it's two thousand miles i roamed just to make this dock my home
[this is a post from the archives - originally sent december 26th, 2017]
As the year winds down, the impulse to reflect on all of the things that were and were not accomplished seep in to the quiet moments. This means for most of December, I usually turn the volume up and push the silence away. Don't need it, don't want it, too busy listening to x and to y and to z to do any pondering, nanny nanny boo boo - can't catch me now.
And then next thing you know, you're in a giant lincoln log cabin staring out a window at trees and snow and it's oh-so-very-quiet and when you let the cold seep in that itch to weigh and measure the year sneaks in too. This year has been a brutal one (and I think you'll be hard pressed to find anyone who'd disagree) but it's also been one with more moments of beauty than I'd let myself hope for. I won't bore you with the inventory of good days and bad, of hands I wish I'd held and doors I wished left unopened, of car rides and plane rides and that train ticket that sat unpurchased month after month. 2016 was a dumpster fire of a year with aftershocks that still ripple up from time to time, but 2017 was the year I learned to ride those waves with a little bit of grace and humility and start to be human again and the soundtrack to that is an interesting if not indecisive one.
This is the season of "Best of" lists which, if I'm honest, kinda stresses me out. My relationship with music is one that oscillates wildly. I have stretches of time where I can't fathom listening to anything unless I've heard it a hundred times before (the most extreme of which lasted for a couple years where I rebelled so much against change I stuck my head in the ground ostrich-style and refused to acknowledge that the world and music and life moved on). On the other extreme, I have times where to go to bed without having listened to something new feels like a day has been wasted.
I've spent most of this year in the latter end which brings with it a year-end anxiety that comes from knowing that I listened to a lot this year, but missed a lot, too. Something about the presentation of "Best of" lists with their rankings and their posturing makes music seem less joyful and more like an insurmountable mountain from which those "in the know" can look down and laugh. In skimming year-end lists, I'd find myself familiar with only 4 of 50 albums on this one, 12 of 100 on that. I think my "highest score" was 14 out of 50 - a lazy 28%.
The implication is that I've failed musically this year, missed out on most of the very best things, but nothing feels more false. This is a year where I've danced more than any other in my life - maybe more than the last ten years combined. This is a year where I've found songs with the power to make me weep and then let them. I've revisited favorite songs, found new ones, sang, stomped, screamed along.
If the "Best of" lists are maps to the top of the mountain, I'll probably never be able to give up the habit of glancing at them for trails I might want to wander, but I don't know that I'll ever reach the summit. There's a lot of bliss to be found returning home to boogie in the valleys.
Whoops. Weird extended metaphors and no music links to speak of so far. If you're still here, this is what I've been listening to and thinking about over the last week(ish).
I did, inevitably, try to find more Christmas music that I can stand. I came up with three more songs to add to the list (more than doubling my previous limit) so I made a playlist... kind of. Christmas is over now (may yours have been merry and bright) but that Ramones song is still a banger and we haven't quite made it through December yet so there's still more time for Merle.
This article about Otis Redding is lovely and sad and all of the things the holidays can be so I've been listening to Mr. Pitiful this week, too.
My grandmother visited a few weeks ago, and in a throwaway comment mentioned some land she has in East Texas that I could build a cabin on if I wanted to. I think she wasn't serious, but I've been fixated on the idea ever since. This weird baby playlist is the earworm soundtrack to my midlife crisis. Send me related songs, please and thank you (but not so many that my farm dreams grow beyond carrots and peppers that can be grown in my apartment windowsill).
These are the songs spotify said I listened to most in 2017. I put them in reverse order because I was going to do a whole countdown thing and talk about each one but if October's 35 song playlist brought about 6000 words, 99 songs worth of my blabbering on may be truly unbearable. The playlist Spotify makes is supposed to be 100 songs, but Fionn Regan's End of History album is no longer on Spotify (ughhhhhh) so mine's trimmed down by one (ughhhhhh). Next week I might write about the categories these songs fall in (by no means are these top-to-bottom my favorite songs of the year) and the different roles that music can play, but next week is also Patti Smith's birthday and the very end of December so all bets are off.
Phew! Merry Belated Christmas/Hanukkah/Solstice/Find-somewhere-quiet-to-hide. I've got seven hours to spend in airports and airplanes tomorrow - send me your travel favorites and I'll do the same.