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Do you like The Power of Love?

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It’s one of the more interesting things to happen to pop punk sincerity in years.

Most people would probably dismiss I Fight Dragons as another nerd-adjacent power-pop band built for people who own at least one hoodie with thumb holes and complicated opinions about retro gaming hardware. But that’s reducing them unfairly. What they’re actually doing is something much stranger.

The original Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News is fundamentally optimistic. It’s polished. Confident. Almost aggressively reassuring in that very 1980s way where emotions were allowed to sound expensive.

I Fight Dragons understand that song from the perspective of people who grew up after optimism stopped feeling culturally guaranteed.

And that changes everything.

The cover keeps the architecture of the original intact, but recontextualises it through crunchy synths, anxious energy, and the specific emotional frequency of people who learned sincerity through the internet while also being vaguely embarrassed by it.

There’s something deeply millennial about refusing irony just long enough to mean something.

The instrumentation matters here. The electronic textures stop the song becoming pure nostalgia bait. It never tries to be the 1980s. It sounds like remembering the 1980s through second-hand media and emotional inheritance. Like discovering confidence as an aesthetic before experiencing it as a feeling.

And vocally, there’s a kind of determined earnestness that I think a lot of modern bands are terrified of committing to fully. The performance understands that “The power of love is a curious thing” is, objectively, an absurd sentence, but also quietly believes it anyway.

Which is important.

Because beneath all the synthesizers and power-pop momentum, the song is still fundamentally about wanting connection badly enough to risk sounding uncool.

That level of emotional commitment is much harder than cynicism.

Most people miss that.

The Comment

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It wasn’t even a big comment.


That’s part of the problem.
Not an argument. Not a confrontation. Just a sentence, dropped into conversation, the kind of thing that should have passed through me without leaving much of a mark.

Except it didn’t.
It caught, somewhere inconvenient, and now it’s here. Again.
This happens more often than I’d like to admit. A single comment, picked up and replayed like it’s important enough to deserve the attention. Not constantly, not dramatically. Just… intermittently. Enough to be annoying. Enough to be tiring.
It shows up while I’m making coffee. While I’m trying to focus on something else. While I’m doing something perfectly ordinary, and suddenly I’m back there again, hearing it slightly differently each time.
And, inevitably, editing it.


Not just what was said, but what I could have said back. What I should have said. The version of the conversation where I was quicker, clearer, less caught off guard. The version where I closed it down neatly, or sidestepped it entirely, or made it impossible to say in the first place.
That’s the part that really drags.
Trying to work backwards into a version of events where I wouldn’t have done the thing that needed The Comment.
If I had acted differently.
If I had said things clearer.
If I had been more direct.
If I had been less verbose.
As if there’s a combination of words or actions that would have prevented it entirely. As if the right version of me would move through conversations without leaving openings for things like that to land.


It’s not even that I fully believe that anymore.
I know, logically, that people say things. They say them casually, without much thought, from their own perspective, their own assumptions. Most of it isn’t calculated. Most of it isn’t about me in the way my brain insists on making it.
And still.
It loops.
Not because it’s especially important, but because it’s there. Because it caught. Because my brain has decided, once again, that this is something to be solved, rather than something that just… happened.


I’m a bit tired of that.
Tired of the replays. Tired of the small rewrites. Tired of the quiet effort of trying to perfect conversations that are already over.
Nothing actually changes.
The comment was made.
The moment passed.
The world carried on.
And here I am, still turning it over, as if there’s something useful left in it.
There probably isn’t.
It’ll fade, eventually. They usually do.


In the meantime, it just… sits there. Showing up when it likes, asking to be fixed.
And I keep half-answering it, even though I know better by now.

It’s Not Brand Loyalty, It’s a Ritual

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I don’t have a great track record for getting attributions right, but I think it’s Tai Chi that has the idea that humans have a finite amount of energy. That if you slow your movements down enough, you extend that energy, and by extension, your life.
Please don’t fact-check me. It will ruin my train of thought.
The problem is, I can’t really slow my body down any further. I work from home. I sit at my desk all day. I make a genuine effort to never leave the house.

So instead of slowing my body, I simplify everything else.

