Spring is a time of impatience and fatigue; in New England, everything is still cold and colorless, the threat of snow still echoes in the clouds, and all that died continues to be dead.
Diet Winter.
Though there is mild anticipation while I'm intellectually aware that change will occur - I just can't see it, feel it, smell it, and God knows I can't listen to it.
It's troubling, because like most of the movies I wanna watch, the music I wanna listen to burns better with seasonal warmth.
No matter. After however many years I've been alive, I've managed to compile a mixtape to help me cross that finish line into the picnic days.
-
Paul
Exile On Main St. The Rolling Stones (1972)
The thing about the Stones is that their entire catalogue works in any season - and I can't think of any other band or artist of which this is so. But I like
Exile in the springtime, because it's dark and dreary at times ("Ventilator Blues," "Stop Breaking Down") for those dark and dreary days, and it's also sweet & sour ("Let It Loose," "Shine a Light") for when the clouds decide to part at the mercy of the Good Lord.
No season is safe from the blues.
New Morning Bob Dylan (1970)
The album's title is already synonymous with rejuvenation/rebirth/all that crap, and the title track itself conjures up sweeping aerial shots of sunny farmland and green trees - for me, at least. And when the weather doesn't cooperate, "Sign on the Window" is a bit of misery to keep you company. But nothing says 'cold rain' like "Three Angels" - the standout track of the album, and Top 3 Dylan for me.
Kid A Radiohead (2000)
The thing with Radiohead is that they're not explicit with the moods they put out, so wherever and whenever it catches you, their abstraction cemented as your reality. This album was in the air while I was a senior in high school - the year after Columbine went down - so stuff like "Everything In Its Right Place" and "Idioteque" were the perfect, nonsensical, ironic soundtrack for the disorienting fear and loathing that had been gripping my academic career ever since my classmates and I became known nationwide as Idiots and Criminals in the Making. Better put: "Morning Bell" makes me think of automatic lawn sprinklers in front of white suburban homes, watering grass in the middle of an April rainstorm.
The Last of the Mohicans (Soundtrack) Trevor Jones and Randy Edelman (1992)
Massachusetts is rich with American history - any given moment of any given day is the anniversary of
something - but April is a big one, as the 19th marked the start of the Revolution in 1775. And even still there has yet to be a more-than-adequate movie depicting the events of that day. And so, as a kid, I'd listen to this score and imagine
my own Revolutionary War film. Even though
Mohicans takes place roughly 20 years prior (and during an entirely different conflict), Trevor Jones' bombastic overture is so effectively moving and just feels indicative of the of the 18th century, while "Promentory" is so fucking sinister that you just thirst for violence of
any kind in
any era.
Magical Mystery Tour The Beatles (1967)
The film is on
my Easter movie list and so its unofficial soundtrack is understandably on this list - really for all the same reasons.
Additionally, if you've ever listened to "Flying" or "Blue Jay Way" while driving through country backroads at 3am in April, you'd never really hear this band the same way again...
The Singles: 1969-1981 The Carpenters (2000)
"Rainy Days and Mondays," sure. "Top of the World," maybe.
Inconsistently consistent. Approachable warmth with a cold shoulder. Politely abrasive. Am I describing Springtime or the AM gold of Karen and Richard Carpenter? You don't even know.
I try to lay off "greatest hits" albums (on these lists, and in life) but this tracklist packs a polite wallop of easy listening punch.
Elephant The White Stripes (2003)
This is an easy one - it was released at the beginning of April in '03,
and at the front-end of my own brief but bitter affair with this band, so I purchased it day-of.
This is one of those all killer/no filler-type albums, but "Black Math" and "Ball and Biscuit" will forever be a Pavlovian signal to roll down the windows and bring in the fresh air.
Post Card Mary Hopkin (1969)
If your vision of Spring is green fields and warm sun and tulips and bunnies and birds singing while bees are tryin' to have sex with them, then this is your seasonal soundtrack album right here: calendar photography and Easter decor come to life via some gentle Welsh folk rock. Tracks like "Happiness Runs" and "The Puppy Song" bring in these idealistic visions like a breeze through your hair - and not always just with lyrics; Ms. Hopkin's falsettos and the bright melodies could result in the urge to frolic in the dewey meadows.
Though keep an ear out for her surprisingly ominous cover of "There's No Business Like Show Business" - oozing with enough irony that it should be featured in one of these celebrity biopics y'all love so much.
Crowded House Crowded House (1986)
One of the sweetest and most welcome Springs in my life came at the end of my college internship (which, all job-related hardships aside, also put the cap on a biblically brutal winter). iTunes 80s radio station accompanied me throughout that four-month mental and physical endurance test, and plenty of choice cuts from this record often dulled (and sometimes punctuated) my strife. A thing like "Don't Dream It's Over" is a good shoulder to cry on, but I still remember when the clouds of self pity lifted on the first warm day of the season - set to the tune of "Something So Strong," pouring out of the freshly rolled-down windows of the company's Beamer and echoing throughout Boylston St., Boston.
Mellow Gold Beck (1994)
The music video for "Loser" was set on 'repeat' on MTV in the Spring of '94, and in my mind that spell coincided with the Leominster Men's Softball teams having Spring Training in Bennett Field, behind my house.
Good enough, but then many Springs later I bought the album, and favorites like "Soul Suckin' Jerk" and "Pay No Mind" officially became like giant dildos crashing that warm, springtide sun.
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