Hi. Hello. This is a month late. Because: winter. And depression. And life. And and and. I had pushed out of my brain just how brutal Midwest winters are over the last decade or so, managing to create a black hole where all the memories were of unending grey skies and old snow piles living for months next to driveways and the way the wind cuts through everything you’re wearing and gets into your bones in a way that is so specific and bad. But now I remember. And now there’s a plan for the way out, and the way to live through it next year.
Let’s focus now, instead, on some of the good stuff from the year so far. Some songs, some playlists, a few episodes of various things. There were good things in the midst of the unending slog.
Songs
Below the little blurbs about each of these tracks is a playlist where they all live together, weirdly connected but wonderful nonetheless. Figure that’s easier than making you go hunt them down yourself. You’ve got better things to do.
“New Order T-Shirt’ - The National and “Mending Song” - Ruston Kelly
Did I take a real slow breath in the first time I heard Matt Berninger cruise through the line ‘I keep what I can of you / split-second glimpses and snapshots and sounds”? You know this, reader. Same thing happened when Ruston Kelly hit the line “and deep in the shadow of my failures / I saw some things are worth the pain.” I find the idea of how people grieve relationships to be truly fascinating as I grow older and further away from the last time I had to mourn such a thing. There’s a peace in being able to miss something but only keeping the moments that serve you, that deserve to live on, that are objectively good, even if the rest of what they came from is ash. Remembering relationships and the why and what of how they disintegrated becomes much less black and white with time, I’m finding, and there’s some beauty in that.
“Dawns”- Zach Bryan feat. Maggie Rogers
The first song I tried to play to death this year, a tune full of left turns and brash passion. I suppose this is the natural countermeasure to those songs by The National and Ruston Kelly, but I don’t think they look at love in dissimilar ways. We are all searching for connection and meaning, this is just the version that shows up in your 20’s instead of the kind that shows up in your late 30’s.
“Up On The Divide” - Mighty Poplar
It wouldn’t be the dead of winter unless one truly lovely, tumbling bluegrass-adjacent song that sounds like growing things and hope came into my life and swept me off my feet.
“Miami” - Caroline Rose and “Nervous System” - Joseph
Also wouldn’t be the dead of winter unless there was a jittery tune (in this case, two) that absolutely plays off my own anxiousness and accompanying mood swings. Such gorgeous worry and volatility on display with these two.
“Aselestine” - Yo La Tengo, “Apple Tree” - Why Bonnie, “This Is How We Move” - Billie Marten, “Lights Light Up” - Fenne Lily, and “High School Gym” - Dougie Poole
I do not think all of these songs sound alike, but I also think they all go together, if that makes sense. They are all unassuming, muted, shuffling little strolls in their own particular way, beautiful in their restraint and steadiness. My brain has gone ahead and bunched them together for ease of processing and cataloging, which might not be fair, but this winter has broken my brain, so. Bonus points to Fenne Lily for the line “You came to me at the speed of a bad decision,” which, wow, yes, I am too old now to make any of those that aren’t horribly catastrophic, but from my younger years that is a very specific feeling and I remember it and do not totally miss it/knowing it was bad and still just going ahead anyways.
“I Love You But I’m Lost” - Aoife O’Donovan, “Moonlight, Stay Above” - Great Lake Swimmers, and “Sawgrass” - Josh Ritter
I do not know that these three go together, really. But they are here together. The cover from Aoife O’Donovan could go along with those songs from The National and Ruston Kelly in terms of being snapshots of how relationships are processed as adults. It’s a winter love song, one that acknowledges lostness without giving up on love. And then the Great Lake Swimmers and Josh Ritter come in and provide the comfort that only non-denominational gospel-leaning songs can, enough community coming through to feel like a hug, enough twinkling to put your mind at ease with the brokenness and the love. They go together as a story, I suppose, of what it’s like to fall asleep in the dead of winter, and wake up and keep going. And realize you’re still in love.
Episodes
As someone who spent many hours of the mid-90s in a basement playing video games with his best friend while a tape with Green Day on one side and The Offspring on the other played, this episode was very obviously in my wheelhouse and made me feel things.
It will forever be fascinating to me that songs I love can sometimes come out just about fully-formed, or, in the case of “Stick Season,” a set of pretty much fully-formed pieces.
I….I feel the stomping and clapping rising up inside me while I listen to this (which is not a slight! this is a fascinating look at a sound that’s been everywhere lately!)
Playlists
Did I start a new weekly playlist all because the SiriusXM stations I was flipping between driving my son to daycare last Monday somehow made a cohesive playlist of tunes absolutely made for strutting around the house? You know this, friend. So, here’s this, which I’m aiming to update every Monday with a new half hour of tunes to sort of Kramer-slide into the new week to.
Put together this playlist of tunes that bring me peace for my friend Joe. Maybe it’s something you could use. It’s getting a lot of run around here lately.
It’s not Valentine’s Day any longer, but there’s no time of the year that isn’t improved with love songs. Here’s 125 (and growing, once I find the motivation) of my favorites from the last few decades or so.