A Relaxing Playlist for Keeley
I worked for a summer camp in the Berkshires in 2007, 2008, and 2010. I feel really lucky to have had those three summers at camp, mainly because I got to meet and spend time with people from all over the world. Some of those people are camp friends, some are real world friends, and occasionally you get married to the office manager.
One of the camp friends who has turned into a real world friend is Keeley. She’s now an English teacher in Washington state with a ten month old son. We went to visit her a few years back, and made a return trip a year later to attend her wedding, which featured gold painted dinosaurs, storm trooper helmets, and all around merriment with old friends. Flying across the country, dancing so hard the floor shook, all of us in a crowded room, and me wearing a stormtrooper helmet that hasn’t been sanitized all seems so novel now.
Back in March, when offices started going remote and the full scope of the pandemic hadn’t really taken hold in my brain, there was something kind of appealing and exciting about having a built in excuse to stay home. My anxiety about all of this had more to do with the prospect of having to go to crowded places and be around others. Once my office announced the shift to working from home, I remember feeling slightly relieved. That feeling went away pretty quickly, as the major events I was looking forward to in 2020 all disappeared from my calendar one by one. From projects at work, to trips and weddings, to the Olympics, and sports, and movies….if you’re one of those people who believes we’re all living in a simulation, then everything that’s happened in the last nine months has surely been a major software bug, like when people in a video game just kind of lose all physical function.
Still, anyone who’s been paying attention even a little bit to the world has probably felt at least slightly uneasy since February or so. And a lot of people were looking for relaxing and soothing music back in the spring. A lot of the songs on Keeley’s playlist are included on other playlists I made for people around this time. It was a pleasure sharing this music with my friend, and I’m grateful we’ve been able to stay connected throughout this year. I hope this music was a bit of solace during some stressful days and nights with a newborn in a pandemic, and I hope we’ll see her and her family before too long.
A song that appears on many playlists:
Wilco is one of those bands that I listen to occasionally and always like, but they’ve never really taken hold in my brain. Still, about a year ago, I stumbled upon the song Way Over Yonder In The Minor Key by Billy Bragg and Wilco and it’s become such a staple. It’s a quiet, peaceful song with just a little bit of melancholy. I often think of my time in the Berkshires when I hear this song, especially the lyric:
Now I have walked a long long ways
And I still look back to my tanglewood days
The story behind this song gives me goosebumps: the lyrics were written by Woody Guthrie in the 1930s, but no recording or written music exists. Decades after his death, his family shared the lyrics with Billy Bragg, who set them to music. There’s a three volume box set worth of these songs; a collaboration across time and space.
Some (re)discoveries:
I’ve learned about a lot of music in the last couple of years through the public radio show Live From Here, an evolution of A Prarie Home Companion. Hosted by mandolin virtuoso Chris Thile (more on him later), the show regularly celebrated every genre imaginable with a rotating house band playing cover songs in their musician birthday segment. From Tchaikovsky to the good Dr. Dre, from Joanna Newsom (sadly not on Spotify) to Janet Jackson and everything in between. This segment was like the best version of a music appreciation class. The show was cancelled in June 2020, mainly due to the uncertainty with when it would be safe to host a show with a large collection of musicians on stage in front of a live audience again.
It was through Live From Here that I learned about Laura Nyro, a singer-songwriter who wrote at least a couple of songs you’ve heard of, and this gem, which I fear is a bit lost to history. Stoned Soul Picnic, which is one of the most peaceful sounding pop songs you’ll ever hear. And in the great tradition of songs from the late 60’s, it paints some incredible pictures with somewhat nonsensical phrases, along with a totally made up word: surry.
And now for something completely different:
Banjo virtuoso and bluegrass songwriter is probably not top of mind for most people when they think of Steve Martin. I assume you first think of The Jerk, Father of the Bride, “King Tut,” those wild and crazy guys sketches with Dan Ackroyd, etc… But the man also makes great music.
He’s made two albums with The Steep Canyon Rangers that includes some instrumentals, a few funny songs, and music like On The Water, which is one of the first songs I think of when someone asks me for relaxing music.
I’m a basic boy:
Relatively speaking, there’s a lot of Beatles-related material on this playlist. One song from the Beatles (The Fool on the Hill), two from George Harrison (My Sweet Lord and All Things Must Pass) and one from Paul McCartney (Calico Skies). If I may be so bold: those boys from Liverpool really knew what they were doing.
The words from All Things Must Pass have taken a semi-permanent residence in my brain in the last few years. It’s a hopeful song, but it’s more than that. It’s a necessary reminder that if the bad times are to be temporary, so too are the good times.
Luminous beings are we:
I owe quite a bit of my musical taste in the last few years to my sister Molly, who, on a drive from Boston to Upstate New York, introduced me to Punch Brothers, a bluegrass band with quite possibly the five best bluegrass musicians in the world, including the aforementioned Chris Thile. Learning about this band led to my discovery of other modern bluegrass groups including Nickel Creek, Crooked Still, and I’m With Her. I hesitate to describe any of this music as bluegrass, because that tends to conjure an image of guys who look like this:
The first Punch Brothers album I heard, The Phosphorescent Blues, was released in 2015, and is a meditation on how technology has both connected us and seperated us. If there were a perfect album for 2020, it may just be this one.
The final track on the album, and its sort of thesis statement, is a song called Little Lights, which was inspired by the sight of audiences at their shows — faces illuminated by the blue lights from phones.
We talk a lot about the downsides of this technology: we’re burdened with an endless stream of anxiety due to constant access to our worst impulses: the ability to spout out whatever unverified thought occurs to us, to circulate rumor, to scroll through shocking headlines and stories and statistics with seemingly no end in sight. The phrase is cliche at this point, but…it’s a lot.
As the reality of this winter comes into focus, I’m trying to remind myself of the incredible privilege so many of us have: at a moments notice, we are able to access all known fact and check every reference; access tools that allow us to create and share ideas; access to music and film and art, and to technology that lets us see and talk to our friends and family when we can’t be together in person. Amidst a pandemic, I can have a weekly video chat with my nephew who can’t quite crawl but is getting really close. The same tools we use to doomscroll are the ones we should be using to stay connected — stay present — with the people who are most important.
The final passage of Little Lights features the voices of fans and listeners who submitted recordings to the band which were then edited into the final mix of the song:
Shine little lights of ours like Orion’s Belt of stars
Connected only from afar
Shine little lights of ours like Orion’s Belt of stars
Guide us back to where we are from where we wanna be
