Other Voices, Other Rooms: "Huwag Muna Tayong Umuwi" / "The Loneliest Time"
On uncertainty, presence, and the willingness to rush into love, again and again. Also, two pop gems.
For our third guest piece, we have one of my favorite culture writers for going on a decade now—and someone I’m deeply honored to call a dear friend—Emil Hofileña, writing about two of the decade’s best love songs, each from opposite corners of the world but springing from the same universal exhortation: That love—despite the disappointments of the past and the uncertainty of the future—is worth coming back to and asking to stay, again and again.
Here’s the full playlist of the 100 Best Songs of the 2020s (So Far).
In case you missed any of our prior newsletters for this series so far:
Top 10 (all by me): “TLC Cagematch” / “Casual” | “American Teenager” / “People, I’ve been sad” | “Silk Chiffon” / “anything” | “Hard Drive” / “Somewhere Near Marseilles” | “It’s Not Just Me, It’s Everybody” / “Welcome to My Island”
Guests: “Starburned and Unkissed” by Gian Balangue | 3 K-Pop Songs by Justin Nava | “Huwag Muna Tayong Umuwi” / “The Loneliest Time” by Emil Hofileña | “My Love Mine All Mine” by Ashley Ranich | “Billions” by Niki Colet | “party 4 u” / “Will Anybody Ever Love Me?” by Currie McKinley
BINI - “Huwag Muna Tayong Umuwi”
Of all the music released over the last few years by eight-member Filipino girl group BINI, it’s the sentimental, vocal harmony-drenched “Huwag Muna Tayong Umuwi” that stands as arguably their strongest example of the unique mood and perspective that Filipino musicians can bring to the global idol music scene. The nearly five-minute R&B-pop track is a slight departure from the group’s generally sunnier sound and more upbeat performances. But any Filipino pop fan will tell you that the romantic longing of songs like this are rooted in the same communal experiences that inspire the more festive and uplifting parts of BINI’s discography.
It’s not just that “Huwag Muna Tayong Umuwi” gives each of these eight singers a generous vocal part and ample opportunity to support their members through ad libs and harmonization. It’s that their parts seem specifically designed not to be overpowering; rather than have BINI one-up each other through vocal acrobatics, their voices maintain a softness of timbre, forming cushioned layers rather than an abrasive wall of sound. And it may just be the effect of watching the group perform this song on a bus, but the thoughtful line distribution among them really does evoke scenes of friends continuing each other’s sentences, completing each other’s stories, echoing how the other feels before they can even get the words out.
Even on a lyrical level, the song (penned entirely in Tagalog by Nica del Rosario and Jumbo de Belen) resists easy drama while still intensifying the romance of a simple nighttime scene on a beach. The connection between the two figures in the song remains fairly ambiguous, because for once, their shared history or the future of their relationship matters far less than the preservation of this present moment. As BINI comes together in harmony, so do the songwriters write about the convergence of nature—the light of the moon, the view of the waves, the touch of sand—into one urgent wish sung into the night: That the world stop spinning for once. Love at its purest is not fireworks or fanfare or the straining of voices in a song, but peace and quiet and oneness, no matter how fleeting.
Carly Rae Jepsen - “The Loneliest Time (ft. Rufus Wainwright)”
It’s in the nature of pop songs to attach themselves to specific, everyday moments, imbuing greater meaning into emotions we might otherwise dismiss as unimportant or senseless. For myself, Carly Rae Jepsen’s “The Loneliest Time” has forever become associated with one particular exchange I was witness to: At a quiet rooftop bar, one colleague lamenting how people can be so indecisive with their feelings, and another colleague gently responding, “How can we hold it against people when they aren’t sure?” Carly’s song wasn’t playing anywhere near us; in fact, it hadn’t even been released at this point in time. But it has, like so many great pop songs, retroactively made sense of an emotional truth we had still been struggling to work through.
Key to “The Loneliest Time’s” meaning is its placement on the album of the same name. It acts as the closing track on the standard edition, and follows 12 other songs of Carly singing about the constant cycle of making a promising connection, getting her hopes up, steeling her resolve to come back stronger, then falling back into the same dance. And still, after so much heartbreak and disappointment, this song makes the uncertainty of trying again—“Knock on your door, just like before” / “This time, love, we’re gonna get it right” / “I’m coming back for you, baby; I’m coming back for you!”—feel like an adventure worth taking every time. The great realization at the end of The Loneliest Time is that opening up to becoming vulnerable again is not weakness. If the feelings are real, then maybe the hope is real too.
Jepsen (with co-writers Nate Cyphert and Kyle Shearer) sets all this against the backdrop of a disco dance floor and a musical theater stage. There’s a purposefully dramatic structure to the song, with string instruments, an active percussion section, and the comforting voice of Rufus Wainwright gradually introduced as characters. By the time it arrives at that now-iconic spoken bridge leading into a euphoric coda, Carly has convinced us that things will be different this time—no more going through the motions of verse-chorus-verse, only gloriously uncharted territory from here. The sun hits the water, and it does feel like nirvana. As Carly and Rufus sing off into the sunrise, the lilt of the strings fades, and the ambiguous keyboard notes from the top of the song stagger into the fade-out. The uncertainty does return. But how can we hold it against her for reaching for the moon?
Emil Hofileña is a writer and critic based in Quezon City. His coverage of theater, film, and television has appeared in Theater Fans Manila, A Good Movie to Watch, Rogue, and Rolling Stone Philippines. He has also served as a juror for the Filipino Academy of Arts and Sciences (FAMAS) Awards and the Cinema One Originals Film Festival Awards. He should really update his Letterboxd account @cinemil.