Ryan Nealon’s “What Makes a Man” is ready-made for crying. Piano and drums feel mournful, framed around Nealon’s heavy emotional spending. “I cried myself to sleep for years / Was about to break / Kind of believed I should be someone else, not myself,” he admits. The singer-songwriter combats societal pressures to be a certain way, fully owning the trauma and the tears, while also extending a glimmer of hope for queer kids.
Listen to “What Makes a Man” below.