Soundtrack to my Life: Rosabel Tan

Each week we invite music lovers to share the songs that have soundtracked their lives. This week we speak to Rosabel Tan, founding editor of The Pantograph Punch and director of Satellites, whose next event, Kollywood Extra, is on May 4 at Sandringham Re

1Ray TELL LAURA I LOVE HER Peterson

I didn’t grow up in a musical household, and one of the only musical memories I have from my childhood are four bootlegged mixtapes my parents kept in the car on high rotation. The song I most remember is Tell Laura I Love Her. It told a story, it was so dramatic; when do songs ever have that many plot twists? I loved exploring these strange, adult worlds.

Growing up in Brisbane, I was the only Chinese kid and I found it incredibly isolating. I had friends, but I never felt like I belonged. I devoured books and music and movies. They were all set in America, England, Australia. Looking back, I can see they taught me a language that helped me “fit in”, but it makes me really sad, because I never got to read or watch anything that featured someone who looked like me, and I think this was when I started subconsciously seeing my own experiences as inferior — unworthy of being in a book, a movie, a song.

2 DON’T CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA Madonna

I don’t know why I ever signed up for choir in intermediate because I’m a terrible singer and this became very clear during our lunchtime rehearsals. I got told off all the time for singing off-tune, but instead of quitting, I decided to just mouth the words. If I forgot the lyrics I’d just mouth “pineapple” and “watermelon”. I did this for an entire year and I did it for the first time with this song — it’s the main one I remember because there were some notes I couldn’t hit, so I’d sing some of it, and then mouth the rest. I thought I was some kind of low-key genius for coming up with such a devious scheme.

3shou ju qi ni di you bai yi bai

Before the Fo Guang Shan temple in Flat Bush was built, they operated out of a handful of garages on a gravelly patch of land down the road, and that’s where I spent every Saturday morning, failing to learn Mandarin for about three years. I did learn this children’s song though and performed it when the temple first opened in 2007.

4 KISS ME

Sixpence None The Richer

How dangerous are romcoms though? Especially when you’re young and have such a baby understanding of relationships. This was from She’s All That, and the main thing I remember is how films like these messed me up when it came to what I thought love should look like and how it should make me feel.

There was a period of my life when I thought I was going to become a relationship therapist. My honours project involved creating a fake living room and inviting couples to come and have arguments while I watched from another room; and I remember reading an article about how women who read more Mills & Boon were less likely to practise safe sex because they believed so strongly in getting caught up in the moment. I think it was around this time that I really started thinking about the ways in which art has power — in these invisible ways, both insidious and productive, but in ways we don’t always notice or think about (and should).

5Coco CROP THAT BACK Solid

A couple of years ago I worked on a project exploring what makes art in Aotearoa distinctively ours — and I got to dig into this question with artists like Don McGlashan and Te Ahukaramu¯ Charles Royal. I’d never heard anybody talk about music the way they do. Charles talked about the way you can hear the rain in the Wairarapa in the work of Trinity Roots. Don talked about the way our melodies tend to go down, rather than up: our cool restraint, the way our writing slips into emotions we’re not anticipating.

But there were lots of voices we didn’t get to talk to and Jess (Coco Solid) should have been on that list. I think she’s amazing and everything she makes has this electrifying quality that sears through you. It does this rare thing of having something vital to say while also just being incredibly good. I love this song and I love the video Sione Monu made for it.

6Tiny SCHOOL OF DESIGN Ruins

I was trying to think about what quality of New Zealand music I’m attracted to, and for me, it’s when people have a bit of playfulness in their work. I feel like Hollie (Tiny Ruins) does it in School of Design, because she’s just walking through this school, and she’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, everything’s so white and clean.’ It cracks me up.

It’s such a beautiful song and you could stop there, but I love imagining her wandering through the silent, tidy halls making this observation and experiencing the quiet destructive impulse that accompanies it.

7Big BANG BANG BANG Bang

It’s not my favourite song, but when we first started doing our Satellites K-Pop shows, I had no idea what we were in for. During the intermission at our first big event in Aotea Square, I put Bang Bang Bang on and all these teens raced to the front of the stage and started dancing. They knew all the moves. None of them knew each other, but they were all moving, in perfect unison, cheering for one another. It was beautiful. I love these shows. I think they’re the closest I ever get to feeling like the world’s going to be okay.

As told to George Fenwick