My Year in Songs
I made a bunch of Spotify playlists this year and thought about things
One year ago, I made a resolution which I’ve managed to keep: every month, I would make an 8-song playlist on Spotify. I’ll admit that it isn’t the most ambitious new year’s resolution ever, or significant or important by any measure, but it’s a personal project which I’m glad to have finished anyway.
The idea was that I’d pick 8 songs every month, a mix of the music I’ve been listening to that particular month, as well as songs which represent where I was at the moment, be it geographically (like when I went on a trip to Italy), figuratively (I’m not actually going to the Store) or emotionally (the entirety of Blonde). It’d function as a musical journal of sorts, every song reminding me of a specific time in my life.
It’s sort of a conscious, curated version of the nostalgia you get when you hear a song linked to a specific memory. Like the song that takes you back to the moment you had your first kiss, or the one that reminds you of a particularly special midnight car ride, or the one that brings you back to your high school prom.
My NOV2016 playlist, for example, opens with Pussy Riot’s ‘Make America Great Again’, because that’s how I’m choosing to remember the month. It was a politically charged (and emotionally charged) month, and you couldn’t really escape from the politics of the US elections no matter where you went. That song’s followed by Bon Iver’s ‘22 (OVER S∞∞N)’, which is melancholy and sad, but hides in it this tiny glimmer of hope. It ends with the line “Within a rise there lies a scission /(It might be over soon)” which is just so painfully appropriate.
I’m listening to the AUG2016 playlist right now, and it’s taking me back to the first night I spent in my second-year house in Hyde Park, of Manchester Pride, of the month that I spent with just Jake, Sophie and Kyle in our 10-bed house. But the special-ness of it comes from remembering how I felt. The songs on there are about human connection, about being a part of something with someone, or some people. Some of the songs were sad, and some were happy, but they all reflected my gratefulness for human connection which I felt a lot that month.
The songs in the monthly playlists are equal parts songs that have specific memories attached to them, as they are songs which I’m choosing to attach specific memories to. Because memory is a funny thing; we’re creatures that can’t help but make stories of our lives. I realised near the end of the year that in making these playlists I was actively creating a narrative, deciding the stories for those months, and in turn the emotions I’d feel when I looked back and listened to the songs.
So right now, nearly all my playlists are full; ‘JAN2016’ to ‘NOV2016’ all have 8 songs each, but the last one, ‘DEC2016’ only has 7. I’d usually have finished making the monthly playlist by now, but I’m looking at that 7 and I don’t want to put the last song in.
It’s been a bad year in a lot of ways; intolerance seems to have had a resurgence with the rise of the alt-right in America and anti-immigration, xenophobic political parties in Europe, the LGBTQ+ community’s not exactly had the best year, and I experienced personal loss.
But there was a lot to be happy about as well; the world’s healthier than it ever was, less people are dying, people are living longer, I met lots of amazing people and reconnected with ones I’d lost contact with and have had some of the best experiences of my life.
I realise I’m being melodramatic, but this last song represents a lot for me. Choosing that last song sets the mood for the end of 2016. It’s the final song of 2016, which cements how I’ll remember December, and sets the stage for how I’ll start 2017. And you know what?
Fuck it.
I’m going to choose to look back on 2016 and see the good. And I’m going to start 2017 with hope.