For example: I visit a relative via the same bus route every single time.
I’ll take this bus over any other. I’ll wait for it, even in bad weather. I’ll accept delays. I’ll stand, or squash in with a busy bus, headphones pressed into my ears, because I know exactly where this route goes and how it feels to be on it. Other routes would get me there too. They would just require me to pay attention.

Once you notice I do this with buses, you’ll start noticing the same commitment in other areas too.
My laundry would give me away immediately. I own two — sometimes three — of the same items.

This isn’t really a commitment to a style. That’s just a happy bonus. These items work. They fit where I expect them to. The fabric feels right. The pockets are the correct size, which matters more than fashion ever will.

Owning multiple copies means I don’t have to jump and dance through the process of shopping and fitting again any time soon. It’s an elimination of future problems. A small act of foresight that saves me from reinventing the wheel under bad lighting. That’s the whole point.

And if you’re paying attention to my style, you’ll spot another small secret.
There are almost always three bangles on my left wrist. They come in a variety of colours, but they’re all the same weight, the same style, the same material.
Different colours, identical experience.

These things could easily be mistaken for me being really committed to certain brands.
I’m not.

This is my mental equivalent of getting up early and practising very slow movements in the park. Something like tai chi, if you squint. The kind of scene that looks serene and purposeful in an action movie, where the character is clearly preparing for something.

It’s much less cinematic to watch me simply repeat the same choices over and over again.
What this buys me is energy. Not more of it — just less wasted.
I arrive places calmer. I’m not already tired from the logistics of getting there. I have more attention left for the people I’m with, more capacity for the thing I actually showed up to do.

The bus route, the clothes, the jewellery — they don’t make my life smaller. They make it quieter. They remove friction in places where friction adds nothing, so I can spend what I have on the parts that matter.

It’s not cinematic.
It works.

#AggressiveJoy

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Notes on stubborn pleasure in difficult times

A Tactic, Not a Philosophy

At the beginning of 2025, I started using the phrase aggressive joy like a life raft.

It wasn’t aspirational. It wasn’t curated. It definitely wasn’t gentle. It was something I grabbed onto at the start of the year as a way to get through it.

A tactic.
A refusal.
A clenched fist around small good things when everything else felt heavy, uncertain, or out of my control.

Aggressive joy wasn’t about being happy.
It was demanding joy in my life the way I demand caffeine. Death before decaf applies to more than coffee, it turns out.

If the world was going to keep throwing its weight around, then I was going to meet it with stubborn pleasure. Good coffee even when I was tired. Laughing too loud. Wearing the nice thing on a Tuesday. Taking joy personally, almost defensively, like: no actually, this is mine, I am allowed it.

Fake It ’Til You Make It (And Then You Do)

At first, it felt temporary. A coping mechanism. Something to get me through the year. Fake it ’till you make it.

But the problem with tactics that work is that they tend to stick.
The problem is that sometimes you actually make it.

It served me because it wasn’t just one thing.

The Different Kinds of Aggression

Some days I had to be aggressive in seeking joy. Hunting it down on purpose, insisting on it when it didn’t present itself politely. Looking for the joyful thing like it owed me money.

For more days than I care to admit, I had to be aggressive in experiencing it. Fierce and strict with myself. This is today’s joy. Do not tarnish it with melancholy. Do not pre-empt its ending.

Other days I had to be aggressive in enjoying it. Letting myself actually have the moment without shrinking it, downplaying it, or bracing for it to be taken away. Staying with the joy instead of flinching away from it.

And some days, I had to be aggressive in sharing it. Saying the nice thing out loud. Sending the message. Letting other people see me enjoying myself even when the world felt so relentlessly, grindingly… shit.

Especially then.

Because when everything feels heavy, joy can start to feel like something you should keep quiet about. Like it’s indulgent, or naïve, or somehow out of step with reality. Aggressive joy refused that. It said: no, actually, this is part of how I survive.

The Risk of Wanting More

And sometimes it was aggressive because I was afraid of it.

Joy can feel risky when you’ve learned that good things don’t always last. When enjoyment comes with a quiet calculation about how much it might cost you later. There were days when choosing joy felt like tempting fate, like daring the universe to notice I was having a good time.

But I simply couldn’t continue without joy anymore.

I wanted this joy even if tomorrow it hurt me. Even if it made the fall sharper. Even if it meant I’d have something to miss later. I didn’t want to live as though the possibility of loss was a reason to refuse the present.

