Note: the fourth song on this playlist is “Court and Spark” by Joni Mitchell, now unavailable on Spotify.
As we’re sliding into the end of summer—persistent wind in the evenings, the hills turning brittle and brown, rain refusing to fall—I’m feeling pensive, spending more downtime looking out of windows, doing nothing. While my life has refused to slow in the slightest, I’m finding moments in the chaos to think about new beginnings as this short and sweet chapter closes.
One of the reasons I’ve maintained this playlist project for six years is that it provides me with these perfect snapshots of my past selves. I often say that I have a terrible memory, but in reality I have very poor and selective recall, a complete inability to access information without the right keys, if it is there at all. The summer of 2019 is mostly a feeling to me now—yellow and green, sunsets on the roof, sleeping in a twin bed in a wooden house, cherry tomatoes, ceramic tiles in the yard—but that feeling has solidity, such that I can turn it over in my mind and see new details and shapes.
I’m about to enter my final year of school, probably ever. I made this playlist the summer after my first year, the two moments like halves of a Rorschach blot that is the future repeating the past. There is no big truth in stating that I am an entirely different person now, something about my cells splitting and dying and splitting again, but I am also so much my own person. Listening to this playlist while I write is like immersing myself in the deep past; I can remember the room where I used to live, the oppressive heat that summer, the job I had carrying plates covered in polished silver cloches in dark rooms. I can also remember how lost I was, the quiet panic of wanting to change but not knowing how.
“Precious” wove in and out of my life a lot that year, on heavy rotation when I was feeling good and neglected when I was not. I used to put it on a loop and try to stick the difficult melody when I was alone, doing chores in the late afternoon. That was the summer I learned to tolerate dirt indoors, the summer I came to prefer windows without screens, the summer I had a house key that I never used because the door was never locked. “Precious” reminds me of those habits that I picked up and didn’t put back down, reminds me that I still often dream I am walking around that house.
It was my best friend’s birthday recently, and I got him a vinyl copy of Graceland (1986). He told me once that he remembers “Graceland” playing the first time that we met, in the kitchen of that house, and since then I’ve associated the album with our friendship. It has the joyful contours of the late summer light, riding our bikes together, going to the farmers market. It feels both free and heavy, the culmination of a season. “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” has a line, like many songs on this record, that injects that gravity into the supple instrumentation:
She was physically forgotten
Then she slipped into my pocket
With my car keys
Does everyone have specific songs that they associate with each of their friendships? I can think of my best friends and immediately their song will bloom in my mind, taking on their shape and likeness. I wonder if they know that they even have a song.
I’ll lose “Find Someone Like You” for months, years, and when it returns to me I know every inch. This song is perfect and pleasurable, the string swells, the way it feels to sing, the almost gospel vocals that close out the song. Her voice has this desperate edge to it, a hallmark of R&B vocalists, that gives structure to the otherwise round, sweet sound of the tinkling piano and soft drums. I remember dancing around my room to this song in the mornings, singing into the mirror, feeling something in my chest when the first chorus comes in.
Listening to this playlist is an exercise in nostalgia, an emotion that I find so alluring and powerful that I often skirt it entirely. Conversely, I feel a similar draw towards both the immediate and distant future, the endless potential of a horizon line. I know I have a tendency to romanticize everything but the exact moment I’m inhabiting, but I’m trying to change—I’m trying to be present with the people that I love, trying to take care of myself right now, instead of promising to do so later. I’m doing a good job, I think.
Thanks for another great playlist. Loved this post.
I watched Paul Simon perform on YouTube at the Newport Folk Festival 2022. There were glimpses of the master and I do believe Gracelands was the pinnacle of his success. I have the album and the movie. They play to my heart.
I loved the Esperanza Spalding video. The counterpoint rhythm and harmony between the bass and her voice are enchanting and so much more enjoyably watching her than listening to the music. If you just heard the song (which I will more often now that it is on my Like List, you would imagine a trio, with her as the vocalist.
As to memories related to music, that is the MO for my Substack. Every post is about the music that was playing as the fabric of my life at the time things happened to me. I never thought of attributing songs to people. That opens up so many more opportunities, I think I need another lifetime. So yes, I think I might add some posts about songs that remind me of certain people. Thanks for the idea.
And memory, where did I leave those keys? I had coffee with a friend on Saturday at Holland House in Auckland, New Zealand. He brought along a friend who has short term memory loss as an onset of early dementia. I had to introduce myself a few times, and she told me she notes things down that she needs to remember. I write both to remember, but also for the enjoyment of the act of writing.
I make a playlist every time I fall in love. The object of my affection has always been a close friend and I’ve never confessed love to any of them. But the songs bring me back to that whole time in my life, not just the romantic feelings. High School Sweethearts by Melanie Martinez and The Walls Are Way Too Thin by Holly Humberstone remind me of the painful, beautiful chaos that was my senior year of high school. Partners In Crime by FINNEAS and 5am in Tennessee by Hollyn bring me back to the strange alienation of navigating life as a new adult. It’s beautiful how music does that.