This post was originally supposed to be about the delights and perils of first-class travel, but it needs tweaking, and I have mountains to climb if you haven’t heard. So just for fun, here’s a list of songs you can listen to that will make you feel like shit when you already feel like shit. You know the kind of song, listening to it makes you feel worse, but you don’t change it because you’re enjoying the misery? Then you go get something super unhealthy and fattening to eat even though you’re not hungry, to make sure that you feel even worse? And then you put on your ugliest nattiest sweats, an outfit you know no one could ever love you in? And you deliberately don’t brush your teeth or fix your hair, and now all of your senses are now involved in your self-pity Mardi Gras?
Have a blast.
These are just mine. Please feel free to send yours along in the comments section. I know you’re out there, stop hiding.
- “Every Little Thing” by Carly Pearce
- “So Small” by Carrie Underwood
- “Landslide” by Stevie Nicks
- “Hallelujah” by Jeff Buckley
- “Can’t You See” by Marshall Tucker Band
- “Bless the Broken Road” by Rascal Flatts
- “Seagull” by Bad Company
- “Always Gonna Be You” by Mike Reid
- “Work Song” by Hozier
- “Drink a Beer” by Luke Bryan
- *”Driving” by Will Ackerman
- “The Driver” by Dierks Bentley
- “We Go Driving” by Kat Higgins”
The last three are all about driving, I know, but I guess there is something excruciatingly beautiful and sad about the process of driving away. It’s an absence, a loss, a leaving. Of course you’re going toward something, but something else is surely getting left behind.
*Will Ackerman’s instrumentals in this song will kill you. Destroy you. His brilliant sensual guitar mixed with the keening of the violin will twist you into a pretzel of woe and delight so complex that you’ll forget how to do the dishes and laundry. I used to say that if Iceland were put to music, this is what it would sound like. The best way to listen to it is alone, turned up loud, eyes closed, preferably using noise-cancelling headphones. You’ll open your eyes and once you remember where you are, you’ll probably download more of his music.
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.