How SZA’s “Ctrl” Brought Me Comfort During A Difficult Time
I remember the first time I listened to SZA’s album “Ctrl” like it was yesterday. It was summer 2017, and I had just celebrated my nineteenth birthday. I remember laying in bed that sunny afternoon trying to find a way to pass the time before I finally decided to give the album a listen. The moment SZA’s sweet sultry voice began playing through my tangled headphones, I closed my eyes and began to feel my body sink deeper into my bed. I felt as if my soul was being transported to a calm and warming place that I wanted to stay in forever.
Looking back now I realized as much as I loved that album at the time, I don’t think I fully appreciated it for what it was. I had been listening to the album, but I hadn’t fully understood it until I found myself experiencing first hand what SZA had been singing about in her lyrics. My junior year I found myself in one of the darkest times in my life. I had just been rejected by a boy I had been seeing for a while, and I hadn’t realized how much I cared until he had ended things. I got over him after a few weeks. It wasn’t the first time a boy had rejected me, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. But what had stuck with me for so long afterwards was the feeling of loneliness and the insecurity of feeling like I wasn’t good enough. I had never been in a relationship, and I kept wondering if there was something wrong with me. It began to take a major toll on my self-esteem, and I kept comparing myself to other girls. My grades in school were also slipping, and I began to have an internal crisis about whether or not I was on the right path. On top of all this, I felt the intense pressure of planning my sorority’s recruitment weekend all by myself. The stress of it all eventually became too much, and I began to lose my appetite. I lost a fair amount of weight in a short amount of time, leading my already low self-esteem to plummet even more.
Music has always been my source of comfort whenever I find myself going through a rough patch. Naturally during this time, I found myself listening to a lot of music and making playlists hoping to find some sort of escape. One day I decided to re-listen to SZA’s “Ctrl”, and I was instantly brought back to that warm and comforting place I had been brought to when I listened to it the first time. I had listened to this album so many times before, but now it felt as if I was listening to it through new ears. SZA had managed to perfectly describe and beautifully put into words exactly what I had been experiencing and what I had struggled to articulate with my own words. I found myself listening to the album on repeat day in and day out. I listened to it whenever I drove, ate, wrote, walked to class, studied and every night before bed.
I found some songs in their entirety to be relatable, while others had a few lines that managed to encapsulate everything that I had been feeling. Either way this album brought me all the comfort I had needed and continues to do so today. It made me feel as if I wasn’t alone in what I had been feeling and experiencing. During this time, I kept feeling as if I was crazy or I was just being over dramatic about everything that I was going through. SZA reminded me that I wasn’t crazy. That I wasn’t being dramatic. She made me feel like my feelings were valid. And she was right.
Supermodel. This opening track serves as an open letter to SZA’s ex lover. She pours her heart out expressing her disappointment in him, but despite this she admits that she still feels as if she needs him. She also criticizes herself for sticking around in a toxic relationship due to her inability to be alone. This track perfectly tackled my issues with self-acceptance as well as my own fears of being alone.
At one point she sings “That’s why I stayed with ya, the, the dick, was too good it made me feel good for temporary love.” The boy who had just rejected me was constantly wishy-washy about his feelings toward me and oftentimes would flake on me when we were supposed to hangout. I knew this was a sign that it wasn’t meant to be and that I deserved to be treated better, but I kept going back to him because it beat being lonely. A part of me also felt that I needed the physical parts to make me feel better, even if it was a temporary fix. However, the line “I can be your supermodel if you believe, if you see it in me,” stuck with me the most. I had always been extremely insecure about my facial features and my body and constantly felt inferior to other women. I constantly wondered if that was what made people lose interest in me. Like SZA, I just wanted someone to see me as their supermodel.
Drew Barrymore. The LP’s fourth track is probably my favorite off the project. SZA has said in the past that this song is inspired about a time in high school when she attended a party in order to hang out with a boy she liked. However he came to the party with another girl and she ended up smoking all the weed she had bought for the two of them by herself. This has happened to me more times than I would like to admit, and every time it does I begin to compare myself to the other girl. This is exactly what happens to SZA wondering if the different parts of her will ever be enough; “Am I warm enough for ya outside baby… Is it warm enough for ya inside me?” She even begins to apologize for the parts of her that aren’t ladylike, “I’m sorry I’m not more attractive, I’m sorry I’m not more lady like I’m sorry I don’t shave my legs at night.” SZA is ashamed that she allows them to make her feel inferior which is again due to her fear of loneliness. “Cause it’s hard enough you got to treat me like this. Lonely enough to let you treat me like this.”
Garden (Say it Like That). On this track, we see SZA exploring her need for emotional vulnerability and support from her lover. She wants someone who will be able to humble her and tell her what she needs to hear. At the same time, she begins to question whether or not she is worthy of this in the first place, acknowledging the fact that she isn’t the easiest person to deal with, “I know I be difficult, you know I be difficult, you know it get difficult too.” Despite wanting this intimacy she also expresses her fear of it, and how she fears that if someone gets too close they’ll never love her. “And hope you never find out who I really am, Cause you’ll never love me.” It’s exactly how I felt when I began my relationship with my current boyfriend. For so long I had craved intimacy, and when I finally got it I kept wondering if I deserved it. I was scared that eventually the real me would disenchant him. However what resonated with me the most was SZA’s expression of her physical insecurities, “You know I’m sensitive ‘bout havin’ no booty, havin’ nobody.” Throughout my life I’ve struggled to put on and maintain weight since I have an extremely fast metabolism. It’s always made me insecure that I don’t have curvy features or a butt like other women. SZA has also mentioned in the past that she struggled with putting on weight at one point in her life.
20 Something. On this final track SZA pours her soul out. She admits that she doesn’t have her life together, that she fears not being able to keep all her friends, and that her love life is nowhere near together. She expresses the common fears and concerns that everyone in their twenties worries about and prays that they get through it. It was the perfect soundtrack to accompany my early onset quarter life crisis. However it did bring me comfort to know that everyone goes through this phase in their twenties of being scared for the future. It also brings me hope that one day everything will work itself out.