In which we're connected across the miles through music
we're sharing playlists again, like the old days !
Late last year, I published a hastily written, stream of conscious type post about music.
I was, then, embarrassed of it so it was one of the ones I put on private when I later made the decision to trial the option of keeping some posts - the posts that felt most unexpectedly personal - behind a paywall for the sake of my sanity. I couldn’t handle knowing certain things were out there, blowing around in the ether; some sort of barrier, even if a placebo barrier, was needed.
I think I was embarrassed of that piece of writing because I was still trying to understand what I want this space to be for; what I’m happy “putting out there”, and I kept pushing myself over a line I wasn’t ready to cross, yet, or that I, maybe, needed to cross and weather the stomach-churning, heart-fluttering fear and discomfort in order to sort of exposure therapy myself. The ones where I type, frenziedly, and throw out there, without letting it sit, without much, or any, editing, are the ones that make me feel very scared of what I’ve managed to, inadvertently, let slip about myself; perhaps something shameful; perhaps something ostracisation-worthy?
This isn’t how I always felt about myself, my thoughts, my taste in music, my taste in film, in books - I used to be quite proud of my tastes, I think. At some point, my interests, my ways of being were subject to overt condescension and tearing down, and/or quiet but visceral eyebrow raising, from people who I didn’t want to find me mortifying or shit, at times when my sensitivities and fragilities, my porousness, were incredibly heightened, when I’d become embarrassed and hateful and unsure of myself in general, and the outcome was that I believed I was mortifying and shit and I’ve had to rebuild feeling proud of myself, of my tastes again.
Or, rather, more realistically, rebuilding up to, even if I’m mortifying and shit, just being like: that’s fine. Maybe my taste in music/writing/life is mortifying and shit by some standards. It is what is is. I suppose it was, instead, rebuilding to a place of not feeling the need to always adhere to some externally arbitered version of good. Of building to a level of being relatively consistently okay with the knowledge that there parts of ourselves we might not be proud of, or happy with, but they are what they are, and they might change, and they might not; of not having to be amazing and perfect and a paragon of incredible taste to be worthy of people’s respect and attention; of just enjoying what I enjoy and so be it.
In the spirit of the point of this whole post being about sharing other people’s playlists that I’ve been enjoying, here is the piece ! The mortifying and shit piece ! I unlocked it ! Have at it !
Writers are often in the habit of sharing the music and other forms of art and media that they’ve been engaging with lately, that they love, that peps them up, that gets them emotional.
In my experience, this is something writers, all types of creatives, really, have in common. The ability to write, to create often goes hand in hand with their connection to other art, to creativity that’s meaningful, that’s exciting, that’s fulfilling to them. For my part, it would be impossible for me to write without music - when I’m feeling empty, wordless, uninspired, music is what brings the enthusiasm, the ideas rushing in again. Music is often what fills me with that energy that sends me rushing to the laptop or notebook or notes app, determined to get an idea or thought down, a draft started, before the wave crests and falls.
Reading has this effect as well, usually, but sometimes reading has the opposite effect - it can overwhelm me, remind me of what I’d like to write, what I haven’t written, what I might never manage to write. Music, for me, avoids this pitfall in never failing to make me feel like: I can do it ! I will do it !
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On that note, I would like to gather together some of the playlists that I have seen shared, that I have saved, that I listen to and that make me feel connected in some way to the hoards of us going about our days using music to remind us: we can do this ! we will do this !
Writer Alicia Kennedy, this year, undertook a (in my opinion) beneficial and successful restructuring of her celebrated online food and culture magazine From the Desk of Alicia Kennedy. In one of the new sections, she provides a round-up of reading and listening links from that month - a monthly playlist is included. Always eclectic, always inspiring, always fun. Press play and enjoy, as I frequently do - here are January - May’s:
Others that I’ve saved and have been enjoying dipping into:
this one that writer, Evana Bodiker, shared:
this one that writer, Christoph Tsang-Grosse, shared:
these ones, shared by writer Sinéad Gleeson:
this one, created by writer Mollie Goodfellow:
this one, curated by writer and academic Sam Johnson-Schlee, as he catalogued his father’s record collection following his death:
this sheer ‘90s trauma triggerer / celebration, depending on your perspective, from writer David Nicholls, based on the tastes of the characters from his book One Day (the one that was recently adapted as a series on Netflix).:
I think I’ll leave it there for now. I suppose I’d better share some of my own - most of mine are on private and, I think, will remain that way - but here is one I created last year in order to catalogue the songs I share here and there in published pieces / on Instagram:
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I’ve also made public an Italy and an Ireland playlist:
All of these will continue to be added to over time.
