I wasn’t sure why I was up at 4 AM researching old school Dutch rave classics, but I knew it had something to do with KnoxKind, a young Instagram DJ prodigy who radiates pure joy. Watching him mix on a piece of equipment that probably costs more than my car, I couldn’t help but be pulled into the groove.
He introduced me to Have You Never Been Mellow, originally sung by the woman from Grease—Olivia Newton-John. Her voice like candy frosting. The remix is by Keanu Silva. That phrase: Have you never been mellow? It caught me. Because no, I haven’t. Mellow has always felt like an impossible state, a language I never learned. Flagstaff people always seemed to embody chill in some effortless, natural way, and I was the opposite of that. Always buzzing, always keyed up. The kind of person who needs to remind herself to breathe.
But lately, the whole concept of a regulated nervous system is being questioned. The idea that the goal is always to be calm, steady, unshaken—maybe that’s a false ideal. Maybe people like me, who never quite settled into a steady hum of tranquility, aren’t defective but just wired differently. Maybe mellow isn’t something to chase, and definitely not something to worship. Because let’s be honest, there always seemed to be some fakery to the cool, calm, collected girl at school. Who, behind it all was anything but. I would go into detail, but it’s a small town.
The song Rainbows in the Sky popped up in my late-night rabbit hole, which led me straight to Paul Elstak. The rave king himself, a name synonymous with the Dutch hardcore and happy hardcore movement. His music isn’t mellow—it’s all pounding beats, synth melodies, and massive, euphoric energy. But the lyrics?
“I wanna see the rainbow high in the sky
I wanna see you and me on a bird flying away.”
Like a kid wishing for something and actually believing it can happen.
Then there’s Kites Are Fun by The Free Design. That floating, breathy 1960s vocal harmony. A song about nothing but the pure joy of flying a kite. No deeper meaning, no metaphor—just joy with abandon, getting outside, having a silly moment that is about play.
“I like flying kites, flying kites, flying kites,” they sing.
And honestly, I want it on my funeral playlist. There’s something about the kindness of it, the complete lack of pretension. A reminder not to take life so seriously, to find joy in the small things. I imagine it playing at the end, sending people out into the world with something soft and unburdened. Then again, flying a kite can also be frustrating and weather-finicky. I can see it not working out.
It reminds me of 2008, when I first really understood the idea of play in music, my first slight divergence from folk. I was in Olympia, surrounded by people who saw music as an experience rather than just a product. That was the first time I heard bands like Breathe Owl Breathe—silly, sincere, full of storytelling and warmth. That was also the Daytrotter era for me, when I’d listen to whatever raw, unpolished session showed up that day, like discovering hidden gems before the world had time to polish them down. That was when I started writing more of my own music.
And then there was Cal Folger Day in NYC years later. Her music opened something else up for me—playful but razor-sharp, delicate but full of movement. She had this way of making songs feel like they were happening in real-time, unfolding right in front of you. That looseness, that sense of play, felt like a permission slip to be madly yourself. I still think about her song Homez-a-Place and that lyric:
“Home’s a place where I go crazy if I stay.”
And now there’s Friends 2020, an album that just came out. The songwriter who has used to perform at house shows I went to in Olympia. There’s a song on it called Good Man Theater, and there’s this line:
“You say you want to be a good man
How bad do you want it?
How bad do you want it?”
How much of our growth we’re still negotiating with, how much of it we’ve accomplished only in dreams.
Everyone always talks about returning to your inner child like it’s this clear path, this definitive thing we all lost and need to find again. But I don’t know. That concept feels muddied for me. I find it really muffled trying to reach her, and at the same time, I feel like I’m still absolutely her and never stopped but was supposed to, somewhere along the way. It’s a strange juxtaposition—like I’m trying to reconnect with someone I never fully became separate from.
Sometimes music makes that pipeline clearer.
Kites and rainbows—childhood things, aesthetically heartfelt things, things that suddenly feel like lifelines to my rattled nervous system in the wake of the fire. The idea of dancing, of feel-good vibes, of pure, untethered joy—it all feels medicinal.
I’ve had a some hard cards dealt in life. They cut you just when you are trying to shuffle the order when they keep showing up again and again in a row. And yet, I’ve always been a little judgmental of people who need positivity like an alcoholic needs a drink. That desperate hunger for it, like if they let in even a shadow of darkness, they’d spiral. People who hate their jobs so much that the idea of wasting even a sliver of their weekend causes rage. People who can’t listen to sad songs because it’s just too much.
And yet, I get it.
I’ve written so many sad songs. Back when I was a songwriter, the positive ones were what bothered me the most. It’s easy to write about pain—it has weight, depth. But joy? Uncomplicated, shimmering joy? That always felt nameless.
The sea change of a fire is a slow, unsure loss. Not just of things, but of identity’s shards once again mosaic-ing. Its a loss I don’t know the shape of yet.
Have you never been mellow?
Have you never tried
to find a comfort from inside you?
Maybe that’s what I’m chasing at 4 AM. Maybe that’s what KnoxKind already understands. The kind of groove that lets you love life. The kind of rhythm that lets you float, just for a moment, like a kite caught on the right kind of wind.
