forgive the rather profane band name, but for aro tunes thursday, I'm gonna submit what's probably my aro (and ace, too) anthem: "Advance Upon the Real" by Perfect Pussy.
So many of this song's lyrics explicitly reference navigating ideas of love and attraction the singer doesn't understand (and which doesn't understand them back) in ways that feel very aro- and generally aspec-coded to me, in ways I've only rarely seen in other songs. I dunno if that was necessarily the intention, but when statements like "I don't understand attraction" and "I have limitations when it comes to my desiring / and complicated feelings on desire and desiring" and "I'm at best a step removed from what's considered natural / I'm at worst disinterested in what's considered lovable" are not subtext but plainly stated, it's not hard for me to interpret the song in that sort of lens. And the title lines, "I'm an advance upon the real / Not a step up from others, but a step away" hit as a rallying line to me in that context.
Even the sound and structure of the song itself (at least in the studio recording) feel aro-coded, in a sense: the way the vocals are fighting against a maelstrom of noise feels like an apt metaphor for speaking up against overwhelming ignorance and erasure; and even its final few minutes, for as often as I tend to skip them and for how easy it is to simply dismiss them as near-silence with basically nothing happening, still feature tape hiss and drone and other identifiable sounds, like how aromanticism (and asexuality, for that manner), are whole modes of being and thinking often mistaken for mere absence.
Sorry for the verbose navel-gazing: I could probably yap about this track (let alone this band in general) all day lol.
you can find the song here and the lyrics here.
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