Anjimile shares the stories behind five of their songs

Leah Corbett

Anjimile is a Texas-born indie-rock singer currently enrolled at Northeastern University, and getting ready to launch their first full-length studio album, “Human Nature,” in March. They pair a soulful croon voice with thoughtful lyrics that contemplate the human condition, and writes all of their songs themself. We asked Anjimile to tell us the stories and events behind five of the songs that hold special meaning to them.

1. The Arboretum This is a love song about me wanting to take someone out on a date and fall in love. It’s a completely true story about a girl I was entirely smitten with. I wrote this to confess my burgeoning love for her, and she thought it was really beautiful.

2. The Arboretum Part II The very next day I wrote this part II, which is the part after she told me she wanted to just be friends. I was thinking, “Woe is me, she doesn’t want to go out with me, [expletive] my poetry.” It’s just me being very sad about her not wanting to date me. A few months after that happened though, she stopped seeing someone, and we’ve been dating for almost 2½ years now. So it all worked out in the end.

3. Therapy This one is very personal because I’m queer and this song chronicles the aftereffects of coming out to my mother. My mom is extremely homophobic, much to the detriment of our relationship. I started going to therapy to work through all of the sadness that comes with being rejected by your parents for your sexual orientation. The song is about acknowledging sadness, but being able to move on.

4. Brain Disease I wrote this shortly after the Boston Marathon bombings, and it’s a very emotional and existential musing on the meaning of life. The bombings were the first public tragedy I’ve ever experienced, and the song reflects that vulnerability and fear of what was going on all around me. There’s a repeating guitar chord in the song and in my mind, that part came about because it was the musical representation of the sirens that were going on for days afterward.

5. Apocalypse Now I wrote this when I was still living in Texas and feeling very constricted by the southern Bible-belt environment that I grew up in. I was getting ready to move to Boston, so the repeating motif is, “I want the world inside my heart, and I want the earth inside my soul.” The verse describes me wanting to break free and experience all of the wonder and beauty the world has to offer, but at the same time to also want the bad experiences in order to appreciate the good. I want to experience the world fully, and I think that’s a double-edged sword.

Anjimile performs at T.T. the Bear’s Place on Feb. 22 at 8:30 p.m. Tickets: $9.