When Karen Peris Sings, "Are You All Right?" 😢
In bedrooms and on highways, these were my coping mechanisms with grief.
2020 is not over, yet, and there will be many year-end lists that grapple with what it meant to listen to music during a pandemic, a racial reckoning, an anxious election… you don’t really need that list. I’ll still write about my own favorite albums, too, out of a wannabe archivist’s need to document time as it happened. But I’ve been thinking about how familiar music hit different, or maybe hit the same sentiment, but with deeper roots set in. So these were the songs that made me shed single tears or all-out snot-clogging bawl in 2020, plus when and where I was and the lyric that broke me open. June and July are a bit of blur, to be honest — no music felt good then! — Lars Gotrich
"How It Feels To Be Something On" by Sunny Day Real Estate
When: early April, just a few weeks into the pandemic
Where: our home's then-guest room/makeshift office (now father-in-law's room)
Why: Don't tell me now / The days I've had / To fill it up but spill instead / Talk to remind / Days, weeks and hours
"Why We Ever" by Hayley Williams
When: mid-April
Where: that same guest room
Why: I spent the weekend at home again / Drawing circles on the floor
"Out-circuit The Ending" by Frodus
When: afternoon, mid-August
Where: MD-650, driving through farm country
Why: Your arms are strong, but they do not find meÂ
"Fantasize the Scene" by Circuit Des YeuxÂ
When: mid-morning, sometime September
Where: I-495
Why: Maybe I will meet you there / In a world where we'll go all the way
"That Was Another Country" by The Innocence MissionÂ
When: early morning, late-October
Where: I-295Â
Why: Are you all- are you all right? / Are you all- are you all right? / You're my friend / Are you all right?
"Eastlake" by Damien Jurado
When: late night, early November
Where: nursery turned home office
Why: Honestly, I'm getting to the point of breaking...
The Playlist
23 tracks. Brandee Younger and Dezron Douglas slim one of Pharoah Sanders' most enduring assurances ("The Creator Has a Master Plan") into a short, but surprisingly complex harp-bass duet. Star Feminine Band, an all-teenage girl group from Benin, whips ass. I really hope Safari Explorer's lo-fi cumbia was made on a cheap Casio keyboard. Cecile Believe is PC Music-adjacent, but I find her electro-pop's melodic sensibility much closer to WHAM! Disembodied voice meditations from Pauline Anna Strom. Screamo from Italy (One Dying Wish) and Russia (Кальк). Dry Cleaning's subdued spoken-word post-punk always takes a minute to get moving, but dang, when it does! Throwbacks to Jason Anderson, Leem of Earth and Evanescence (hey, that first album still slaps). Plus the songs that made me cry in 2020, sequenced at the end to break your heart all at once (except the Damien Jurado track, which can only be found on Bandcamp).Â
Stream the playlist via Spotify. Did you miss a previous playlist? Get thee to the archives.