What is this? I’ve liked many things throughout the years. While some have fallen out of my attention, others remain firmly cemented in my memories and feelings. So, I’ve decided to start a mini-series where each week (hopefully), I pick something random that I like or have liked and discuss it, why I like it, and its impact on me. These things can be varied, and range from more trivial matters such as my favourite animal, to books, games, and movies I’ve liked, to topics that have shaped who I am as a person. The posts, accordingly, will vary in length. See my rating system here.

CONTENT WARNING: Mild hints toward suicide and depression.

Today’s short entry for TIL is a series of Japanese Vocaloid (electrical synthesized singers) songs named the Benzene Series. It’s a set of six extremely vague and abstract songs, all with titles having to do with “benzene”, a family of chemicals.

The stars of the series are the third and fourth songs, named “Paradichlorobenzene” and “Antidichlorobenzene”, introduced to me several years ago by my eldest sister (who happens to introduce me to lots of things :P).

Both songs are basically abstract rants about the song not having a meaning (yup…). The author has stated that he intentionally made the songs vague and open to lots of interpretations, but has never made his intentions clear, nor has he uploaded since 2012.

It’s perfectly nonsensical. The lyrics make no sense, and people who try to make sense of it in the comment sections usually go off the deep end pretty quickly. I don’t really care, and just appreciate the music for the music.

So why do I like it? Only a couple reasons:

• It has a pretty brainwashing melody, neither pretty nor exciting; it just sticks in your head and stays there.
• If you put the two songs together, they fit together perfectly. I love it when content creators pull stunts like this. If this wasn’t true, this wouldn’t even be on TIL, that’s how much I appreciate it.

TIL Rating: 1. Once I get them out of my head I usually don’t think of them again for quite a while.

See you in the next one!