Little Girls from Sweden Dream

The answers to last week’s Friday 10 are now posted, both at their original home and at its own YouTube playlist for those who prefer to actually hear the songs! And it was a rare theme week: The entire list was either music about gender identity or by nonbinary/genderqueer/transgender artists.

This includes one of my long-favorite artists, Kingdom Hearts chanteuse Hikaru Utada, who recently described herself in an interview as “tri-bi”: bilingual, bisexual, and non-binary.

This week there is no theme, we’re back to just hitting shuffle on the ol’ player and seeing what comes up! Get in the comments and identify the artists and titles. Remember: No searching and no AI agents — they would just tell you that all of the lyrics are from Walt Whitman poems, anyway. I don’t know what it is, but Claude in particular is obsessed with Walt Whitman.

1. He came into her apartment, he left the bloodstains on the carpet
2. Girl, let’s push you aside and show you what to do
3. I cut my teeth on wedding rings in the movies
   Lorde, “Royals” 📺
   Identified by Fred
4. I was dreamin’ when I wrote this, so sue me if I go too fast
   Prince, “1999” 📺
   Identified by Fred
5. Getting in the swing, you come to look for a king
6. He loves one thing more than himself — his crown
7. As bullets rip the sky of ink with gold
8. These five words in my head scream, “Are we havin’ fun yet?”
9. I know all the games you play, because I play them, too
10. Break me off, ’cause I get what I want, and I like what I see

Photo by Nicholas Githiri