Choosing It Anyway

So I took it with my eyes open. Not naïvely, not gently, but deliberately. Knowing it might bruise me later and choosing it anyway.

That’s another kind of aggression, I think.
Not denial. Not optimism.
But courage that knows the cost and pays it upfront.

Letting It Become a Habit

Somewhere along the way, aggressive joy stopped being something I only deployed on bad days. It started showing up uninvited on ordinary ones. I’d notice myself choosing delight without first justifying it. Letting myself enjoy something without waiting for permission or better circumstances.

And that surprised me.

Because I don’t think I ever planned for joy to become a habit.

I was raised, emotionally speaking, to treat joy as conditional. Earned. Delayed until everything else was sorted. You rest after the work. You celebrate after the danger has passed. You enjoy yourself once you’re sure nothing bad is about to happen.

Aggressive joy ignores that order entirely.

It says: have the coffee now.
It says: laugh anyway.
It says: take the pleasure even if the future is unclear, even if the work isn’t finished, even if your brain insists you should be more sensible.

There’s something almost feral about that.

I think that’s why I liked it in the first place.

A Quiet Christmas

And here I am now, choosing a quiet Christmas that brings me joy.

No spectacle. No chaos. No performance of cheer. Just rest, small rituals, space and… joy. I’m still faintly confused at how this is allowed, as if someone might tap me on the shoulder and explain I’ve misunderstood the rules.

This is still aggressive joy. Choosing softness in a world that keeps demanding noise. Choosing enough. Choosing what actually fits, even when part of me expects a catch.

I don’t know what next year will need from me. I don’t know whether joy will have to be hunted, defended, shared, or risked again.

But I do know I’m not ready to retire the hashtag.

Not yet.

Pull me from the Upside Down

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On music as memory, misdirection, and rescue

In another life I would have been a rock star. All ego and wild wardrobe choices, making an artistic choice to stain my fingers black à la Michèle Lamy, and crying at the end of every concert.

But the closest I ever got was being a radio producer, and occasionally hosting some lunchtime shows. We won’t talk about the disastrous time I had to read the news. Local radio really used to be all hands on deck.

I miss the radio show, the playlists, the variety of niche music programmes. I don’t get that much any more.

I love music.

Mixtapes Were a Language

I grew up in the era of mixtapes.

Actual tapes. Hours spent deciding what went where, which song opened, which one closed, what you were saying by putting that track after this one. You couldn’t skip casually. You had to commit. Making a mixtape for someone meant effort, attention, intention.

It was a way of saying this is how I feel, without having to say it out loud.

I was good at making them too. Handing one over with no track list, keeping you guessing with each pause between tracks. Could you pick out the theme before the end?

Why Covers Hit Harder

Cover songs were clutch at keeping folks guessing, but also making them listen, really listen, to the lyrics.

Hurt.

Nine Inch Nails? Melancholic. Empty. A song of absence. A quiet, furious piece that closed Trent Reznor’s live shows like a final fuck you.

Johnny Cash’s cover of Hurt.

Ooft.
Tears.

Sinéad O’Connor — Nothing Compares 2 U
Faith No More — Easy
Yael Naim — Toxic
Muse — Feeling Good
I Fight Dragons — The Power of Love

I could go on, but I’ll save the Patrick Bateman monologue for another time.

I love music.

And I think that’s why the Upside Down idea lodged itself in my brain.

In Stranger Things, when one of the characters gets taken away, and they’re panicked, hurt, untethered from the real world, their friends don’t argue them back to safety. Nobody explains. Nobody instructs.

They play the song that knows them.
And they find their own way out.

Music as a tether.
Music as a way home.

What I loved most wasn’t the drama of it, but the simplicity. The idea that you don’t have to be clever in the moment you’re overwhelmed. You don’t have to articulate anything. You just need the right sound to pull you back into yourself.

And maybe after all this year’s therapy, a grown-up realisation: you’re allowed to choose that song in advance. You’re allowed to tell people what will reach you. You don’t have to hope they guess.

How You Find Me

So when I’m lost. When I’m untethered, overwhelmed, and unable to ask for help. When I’m upside down, this is how you pull me back.

You’ve Got the Love — Florence + the Machine.

I suppose it makes sense that it’s a cover.
I’ve always been better at saying things with other people’s songs.