top 5 songs of your 2015 (i.e., their having come out in 2015 is not a requirement)!
ooh. so i am going to exclude the hamilton cast recording because it’s impossible to pick between them (or, rather, to pick between them would be the subject of another list) and it works best as a whole, but, it is the thing i have listened to the most this year and i haven’t listened to much else since october except for the joanna newsom album and christmas music.
1) the decemberists - january hymn. i haven’t really listened to it since january, but it’s top because it’s the song i remember connecting with the most strongly. there was a period of time in the latter half of january when i made sure to listen to it every day as a kind of ritual. i’d never heard it before this year, somehow. and january is always a tough month (although february is the worst forever, fuck you february) and it helped me out. “here’s a hymn to welcome in the day...” was just what i needed. and it’s catchy as fuck and i would just play it on repeat. and then i put it away. i’m listening to it now even though it’s not january yet and it feels illicit somehow. it’s like a spell for me. and it will lose that if i just listen to it whenever. i almost gasped when i realised that i could listen to it on repeat again in a few days. i tried this whole thing again with june hymn, also, and was almost as successful. june should have been a better month, but my early summer was the fucking pits because i’d just started taking an SSRI and i didn’t realise that it was disagreeing with me quite as much as it... was. and i was exhausted and numb and unhappy. and it starts with the same lines even though it’s five months on.
2) girlpool - before the world was big. i ventured out to my first proper gig in something like four years this summer. actually i think it was in june! huh. i went with my friend kerry. the gig was for waxahatchee, who i also love and who i listened to a lot this summer. girlpool were the second opener and this was it -- this was the song! i love this song. i titled a fic after this song (lol). and i loved them so much -- two girls with guitars, swapping guitars. i felt my heart swell just looking up at them. female friendship, women making art together. and then the song fucked up! i think the cable fell out of one guitar once, and they stopped and started and then something else went wrong the second time -- maybe the same thing again, maybe something else. either way -- they laughed and they said look, it’s not happening. so i heard the build up two times and never the release! but they just moved on and the rest of their set was great anyway. i think about it a lot -- a Key Moment, or something. it wasn’t the song’s night. but i love them, and i love the song, and i love their other songs too. and sometimes you just need to leave something alone for a while.
3) anais mitchell - shepherd. i played this for my mum the other day and didn’t think about how brutal and sad it is. because when i’m listening i’m always waiting for the line -- “we both have laboring to do”. the line i’ve latched onto. but that’s the line -- that’s the belief, that’s the decision she makes -- that kills her. i could have chosen any number of AM songs, but this is the one i have thought about most recently.
4) the cast of hamilton - joy to the world. this isn’t actually in hamilton so i feel ok including it here. i love spoken word sections in songs -- when people just talk over music. and i love the way it’s done here! the way it plays with a carol & the content/context of the musical. and then leslie odom jr (and everyone else) just sings the carol so beautifully. like, wtf.
5) grimes feat. aristophanes - SCREAM. i love the whole grimes album, but i LOVE this one because of aristophanes. she’s just so good. when she laughs. and the campy menace of the music. the scream~~! i love it all.
ALSO as a special mention, only not included b/c i feel like i connected to the video as much as the song: carly rae jepsen - run away with me. this video gives me a lot of terrible feelings every time i watch it, but they’ve coalesced into love & longing for a better version of myself. not sure what this says... about... me... oh my god i just put it on and actually strike everything, this is top, this is the song!!! brb going to listen to it & watch the video 20 times and that way it qualifies as my favourite film of the year too.
