dreams of a little boy - Male Alchemy - 2025

Favorite Tracks: chilhood, grandma's cookies, summer vacation.

Life is mean. It calls you a good-for-nothing loser, hurls a cast-iron skillet at your head faster than you can open your mouth to scream, and then tells you to make it steak and onions for dinner. But then it gives a half-assed apology, makes a promise to do better that neither of you believe is any good, and then things return to something resembling normalcy.

Sometimes, it makes me want to cry. Other times, it makes me want to scream. A few times, it made me want to do things that would leave my loved ones in despair. But I know nothing will ever really come of it, so I resign myself to trudging forward, hoping things will someday get better.

These kinds of thoughts would find me more often a few years ago than they would today, but we still meet from time to time. I’m glad that I’m finding moments of happiness more abundant now, I still struggle to experience them properly, like most other people. I sometimes think about what my happiness would have looked like if I had it when I was a boy. I have a difficult time remembering much of anything from my own childhood because I wanted to forget it happened. The hopelessness, the fear, the regret, the self-hatred. They tethered me to my negativity and slowly sapped the beauty from precious moments in my life.

But sometimes I come across little bits of joy and sanguinity from others most likely experiencing the same emotional depths I am. One of these bits is the album, dreams of a little boy. Its barber beats-inspiration is beautifully blended with a euphoric, almost ethereal sound, distinguishing it from others in the genre.

The arrangement of the songs in this album give the sense of a progression. I feel like they could provide the soundtrack to one remarkable day, or the backbeat of someone reminiscing on their earlier days. Bicycle feels like a gentle, soft start to a day, spending some time pondering the possibilities, wondering what adventures the day will bring. It’s mindful and hopeful. Grandma’s cookies sounds like a midday rest, acknowledging the progress made in the day so far, providing a short reprieve to refresh and reflect, and encouraging you to continue the day on a high note. I feel like this is what the essence of a “lunch break” would sound like.

The final song, summer vacation, filled me with a strange mix of euphoria and melancholy, longing for a time that never truly was. It brought me back to one of the few positive memories from my youth I still retain in my mind: sitting on my neighbor’s stoop on a warm, summer evening, the twilight gently bathing me in a comforting embrace. Though not a perfect day, something about that day was worth remembering; I recall feeling a sense of peace, something that seldom made its way into my heart at that point in my life. Yes, in hindsight, I think that’s what it was. I find myself being drawn to that particular fragment whenever I feel the need to find it. The song itself evokes the feeling of a conclusion, the ending of a day. It’s soothing and comforting, encouraging you to let go and drift into its ethereal embrace.

And that leads right back to the theme of the album overall. Dreams of a little boy is a wonderful, nostalgic experience, sharing the beauty that forgotten memories still hold. I find nostalgia strange, yet utterly fascinating; it’s a nearly universal human experience, but each person’s experiences with it are deeply personal. But I also love how music can evoke these feelings from us through these universal themes. After all, we like to dream in hopeful thoughts and happy memories.

But if I only remembered the happy memories, that would be disingenuous of me. I obscured my memories and eroded them away in an effort to let go of the pain of childhood. The yearning for a reconciliation is still there, but it’s overshadowed by a desire to leave the past behind for good. Though my earlier memories have all but completely weathered away, this album still reminds me about the remaining shreds of innocence and bliss I still hold deep within me, and drives me to protect them, like a fragile seedling finding a way to sprout in the most desolate of places.

But it still doesn't erase the fear that each day, the chance for a true forgiveness with myself might seem more and more forever gone.