine. Eventually I built up the courage to keep walking.

For some inexplicable reason my heart kept telling me to turn back, but I wouldn’t listen. I had to see what and where that creaking noise had come from. As I turned the corner at the end of the hallway my eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could see decently well. A classroom door was creaked open. I stood about 30 feet from it, until a light turned on. I wasn’t scared because I obviously knew that no one turns on a light if they intend to leave a place, it only happens if they are going to stay there. I chose to walk past the door and sneak a glance of who was in there.

As I tiptoed past the door, I saw no one. I was 5 or 6 feet past the door when it creaked more. My heart told me to run, but I stayed stiff- struck with that fear from before. What I saw has no explanation, but as a nine year old I thought only of that statue of St. Clare I had seen outside the church.

It was a behemoth, 13 to 15 feet tall, naked, and with ribs innumerable stretching its pale skin to appoint where it seemed paper could cut its body open. Its limbs were thin and bent, due to its exaggerated anatomy. It had two long breasts that went down the length of its hundreds of ribs, down to its stomach which looked not as thin as the rest of its body, but not fat; its stomach was loose and almost puffy. It had long black and unwashed hair, and its back bent in order to fit in the hallway. I remember a sound as it squeezed through the door frame of the room with the light on, like a deafened grating noise; its spine against the frame.

I stood there, it stared at me, with no particular expression that I could see on its thin lips and eyes. It began to move its crooked arm. This is what reminded me of Saint Clare. St. Clare wore a head covering, one side covered her breast and the other went down her back. Its hair did the same, and its arm moved to expose the other breast to me. Before it got there, I heard faint indiscernible cooing. When the hair was moved out of the way I saw an infant, the size almost of me at 9 years old. It looked old and sucked milk from the breast of what I now knew was its mother. It looked at me. I finally ran and kept running until I was in the gym once again sitting with my parents and watching my brother play basketball. From then on I never went to the basement again. When I was older and my class was down in the basement, I was reluctant, but when I was down there again I never got the same feeling and I never even saw the hallway I had been in. Down the stairwell there is no hall in that direction, only a painted brick wall is there.

Anyway, I honestly have no idea if the rumors about the nun’s tunnels were true.