Soundtracks for Small Dramas: Songs I Stole from Him

In this recurring column for Atwood Magazine, I explore the emotional texture of everyday moments through curated soundtracks – music that scores the small, often-overlooked dramas of modern life. From fleeting crushes and social awkwardness to unspoken goodbyes and quietly unraveling friendships, these playlists are designed to hold the tension, humor, and heartache of the in-between.

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“Songs I Stole from Him” is a playlist for when you’re done texting your ex, but not done stealing his music. Exploring the lingering emotional pull of dating a musician – the ego, the performance, the aftertaste – and the songs that come to define it all.

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Stream: ‘Songs I Stole from Him’ by Max Hollingsworth

So, your job is leading you to greenrooms, sticky carpet, and the balcony to smoke.

It’s also leading you to a synth player who’s obsessed with being perceived and has a faultless playlist.

“Mike” – Molina

It’s optimistic – you’re overanalysing him as your watch him work the room. His cigarette gets soggy from the condensation of his beer. People are here for him – limbs loose, eyes sharp, the music giving him depth. Mike lingers in the subconscious, like a half-remembered dream – soft, melancholic, and beautifully elusive. Somewhat like the image of him on stage, treating himself with a glass of wine.

“Venus” – Molina

The production of this track feels like a transmission from a distant, romanticised world. Now you’re on the other side, in the curtains. His eyes caught on you with a snarky smile he makes fun of the crowd. These moments create a bubble of isolation for two. The more you watch and the more he watches you, it grows inside you – a big life.

“All the Way” – Milan W.

You’re back in the crowd. He’s throwing you glances, but suddenly your body feels like the girl’s next to you. She looks up at him, and you know that look. Why do you all keep looking up? Should you stay and wait, or are you finally going somewhere? After the show, his arm around you. You pass that girl – outside now, leaning against the wall. Were you her? Is she you in a few weeks? You go out, spend your money, make some fun pretending you are lovers. In a room full of people, you whisper: Are you leaving me, or do you want to go all the way? And he’ll push you out and spin you round.

“Comfort Eating” – PVA

Post-punk, electronic, anxious and slick. This is the moment you cave. You change your look, track his eye line. Try not to be a groupie, but that just makes you more of one. You’re sick with shame and growing pains. Anger swells inside – you try biting through it all. The sky looks so bright when you lie beside him but does he see you like this too?

“Giving Bad People Good Ideas” – Death Grips

You share a thought – he turns it into art, then feeds that art to someone else. Driven by distorted, pummelling beats and a noisy industrial backdrop, this track is unrelenting, aggressive, impossible to ignore. The production’s dense, abrasive, and disorientating. Your body’s ripping away from the version of him you once idealised. A shallow plot for a senile king. Your lust tortures you, watching it become fuel for someone else’s desire. You keep giving bad people good ideas.

“Glasgow” – Jockstrap

The optimism is sceptic now. Glitchy electronics and ambient unease. He told you Glasgow could be the place to go, but he doesn’t write for you anymore. You touch yourself and feel what’s missing while he checks into a holiday spa. You’re not going to Glasgow anymore. You’ll just see him at the show.

“My Nighty<angel cloth>” – Robbie & Mona

You show up late; the gig’s started. You wiggle through the crowd, girls snap back, like you don’t belong anymore. Standing in your nighty, looking a little more like yourself, you look up one last time and then fade into the crowd – for him, for you. He can’t distinguish you from the girls that faun over him. The track floats like a lullaby in a half-awake dream – delicate, eerie, it belongs to a memory just out of reach.

“Swing (in a dream)” – Squid

Twitchy drums, nervous groove, jagged guitar. You live inside the frame now – the one he built for you. He drew you how he liked. Forever, he will see you in this frame, and now, for the first time, you see it clearly. You don’t recognise the girl he depicts. And you see the others. screaming to be drawn too. Step out of the frame. Walk out of his perception of you.

“KNEES LIKE JELLY” – Sarah Meth

A delicate and intimate piece, wrapped in a hazy, dreamlike atmosphere. The almost whispered vocals feel as if you’re overhearing a private moment of reflection. The production is warm and lo-fi, with subtle ambient textures that give it an ethereal quality. This song plays when you’re walking away from it, when you can’t tell if its city lights or the stars above you. Your mind goes quiet, your eyes lock in, your stride stable. That was everything, and you were going to make everything. Without him – what will you do with it all?

“Beekeeping” – Dutch Interior

Did you keep him warm with your praise? With your art orbiting around him? You gave him your bones, and now he’s building someone new with them. You feel the pieces separate there’s a sense of looseness to the arrangement, making it feel spontaneous.

“blunt subconscious” – Untitled (halo)

Reverb-soaked synths and decaying beats. Ghostly vocals that dissolve into the swirling instrumentation – like your brain, which rots because of him. Was it worth the time? Is it worth the thought? A ghost that lives in your brain, surrounded by art that will never see the outside of your head. A feeling to describe it – it’s always on your mind. To fantasise – you think you’d rather die.

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So, it’s been a bit. Since? You haven’t seen him in a crowded room, on stage, passing you on the street, skulking on a friend couch at house party. You haven’t texted or called. You haven’t checked to see if he still has that girlfriend. You haven’t asked around. But, when your music runs dry and you get itchy, you sneak into his playlist and steal a little inspiration.

And now, that’s all it is. – Max Hollingsworth

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Max is a freelance writer and longtime participant in Sydney’s underground music scene. They began as a photographer, shooting sweaty basement shows and late-night gigs, before picking up the pen to write about the bands that made their ears ring. Max’s work explores the spaces where sound, subculture, and storytelling collide – from DIY scenes to distant festivals. When not writing, they’re usually digging through old setlists, loitering near sound desks, or hunting down the next band worth losing hearing for.

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Songs I Stole from Him

by Max Hollingsworth