What is this time that we’re living in? Even with some good news—we’re up to two million vaccinations a day—the larger news of the pandemic (half a million dead, with more on the way) persists among the other news coming with and extending beyond this poorly managed crisis: protests, threats to democracy, weather that disobeys our expectations because our expectations have outstripped patience. We live in a media ecosystem, both wondrous and toxic, where feeds and streaming options let us have whatever we (may think we) want, at any hour of the day or night. I’ve thought of taking a few minutes to write the names of the movies I watched this past year with my family, to keep a catalog for future conversation during a road trip or over dinner, but I couldn’t start because I wasn’t certain I could remember what I’ve watched. The entertainment I’ve enjoyed has become a big, impossible blur, a ticker tape of input with seemingly no end or beginning and containing strange recurrences. (I have seen Palm Springs three times.)
Yet here I am, offering you a playlist. From a streaming service. Feeding the beast, as it were. I hope, though, that these songs, selected for their relevance what this past year has been like (showing me my need to listen better, to be delivered, to be calmed, and maybe even to get up and dance), contains something that speaks to you, too. The playlist is offered to anyone who has lost someone, or a job, or their sanity trying to take care of friends and family while recognizing that doing life responsibly means doing the same things, over and over, day after day. The routines of life are perhaps more sharply seen when we’re warded off from others, behind masks or closed doors.
I’ve added a few words about each of the tracks, if that’s helpful to anybody, but really, pressing play is enough. The songs explain themselves better than anything I could say about them. Listen on, if you’d like. And hold on.
“Meant for You,” The Beach Boys
A small song of invitation and welcome.
“Opelousas (Sweet Relief),” Maria McKee
Relief is found in a variety of places, if you look: a boat ride, a back rub, the clothes people wear or just in the air. This song’s written by the great Victoria Williams, and while her version’s wonderful, Maria McKee is one of those singers who seems to be having a blast every time she opens her mouth. Her yell at the end sells me on the possibility of a way forward.
“If You Find Yourself Caught in Love,” Belle and Sebastian
For those in love and those who are lonesome. What’s sly, offhandedly so, is the last verse, where the singer chastises the powers that be who mistake love for dominance, as if those in charge who launch wars do so because they are unlucky in love and don’t know where, or who, to ask for help.
“Shelter,” Vic Mensa, featuring Wyclef Jean & Chance the Rapper
A track that’s all caught up with current events, chronicling a bad year and what the events of the past year reveal about what history’s been saying for centuries, for those who know how to read it.
“How Do You Slow This Thing Down?,” The Gothic Archies
Stephin Merritt’s song catalogs the failed methods for slowing the thing down. It’s a little bleak, but it raises a common, recurring question I didn’t know I was asking until I heard it put like this.
“Jams Run Free,” Sonic Youth
Kim Gordon sings, “We love the jams, / And jams run free.” When the instrumental breakdown reaches its climax, resolving into guitar melody of single notes after a passage of proper Sonic-Youth-ish cacophony, it really is like a jam running free after a period of struggle. Run, little jam! Run!
“I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to Be Free,” Nina Simone
Everytime I hear this, when Ms. Simone shouts “yeah!” around the two-and-a-half minute mark, my spirit lifts. Good drumming gives the song its extra something.
“You Can Never Hold Back Spring,” Tom Waits
The buds on the pomegranate tree behind the house where I live have returned, and the tiniest bit of green—pinpoints, really—have shown up on the plum tree, a welcome claim that this past year has not been one, big, unremitting miasma of misery. Things will change.
“In Line,” Bill Frisell
A generous, wondrous bit of guitar music—a prayer, as far as I’m concerned.
“Yours and Mine,” Lucy Dacus
Lucy Dacus’s album Historian is one of my favorite albums released in the last five years or so. Her songs are surprising and wise. This is a song of resolve and hope in a time of division.
“Fireworks,” Mitski
Of the many virtues of Mitski’s songwriting is its compression. A lot happens in a small space. Here, Mitski explores a theme of running through her much of her work, alone-ness and memory, and how the latter phenomenon throws into relief the former condition.
“Don’t Forget About Me,” The Mercy Seat
One of my favorite Gospel albums is this one-off punk-soul classic from 1986. Bless others, Lord, but don’t forget about me. I’m still here in my house, waiting.
“Busy Doing Nothing,” Beach Boys
Being stuck at home doesn’t have to be bad. It can actually be quite pleasant!
“This is to Mother You,” Linda Rondstadt & Emmylou Harris
A cover of a Sinead O’Connor song that is as generous a vision of love for the brokenhearted as I’ve heard.
“Heart,” Rockpile
One of those songs, like so many of Patsy Cline’s, where heartbreak and doubt are sung with such brio you want to sing along, you want to dance.
“Mighty Long Way,” Fishbone
My friends, if only through zoom, have made this year better than it might have been.
“Five-Year Plan,” Chance the Rapper
There is indeed “Time for them lessons / Time for them blessings / Time for first, second third, fourth impressions,” and
“Time for reflection.” We’re lousy with time. This song implores me to use it, patiently: Festina lente!
“Violence,” Parquet Courts
William Blake: “The voice of honest indignation is the voice of God.”
“The Night I Heard Caruso Sing,” Everything but the Girl
A nice complement to “Shelter,” above, where Wyclef Jean sings “let this song be your shelter.” Ben Watt and Tracy Thorn find shelter Enrico Caruso’s voice, which provides, if only briefly, an alternative to a world where people load “bombs into the hills.” The sax solo is a benediction.
“Hem of His Garment,” Sam Cooke and the Soul Stirrers
This song narrates one the most moving stories in the Bible, of a woman isolated for over a decade by her “sickness,” receiving healing in her body by a faith that brings her even greater risk. She is delivered. She is finally free. (Also this track’s a reminder that Sam Cooke’s voice is one remarkable instrument.)
“Clean Slate,” Rolling Blackouts C.F.
“And you don’t know how grave it is / My friend’s eyes are wide with fear / Wipe my clean slate down with tears / Scorched earth for ten thousand years / Clean slate!”
“Hard Times Come Again No More,” The Lost Dogs
This old Stephen Foster song speaks plainly what many I imagine feel.