Cebu really is a small, small world. Every now and then, malls and parks felt like one big game of hide-and-seek from people I went to highschool with or college blockmates I avoided like the plague. Sometimes I’d see the hyperactive boy who sat beside me in the fourth grade, and I’d run the opposite direction. Though, for some reason, I can never leave. Every song on the radio is the same, after all, but even if a spry group of friends dream big enough to fill stadiums and fields, it’ll be the same four chords.

There’s a music shop on Juana Osmeña Street that feels like home.¹ Well, maybe for most people, mold in the corner of the practice room would make it more of a dungeon than a humble abode. But it felt occupied. The hi-hat of the drum kit bent and warped from hours of “apple 1, orange 1” (or “boots and cats” as a childhood friend of mine would say), teenagers’ guitars wailing with sweat and angst coating each string with a thick layer of dead skin and blood, or the glass door splattered with stickers from every corner of my hometown. Despite being around the red light district of Cebu (and across a certain “adults only” shop), twelve year-old me felt cradled in the arms of a certain kind of chaos far different from academic stress and bullying. To me, music was never about being pretty; it was about a certain kind of loneliness and anger; one that I wish was seen more in local music.

Now, nothing wrong with a silly little love song² here and there. It’s a popular topic for a reason, which is why there’s so many of them. Perhaps that might be our greatest strength and favorite weakness— we love so much that it bleeds onto our sheets of music, seeping between lyrics carrying the same four chords: C major, G major, A minor, and an F on repeat for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. It’s pretty, though I never could find myself drawn to a common experience that remains to be a mere idea in my life. Wouldn’t it be nice³ to be spoken to? Is it bad to feel nothing when I’m hearing the same stories of love and heartbreak over and over again?

Our local language rolls off the tongue nicely— it’s something to be promoted, preserved, and appreciated through art and music. I remember a professor of mine telling me that our local languages are gaining worldwide appreciation, so for us to disregard its significance in our hometown would be nothing but disappointing. Of course, nothing against our typical love songs and heartbreak anthems in our local language, but I want to hear more. Give me a song about how hot this first- rate town gets in the summer. How about a song or two where the drums sound like thunderstorms? Love is one thing, but I want to hear about this city that I’ll never get out of;⁴ a city I loved but probably didn’t love me enough.

¹ I started playing music at the age of twelve. I was a kid who often slept on massive amplifiers, daydreaming of wailing guitars like police sirens, and wondered if other kids my age would like to start a band—– preferably a rock band. My first instrument was the ukulele, and my first teacher was a guy who drank too much during the day (he got fired a few months later). When I was 15, I received my first electric guitar—– a cherry red Squier Stratocaster, and I made sure to sticker-bomb it as much as possible. The first band I joined was an all-girls pop-punk band, though we weren’t exactly the best of friends. They were great players, don’t get me wrong, but we barely spoke outside the guitar-lined windows. The second and last band I joined had zero interest in my musical opinions, but was focused on an image of the “pretty OPM” band with a saxophonist and all that. I played drums with them for less than a year, until I realized they never understood my fascination with the fact that if I drummed fast and hard enough, wood chips would scatter the practice room floor like leaves in autumn. We disbanded after a few arguments with the lead singer. I think we understood music differently. He, filled with a melancholy tied to a broken heart, embraced the popularity of OPM’s romance trope. I, on the other hand, was a 17 year-old who grew sick of the town I grew up in. My drumming was too aggressive for their liking, but they never quite understood why I wanted to be loud. Maybe I was just sick of the silence.

² One of the first guitar songs I learned was “Blackbird” by the Beatles. It intrigued me when I later learned that it was a love song written during the civil rights movement in the 1960s in support of people of color during times of oppression. I’ve never heard anything quite like it in my own language—– a love song for someone you’ve never met but still wish them strength and justice. We think of love songs for a partner who’s seen every mole and marks on our bodies from years of former lovers. It’s natural that the first thing we think of when hearing the word love is that of romance. I get it; it feels the best and hurts the most. But love comes in way more shapes and sizes.

³ It would be nice if I could write songs, but I found myself never publishing any of my work. My words were weak, afraid, yet flowery and gentle. They were words that felt like soft cotton on bare skin, and I hated it—– it was dishonest. I wonder if that’s why most songs on the radio sound the same. If someone truly feels something that translates into gentle breeze or rain on concrete, then who am I to take that away from them? But if they hold back on violent typhoons and thunderstorms to please a room full of listeners, then I can’t help but feel sorry for them. Maybe there is a fear of a certain sound purely because the thought of people not “getting it” is scary. I mean, if people view music as an outlet for money and fame, then that’s what they want. That music shop I mentioned earlier never screamed “this is the place you go to get famous”. It was humble and unserious. Before you’d entered, the glass door was covered in stickers of bands I’d never heard of and pictures of kids in leather jackets and second-hand basses. There was a community somewhere around here with folks with loud voices and even louder guitars. That was what I wanted.

⁴ I’ve thought about leaving a lot. I feel like Cebu is too small for me. I wouldn’t say it’s suffocating, but I definitely think everyone knows each other. But what’s in it for me once I go? A new language that I need to learn before I leave my mother tongue behind? I have my own critiques for the mainstream music scene, especially in Cebu, but I know songwriters are smart people. Cebuano artists have this natural charm of tongue-and-cheek humor. I adore anything unserious. Maybe that’s why I don’t gravitate to much of what’s coming from current love songs; maybe everyone is just a bit too serious and I’m a bit too stuck.