playlist – The Diary of The Deranged Writer

Song of the Moment CV: Nine Inch Nails’ “The Hand That Feeds”

I can honestly say that 2025 is one of the most memorable years of my life, and one reason is that I replaced a few of my New Year’s resolutions with some things better. One resolution was to delve into a different single music artist per week, and it proved to be difficult, especially since I have a day job and other interests I’d like to pursue after work. So, I replaced that music resolution with listening to a playlist of my favorite songs on Spotify. It turns out that listening to songs I truly love (whether I’m writing, walking, or just chilling) is more enjoyable than absorbing an entire discography in seven days. The latter sounds like a chore rather than entertainment.

With my favorite songs list comes a rekindled appreciation for the industrial rock pioneers, Nine Inch Nails. When I listened to the legendary band’s essential playlist curated by Spotify, I rediscovered the songs I remembered and loved years ago, and then I added them to my list. Since then, according to my Last.fm, my number of listens to the band spiked to 300+ times. That’s an incredible feat, and I believe the statistic will grow in the future because, at this point, I acknowledge (and embrace) both the light and the darkness, and Nine Inch Nails is known for their dark, heavy music.

So, you might ask what my favorite Nine Inch Nails song is as of late. It’s definitely “The Hand That Feeds”, the first single from the fourth studio album With Teeth. Based on my lyrical interpretation, the song is about questioning authority (while questioning oneself in the process), and that politically relevant message is wrapped in a heavy, defiant industrial rock sound that is so hypnotically danceable, and I don’t normally dance to Nine Inch Nails songs. Nowadays, every time I commute, I’d search “That Hand That Feeds” on my list, and then listen to it as I move my feet like I own the street.

The music video of Nine Inch Nails’ “The Hand That Feeds”.

I think I have found my top favorite Nine Inch Nails song in “The Hand That Feeds” for its modern-day relevance and its hypnotizing, groovy industrial rock instrumentals. That’s why it’s my Song of the Moment.

Just how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you wanna change it?
The chorus of Nine Inch Nails’ “The Hand That Feeds”

Anyway, let me dance again to the song in my favorite cafe. It’s a good thing I’m the only customer here at the moment… oh, shit. People are approaching. I’ll just do an internal dance, if I could call it that.

Header image: Pedro Figueras of Pexels. Edited in Adobe Photoshop 2025.

Updated on December 18, 2025.

The Recently I

Lately, I have been delivering longer posts more than ever, and I think that I’m doing a decent job of that. Not great; decent. But anyway, the reason behind the mini-surge of lengthy posts is that, after a few years of working in my current day job, I found the right balance between doing what I have to do (e.g., my day job, relearning my skills) and doing what I want to do (e.g., enjoying my fandoms, writing here on The Diary). That balance gives me more time to plan and contemplate, and then put them all to writing here in The Diary.

That being said, I miss writing quick posts, and I haven’t made a new blog series in a long time, so it’s time for the debut of a new one: The Recently. Think of it as a page from a slumbook where I write the recent things I have watched, listened to, eaten, or whatever I have done recently.

Now, let’s begin the first edition of The Recently.

Song of the Moment C: Foo Fighters’ “Run”

I’ve had many right-song-at-the-right-time moments lately, from hearing Saya’s “Natsu Shigure” during a rainy walk to my favorite cafe last June to hearing the opening theme of Person of Interest (my all-time favorite show) when I typed the exact title during a recent online conversation. As a music fan, I truly love those perfectly-timed moments.

Today, I finally recovered from two weeks of muscle pain and coughing. (Violently coughing at night is not a good experience at all. And I can really feel the aging now. Damn.) Thanks to resting, drinking The Angel’s Cup (which is basically hot honey/citron/ginger tea), and listening more to mellow music, now I’m feeling great physically, and I went back just in time for work. The first thing I did upon my return: open my laptop, open my Spotify app, and look for my favorite songs list (which consists of songs from various genres and music acts). I was curious if the universe and Spotify would deliver at least one perfectly-timed song, so I hit shuffle again.