I’m back from holiday and already taking jabs. Doctor appointments and timelines and deadlines and baby’s first day of preschool and check engine lights and trash on the off ramps and in the harbor. There’s a lot of haze and a south wind blowing. Fall I know you’re out there somewhere.
What I needed today was some songs to help me swallow the week ahead. A score of of ‘em to replay all day and keep me on my toes so the enthusiasm in my headphones would match what I needed to display in my phone calls, messaging, emails and Zooms despite a terminal fear of the Internet and a vacation hangover.
This batch of songs that got me through today isn’t one of those smooth operators you put on at the dinner party to impress your friends or get inspired to peruse your architectural Etsy to. This isn’t something you share with your friends. Or anyone. This is for you and it’s got issues. This thing is a 14-year-old kid learning stick shift in his dad’s 4-banger Toyota pickup. It’s herky jerky. It has no flow. No rhyme or reason. It’s what I remember going into a record shop to be like though.
Some of it’s new stuff I like, some of it’s new and I don't know if I like it yet and then there's some new discoveries and some experiments from old favorites that might be awful but I want to try them out without reading the reviews or feeling anxiety about what the comments say. I want each song to be a strange surprise or a rekindle of something you’re ashamed to like.
The flow is kinda like my life right now. One minute you’re shoveling the leftover yogurt from a 2 year old in your mouth and calling it breakfast before asking if she has to “go pee pee on the potty.” The next second you're negotiating a six figure film budget, acting like there aren’t scrambled eggs spilled at your feet and a daughter just off screen serving you another empty bowl that she swears is full of delicious soup “with carrots and tuna” so you hit mute on the stupid Zoom call and tell her how damn good that empty bowl of carrot and tuna soup is.
The minute the call ends you take another hit of the soup and look at your daughter and realize it is the best bowl of soup you’ve ever had. Or ever will. This playlist is kinda like that. Tuna and carrot soup that you love.—Travis Ferré
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