I’ll end here by saying how lovely I’m finding all this playlist sharing. It’s so reminiscent of being in my teens and 20s, in school and university, meeting new people, connecting and getting to know, all through music. It’s so reminiscent of burning CDs for school friends, bubbling with anticipation and excitement at the idea of them listening, forming opinions, looking forward to the report back. It’s reminiscent of when we were all, later, discovering the internet, and YouTube, and blogs, and StumbleUpon, and it all felt innocent and exciting and fun.
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Music has always played such an important part in my life.
Mum still reminds me how we used to put on her Beautiful South CD when it was hair drying/brushing time before bed - meaning I used to sing along to songs of infidelity, domestic violence, repressed trauma etc before bedtime? It was 1994’s Carry On Up The Charts, and I still know the words to most of the songs off by heart. I’m singing along to this as I type.
My then neighbour and best friend and I used to record tapes of ourselves singing S Club 7 songs, and then play the tapes back while we did the dances from the music videos - we even had some sort of microphone.
My dad used to play a pan flute CD of covers of famous songs in the car while we would be driving around in summers in Italy - I am so serious. Hearing pan flute still makes me well up - I can always feel the cool evening breeze as we sped along past the lake.
I’m dancing in the kitchen to Andrea Bocelli’s Time to Say Goodbye with my grandmother and brother - the excitement of her ringing in to the radio and them actually playing it!
My brother and I, zipping through countryside laneways, along coastal cliffs, winding through national parks, Sigur Rós and Ben Howard, a feeling of pure, undiluted peace, calm, bliss, a “this is where I'm meant to be right now” certainty that I've struggled to retrieve since, music melding with the air and the scent of green and the salt spray.
I’m at Hans Zimmer with mum, on our shared birthday, the first birthday after an incredibly difficult time in our family the year before, both of us standing, listening, moving, in tears at the sheer beauty of sharing this experience together, of both being here and healthy and alive.
We’re horsing around between the bedrooms and hallway and sitting room of our first year student accommodation, over the top eyeshadow and blusher, scarves tied around our heads, and then it’s shush shush shush because the bass is about to kick in in Dexys Midnight Runners’ Come On Eileen.
I hear Father John Misty, and I’m sitting by the quay with a best friend, someone for whom music was one of the bases of our initial connection and our subsequent, long-held closeness, listening to a new album, looking forward to when we’ll hear these songs played live, later that summer in Toronto.
I hear Hall & Oates or Genesis and I’m on the couch of another best friend, watching live concerts on Youtube; we’re in the car on a stormy, pitch black December night, driving home hours later than expected, a long day, a hospital appointment, delayed, and delayed again, and again, but we’re blasting the 80s playlist, and we’re fine.
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Sharing meaningful songs and playlists is one of the most intimate things we can do, I think. It’s brave and scary to expose yourself like that to people, and it’s why the connection we find from sharing a taste in music, or of being introduced to new music by someone, is so intense and meaningful and everlasting.
I can’t believe I’m including this, but I’ve dug into the photo archives to find an early years concert pic, I’m in folder Villagers & Mick Flannery, Galway, 19.7.2016 and I come across this and I just.. the hold that Snapchat filters had on us back then. That look simply doesn’t go with Villagers or Mick Flannery either. I am mortified. And shit.
Thank you for reading 🌼
I’ve been writing here since November 2022, and I can’t quite believe that. One of the main things I love about it here is the chance to share our daily / monthly / seasonal / musical noticings and obsessions with each other; so, as always, if you feel the urge to write to me, to share any thoughts/words/experiences of your own; if someone came to mind as you read and you’d like to share this with them - please follow that instinct. It’s very welcome. While exposing yourself into the ether brings its own strange enjoyment, it’s always important and lovely to hear words ping back at you at some stage.
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