Country tunes have gotten me through the week, and the timing seems perfect: is there anything more American than a broken heart set to steel guitar? This would make a good soundtrack for backyard barbecues, a game of horseshoes, and a bottle of beer. But perhaps best of all: sitting on the porch at night surrounded by fireflies.
For a while there, I loved asking people what would be the opening song for their life movie. When I first heard Brenton Wood’s “Oogum Boogum,” it was one of the first sunny days of spring, and I was walking in my neighborhood in sunglasses and a cute outfit. It was the perfect opening credits song: jaunty, full of sass, and utterly irresistible. (Plus, it includes the lyric, “Go on now with your bad self.”) And so I pass it on as the opening of this very sunny, let’s-jump-in-the-car-and-get-out-of-here mix. May you walk in the sunshine, in a good outfit, your hair looking lovely. Happy weekend! What are you most looking forward to?
I think of Valentine’s Day as an excuse to buy more expensive groceries than usual (lamb chops, here we come!) and be the beneficiary of fresh flowers and handmade chocolates. But having just read a devastating article about how death can sweep in and steal away with who and what we love, I’m reminded how I felt after reading The Time Traveler’s Wife: studying every little detail––every eyelash, every posture––and not letting any of it pass without appreciation. You never know when it will be gone.
I also just read my dear friend’s blog post about how radical the decision to go ahead and love yourself (though Stuart Smalley has made this kind of talk wincingly embarrassing) can change everything.
So whatever your situation this Valentine’s Day, whether loving yourself or another or a whole roomful of people, I humbly submit this soundtrack with all its shades of love: happy alone, happy together, and, well, not so happy at all.
PS Every time the Florence + the Machine song came on yesterday I had to dance around the living room, which seems good for everyone at any time, no matter the holiday.
PPS Aretha. Oh, Aretha. This song gives me shivers.
Print available on Etsy
This year I have officially decided: if it has to be winter, than I’d like there to be snow. There is something unflappably cheerful about the sun reflecting off all that white, bouncing into our faces and into our homes. And when the weather is like this, I have a near Pavlovian response to listen to the radio station that I listened to in college from my bare, sparsely-furnished off-campus bedroom. On days when I didn’t have morning classes, I had a ritual I don’t engage in enough these days: I would wake up early, make some coffee, and then head back to bed, my uncurtained windows filling the whole room with bright light, and attack the pile of reading on my bedside table: Richard III, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Art in Theory. It was a fine life indeed (even if I was distracted from the world of great literature and big ideas by my crazed, single-minded focus on boys; such is the life of a 20-year-old.) Which is all to say that when the winter days are bright and sunny, I still like to listen to Radio K. And for your listening pleasure I’ve put together a mix of bright, wintery tunes, inspired in part by my favorite college radio station.
This mix started on a night out with my friend, Alison. We were celebrating the holidays with apple smashes, and the bar we were in kept playing the most groovetastic songs. Why isn’t anyone dancing? we wondered. Well, probably because they hadn’t had as many apple smashes as we had. But you don’t have to cocktail it up to enjoy this mix. It’s made my morning of green tea and vacuuming way more awesome than it would have been otherwise. What I especially like about this mix for January is its easy optimism. A smart lady told me that January comes from the Latin word for “door.” Let this be the soundtrack to swing open your new year with relaxed confidence.
When you’re drinking your holiday cocktails, you’re going to need a great soundtrack that puts you in a festive mood and isn’t comprised of all the Christmas songs you’re already sick of. Enter this Christmas mix that starts as a swingin’ affair, gets pretty funky and ends with––who else?––Loretta Lynn. Enjoy!
Photo: Holiday Mix card available from Etsy seller SilhouetteBlue
This song by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gormé is on an record album called “Christmas in New York,” I found abandoned on the sidewalk my first year in Brooklyn. I can’t stop listening to it!
This month, it’s all about banyuls in the bubble bath, swooning over Jane Eyre and the creepsters in the attic, listening to French pop, and getting ready for the first long holiday weekend of the season. What are you happy about this month?
