I’m no math major, but 365 to 500 is a long ways. It’s one hundred thirty five, to be exact. One hundred thirty five playlists to commemorate the panorama, the panini press, the great shenanigans, the year of our lord 2020.
I listened to music constantly during the early pandemic, March through July. I couldn’t stand to be alone with my thoughts, so I simply endeavored to never be alone enough to think them. I had the constant companions of Spotify and my headphones. I clocked somewhere around seventy thousand minutes that year, which was a significant jump from 2019.
I listened to a lot of sad music in 2020. To be fair, I think the releases skewed sad; it seemed almost inappropriate, tone deaf, when a really peppy record dropped in the middle of what seemed like the collective worst year of our lives. There were some notable exceptions: Dua Lipa’s Future Nostalgia, Rina Sawayama’s SAWAYAMA, Carly Rae Jepsen’s Dedicated Side B, among others. These albums felt like they needed an explainer, a few lines in the artist’s obligatory release day Instagram post, about bringing joy in a time of darkness, thinking critically about whether or not it was a good time to put the record out but ultimately deciding that it felt right.
I preferred the darker stuff. Right at the beginning, when everything felt scary but also like an extended spring break, I made some truly unhinged pop playlists (401 oh my, 404 truth is, 417 bad news), but the habit dropped off as thing felt more and more dire. I came back to folk music, All Things Must Pass (1970) by George Harrison and Deja Vu (1970) by Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young most notably, and leaned into the desperate feeling in the air with records that felt completely out of place and time.
The releases from the very beginning of 2020 all have that about them, whatever that is. I sometimes forget that there were nearly three months of 2020 before the pandemic, and all the records from that time period seem deeply unattached to any real sense of time. I remember where I was when I first heard “Streetlight Blues” from Squirrel Flower’s I Was Born Swimming, which became my favorite album of the year. I was at the gym, listening to NPR, thinking about going to class later that day, very normal stuff. It seems almost too banal to belong to the same time as everything that happened after, as if the second half of March was cleaved off into a new year altogether.
I Was Born Swimming transitioned seamlessly into isolation. It’s a record about longing, wanting. I loved it instantaneously, but it came to mean a lot more to me as the year went on; I longed, I wanted. It’s one of the only records that I listen to cover to cover on a regular basis, a whole world of my own projections and associated memories packed into a tight thirty five minutes.
The song I chose for this playlist is “Red Shoulder.” It goes hard enough to play in the car with the volume cranked, but has the emotional depth of any of my favorite soft indie songs:
You’re one for healing
But I’m still reeling
From your last call
Squirrel Flower’s lyrics get right to the center of the thing. She says it plainly, and it cuts to the core—
Take it harder
Feeling more
I don’t know what it is or isn’t anymore
Her music really inspired me to start writing again and was a heavy influence on a lot of the early Bike Lane demos. Its earthy, stripped feel is mirrored by frequent references to the natural world. I started looking around me for beautiful things, and they were everywhere, but sometimes impossible to put into words. “Red Shoulder” doesn’t have a chorus, instead, it features a ripping guitar riff in its place. Impressively, the album was recorded live; all these poignant, intense moments happened in real time.
Speaking of poignant and intense, Punisher had me on the ground the whole year. No one does devastating like Phoebe Bridgers, and she really did it this time: eleven songs, each more heart-wrenching than the last, many of them legitimately disturbing, my pick for this playlist, “Moon Song” included:
“Moon Song” was my instant favorite. I cycle through others that I have on heavy rotation, but I return again and again to this one. The guitar line is sweet and simple and sad, earnest in the most crushing way. Ethan Gruska is credited for the sound design of this song, and his involvement is palpable. The guitars sound so warm and soft, the sounds of fingers sliding up and down the strings turned up. The creaking noises coupled with the muted drums make a perfect landscape for Phoebe’s delicate, vulnerable performance of her desperate lyrics:
You couldn't have
Stuck your tongue down the throat of somebody
Who loves you more
So I will wait for the next time you want me
Like a dog with a bird at your door
I saw her play “Moon Song” live at the Greek in the fall. With how things are looking now in the news, I’m not sure that I’ll get to see all the shows I have planned for the spring. I’m so grateful that this one happened; I felt actually transformed.
My most played song of the year in 2020 was “Held Down” by Laura Marling. Song for Our Daughter was the first real quarantine record I remember; everyone was delaying their release dates to accommodate what seemed like might be a rough month, but Laura Marling put out this record early, pushed up from an original late summer date, on April 10, 2020. I remember sitting in the bedroom of the apartment that I had just emergency moved into scrolling through Spotify on Thursday night at 9pm, waiting for the new albums of the week to drop. I had heard “Held Down” when it came out as a single on April 5. It brings me back viscerally to those uncertain first days, the worry and confusion.
I apparently latched on to this song stronger than I realized, but I do remember playing it over and over again. The strange, ethereal vocal melodies are so unlike anything Laura Marling has done before—I was mesmerized. I’ve been listening to Laura Marling since I was in the sixth grade; I remember when Once I Was an Eagle (2013) came out.
I saw her play “Held Down” twice last week, at her shows at the Independent. Both times, she performed entirely alone, with just an acoustic guitar. The stripped down version of this song was different, magical in a new way. The lyrics really got the chance to shine:
We all want to be here now
And we all want to be held down
2020 felt like many years squashed down into one, most of them bad and hard. Thank god the music was good.
Please comment your favorite songs of 2020—I’m dying to know what I’ve missed.