1. Flume - Bon Iver
In the past year I have done more leaving then I ever cared to do. Retreating and abandoning my life and the people I loved for something new. My whole life it's all I ever planned for, and yet I found that went it came time to go I was completely unprepared for it. I can most certainly say that this is the result of the summer I graduated high school. I met someone before I left Arizona and moved to California, and it sort of changed the way I viewed everything about moving in life. In August they put Bon Iver on a mix of songs that reminded them of me. I fell in love with the sound and the way it seemed to say everything I was feeling in its melodies. Every trip since then, between all the plane flights and goodbyes, this is the song I listened to.
2. Matresses Underwater - Colour Revolt
That same summer before I moved I took a trip with my brother and boyfriend to Chicago for Lollapolooza. At some point during the trip we took a train in the city. It was towards the evening, and the sun was slanting through the windows. There was something beautiful about the rhythmic movement of the train, roaring and moving across the rooftops. This song started to play, and I drifted off as the trained rocked. We just kept drifting and drifting and everything was warm and hazy. It was one of the most peaceful moments of my life.
3. Ghost Under Rocks - Ra Ra Riot
I have always been a fan of long car rides. There's something about watching the scenery pass by and listening to music as you drive that I love. One of my favorite road trips was the first one I took after I got my license. I drove an hour and a half to Tucson, Arizona to stay with my brother for the weekend. The drive home is what I remember the most. It was night time, and I was driving back through the desert and everything was empty. The desert was empty, the road was empty. The only things around were the occasional headlight, an entire sky of stars, and music. This was one of the songs on my mix that night.
4. Smoke In My Eyes - Early States
This is really nothing more than a song that reminds me how much I wanted to leave everything behind me. And how happy it made me to do so.
5. What Ever Happened? - The Strokes
Some politician in Phoenix at some point decided that we weren't cool or modern enough. That, as a measure to take us from cowboys to classy, we needed a mass transit system. And many, many years later, they built a quasi-useless light rail system. By quasi-useless I mean that for 80% of the people that live in Phoenix, there is no reason to use it. However, it just so happened that the light rail ran from my house straight to my high school. So most mornings I would take it to school instead of driving. In the winter these rides usually began in the dark and ended at sunrise. I think I rode it more to be able to listen to music and watch the sunrise than any other convenient reason. This song was on my early morning winter mixes.
6. Saintly Rows (Oh Oh) - Dear and the Headlights
My freshman year of college I took a road trip to Northern California with two of my best friends. On the drive back, we were all quiet and tired. We didn't really talk, we just sat and listened to music, had a picnic in the middle of nowhere on the side of the road, and just watched the fields roll by. This song came on at some point towards sunset as we were driving back to the city. It just felt like the perfect song to end the weekend with, there was something encompassing about it that I loved.7. The Game Needed Me - Minus the Bear
The summer before my senior year I spent a month in Barcelona studying art. This month can be summed up with Kate Nash, The Cure, Flight of the Concords, and Minus the Bear. I listened to the first three constantly with my friends at night while we watched the people of the city out their window. But on days when I would walk through the alley ways and streets alone, I would play Minus the Bear. It made everything seem even more unreal and distant. It was nice to be able to walk around completely anonymous and just watch all the people move past me. This song made everything feel like it was somehow in slow motion.8. The Procession - Manchester Orchestra
In 2009 I ended up living in San Francisco for college. Seeing as my car met an untimely demise a few months prior to going there and there is no possible chance of me finding free parking, I quickly became best friends with public transit. This, as well as the fact that I just really love sitting on a bus a watching the city and the people, led me to spend a lot of time riding around the city. Something about this song makes things beautiful and poetic in a way, and I loved listening to it while watching everything pass by on the street.
9. Tune Out - The Format
One of the most beautiful moments in my life happened the summer I was studying in England. One of my teachers told me about a tea shop built in a grove outside the city called The Orchard. One Sunday when I didn't have class I got a map and decided to try and walk there. It took about an hour to get there, but it was breath-taking. There were fields, weeping willows, and the most incredible wild flowers everywhere. It was the first summer I had an ipod (I felt really cool to not be carrying a shit ton of CD's around), and one of the only CD's of my own that I had loaded on it was the Format. I listened to this song at least ten times on that walk, and every time I hear it now all I can think of is The Orchard.10. Memories On A Deck, Pt. 2 - Right Away, Great Captain
Right Away, Great Captain has this odd way of making me appreciate life. I know most people think it's eerie, and I will admit there is something haunting about it, but I really do find something calming and sweet about it. Which of course means I have designated it as my walking music. I decided one night that I wanted to be indie and walk to the beach toward sunset. (Bad choice, I only made it half way till I asked myself what the hell I was doing and got on a bus back to campus. This is mostly why I am not cool enough for half the people in this city). But for at least half the way this song made everything feel like it was okay in the world.
11. Pachuca Sunrise - Minus the Bear
The same summer I was studying in Spain we took a field trip to the Mediterranean Sea. We went to this little city called Calella. A few of my friends and I walked to the top of this hill that overlooked the whole city. We all had our music, and we just stood there for awhile and looked out over the city. As this was the summer of Minus the Bear I got a ridiculously unnecessary satisfaction from being next to the Mediterranean while listening to a song that had the lyrics "Midnight on the beach in the Mediterranean". (I'm obviously pleased easily).
12. Run - Snow Patrol
This song isn't really about a specific trip. It's not about a bus ride. And it's not about all the plane flights. This song is still about moving, about running away. It's about wanting to stand still. Wanting to be able to stay in one moment, in one life. It's about not having to leave. It's for all the times I felt like I was losing something constantly drifting. It's about everything, everyone, I did lose between all the moving. And at the same time it's about accepting it all. Apologizing for it all. It's about everything you can't change. It's about everything you want to change. It's about being happy again. It's about letting music say everything for you that you don't know how to.
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