I'm sorry if you love new years' resolutions, have a birthday/other significant life-event in the first month of the year, or generally like darkness and polar vortices, but I'm so not into January. And it was a tough one this year, so I'm feeling pretty good about having gotten through it. It would be one thing if I weren't in a city and could ski and explore snow-covered woods all the time, but when the sidewalks ice over and then turn slushy and gray and you're trying to get to work it's hard to be excited about a bajillion snowstorms in a row (songs after the jump).
It's in dark, cold times like these that I really turn to music (I always need music, but when I can't go lie in the sun it's that much more necessary). I did so last year, too: Here's the post I wrote when winter started to get to me in 2013. But as one of my best friends recently said, "We have resources. We have music, we have books, we have poetry. We're lucky."
She's right. Put on Diana Ross' "I'm Comin' Out," for example, and it's very hard not to feel a little bit better. And for all my talk about the darkness and the cold being depressing, sometimes the sun comes out and shines the shadow of a tree onto a brick wall on a Sunday morning and nothing seems quite as dire anymore.
So here is my winter playlist. The selections aren't all new and they aren't all ground-breaking; I'm not a music blogger and I don't always have my finger on the pulse of the industry. But in the event that you're interested, I thought I'd share what has been accompanying me on my way to work, playing in my ears as I stand at my desk (yes, I've got a standing desk), and echoing around me while I cook or putz around the house. It's an eclectic mix of everything from rap to country (I am guilty of including a song from the TV show Nashville, but hey, we all have our dirty little secrets that we publish on our public blogs). And I had to include Beyoncé's ubiquitous "Drunk in Love" because it's just so good. Surfboard.
A lot of these tracks have great lyrics; my favorites are Patty Griffin's in "Get Ready Marie." It's a song about her grandparents' marriage sung from the perspective of her grandfather. Some of it is pretty funny—I laughed out loud the first time I heard it—but it's also very touching and somewhat sad, which makes for the best kind of song (the whole album, American Kid, is amazing and one of my favorites from 2013). And I love, in MØ's "Don't Wanna Dance," when she sings: "I'm on my own and I'm crazy for you/ Got the creeps by the way your body moves."
Then, of course, there's Kendrick Lamar's "HiiiPower:" "The sky is falling, the wind is calling/ Stand for something or die in the morning." I love the melody of the words; even though it's from 2011 I've recently been listening to it a lot. And Cody Chestnutt's "Everybody's Brother" never really stops echoing through my head...though from personal experience I can advise against singing "I used to smoke crack back in the day" while you walk down the hall at work.
Perhaps the best part about these songs is that lot of them were sent to me by friends. Receiving music in your inbox from someone you love is like getting a little present.
I hope these help warm you up a little bit. The groundhog saw his shadow so it looks like we're in for a few more weeks of this (Phil?! Phil Connors?!), but with such great resources available, I think we'll make it.
P.S. Wine also helps deal with winter. I recommend 90+ Cellar's Old Vine Malbec. It's cheap and it's warming and it's good.
