Music Notes

Start Again

OneRepublic released Start Again, the fourth track on my list, in 2018 as part of the soundtrack for Season 2 of the Netflix exclusive show 13 Reasons Why.  

When I first learned of the song, I was shaken to find it was connected to the show. The Christian educators I was studying under decried the series as a glorification and glamorization of suicide. And when I examined the Wikipedia plotlines, I saw how it portrayed high school as "a zoo" and decided it was highly exaggerated and an unhealthy subject.

Start Again, however, despite having ominous electronic production with echos of a ticking clock, is ultimately an optimistic song; though it describes the darkness which comes from one's wrong decisions, it also expresses the desire for redemption and renewal.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of Start Again is the second verse, where 1R brings in Logic to do a rap session. I don't care for rap as a genre (mostly due to content and culture—plus rappers always seem to be angry about something, but that's another story…) Logic, however, is a good guy who uses his platform to discuss serious issues of mental health and such. I remember swapping excited emails with my Genius pen-pal and editor, Max (@TossingDice, from the Netherlands) saying how much I liked the song and appreciated Logic's contribution.

I must've watched all the different iterations of Start Again about a million times, because OneRepublic released two movie style videos for it: one with lyrics, and a proper music video. With each one, they drew further from the themes of the Netflix series and instead crafted a gripping storyline of nuclear annihilation and post-apocalyptic wreckage.

This coincided with Ryan Tedder's exploration of more socially aware songwriting during the years between 2016 and 2021, where he dealt subtly with themes of the environment, world peace and human connection.

Word count: 310.