small magic

In 2023, I discovered or rediscovered 431 songs on Spotify. Making these discoveries – and sharing them with others – is my absolute favorite hobby, dating back to when I used to make literal mixtapes by waiting for certain songs to come on the radio so that I could get the playlist juuuuuust right when I wasn’t even ten years old. I spent most of December listening to my year and reflecting back on the ones that truly shaped my day-to-day. These are those songs: 

1. Talk to Me of Mendocino (Kate & Anna McGarrigle): ah, the songs that remind us to roam. I rediscovered this song in January, and then again in July, and then again in November, as I took my own roving journey through New York and California and Illinois, even South Bend, Indiana, wondering must I wait, must I follow, won’t you say, come with me. It lingered with me, like great songs do. It still does. 
2. Heroes (May Erlewine): y’all. May is my heart. And her songs always come to me at just the right time. This one is no exception: especially this year, as I took extra care to embrace my tenderness and remind myself that I don’t have to carry it all. She gave me the best line of the year: I think it’s brave to live with your mistakes, feel the weight of the years, and make the best while you’re here. I’m not crying; you’re crying. 
3. Daffodils (Original) (Alicia Keys): and then, when you least expect it: spring. Not sure how I missed this Alicia keys release, other than when I look back, there were a few years in there where I kind of… stopped listening to music. But this one hit: I spent a few hours that afternoon learning every note and word, and a few more hours that evening playing and singing it to my little heart’s delight. It was the first song that I had done that with in years, and it brought me back to a 16-year-old moment in time where that was a whole lot more normal for me. 
4. Old Ties and Companions (Watchhouse): So old man give me endless time never let these ties sever / So heaven knows and all this fooling around / These times won’t last forever, after all.
5. Heading for Home (Rufus Wainwright feat. John Legend): I was in San Francisco on the Friday in April when this song was released. Of all of the trips that I took this year, that one was the most definitive — and this song was a huge part of this. I wandered from Union Square all the way down to Fisherman’s Wharf in while listening to this song on repeat, stopping only to listen and watch the cacophony of seals on the pier, before walking back to my hotel and driving north over the Golden Gate Bridge into the forest, where I met myself in a way that I never had before. 
6. Mango Tree (Dallas Ugly): I saw Dallas Ugly at the Rose Bowl Tavern in Urbana, Illinois last year and was an instant fan. They are high on my list of bands that deserve to be much more famous than they are, and this sleepy little bonus track, which captures the in between  – the time is right for me to leave and I’ll back home to the fruitless tree – is one I kept coming back to again and again throughout the year.
7. In Between Days (The Cure): rediscovering songs is one of the great pleasures in life. This one, which came back to me as I was caught in the whirlwind of selling almost everything I owned and moving to New York, has stuck with me on a whole lot of in between days, as has #8, which is also perfect.
8. Cemetry Gates (The Smiths) 
9. The Afterglow (Oshima Brothers): I fell in love with the Oshima Brothers last year when “Lost at Sea” came to me via my Spotify Discover Weekly. It was among my most played songs in 2022, so I jumped at the chance to see Sean and Jamie live at the Rose Bowl in Urbana in June of this year. Another band that definitely deserves to be more famous than they are. 
10. Fix It (Lady Blackbird): if there is one song on this list that truly shaped my year, this is it. The opening — which quotes the spacious and generous opening chords of Bill Evans’ Peace Piece — is nothing short of perfect. It is a hug in a song – a reminder to relax your shoulders – a balm for the heart and soul, all in one beautifully and tenderly executed track. It’s become my favorite lullaby; maybe it will be come yours, too. 
11. Baby Hallelujah (Konradsen): from their 2019 debut album, Saints and Sebastian Stories, the Norwegian duo Konradsen weaves a tender and reverent track with this one, which recalls much of the meandering, devotional fervor of Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago. It’s high on my list of secular tracks that evoke the sacred, and one that I kept returning to over and over throughout the ups and downs of this year. 
12. Upper West Side (Matt Sucich): on my first Discover Weekly walk the Monday after I moved to the Upper West Side, the Spotify algorithms gifted me with this gem from Matt Sucich. And it really did hit me right between the eyes.
13. Chutes & Ladders (Odie Leigh): I’m not sure what it was that pulled me into this song completely, but I couldn’t stop listening it for a good several months this summer. This version, recorded live for Audiotree, is so raw and full of frustration and surrender that it perfectly captures what I think she’s trying to say. See if it enthralls you, too. 
14. Song to Keep You Company (Bridget St. John): further evidence that I would have been a perfectly happy little hippie in the late sixties/early seventies, Bridget St. John’s raspy alto weaves a melancholy tale that wraps you up in a hug. I’ll count the days and keep their songs/Accept the love you offer to surround me with/And anything you ask of me/I’ll give. It’s just perfect.
15. Thymia (Fleet Foxes): Fleet Foxes is my favorite band, and somehow between the pandemic and the striking contrast of this album and the two that came before it, I all but ignored Shore for several years until this year when, at the urging of a friend, gave it another listen — as a whole album, rather than track by track. While I did find some new appreciation for what at times feels almost through-composed (a rarity in popular music these days), it was still Thymia, the single track, that stuck out to me as the brilliance that I had long ignored. I spent several days listening to this on repeat as I ran around the Central Park Reservoir, setting the stage for much of my late September and early October. 
16. Me and Jasper (Luluc): And what we could do/With nothing better to do/Whatever we say/Would you listen anyway/And what we could think/Well, let it be our own thing/Let it be something different/Please let it be something different/Than just shallow thinking and bitching/Twisted stuff you’re believing/Words and time that you’re wasting. 
17. Making It Through (Angie McMahon): Light, dark, light again, light, dark, light again. Read that again. Say it out loud. Trust it. 
18. Unveiled (Loah): Sallay Garnett, aka Loah, is a Sierra Leonian-Irish singer of unquestionable talent that I didn’t know how much I needed in my life until this track hit me like a bolt of lightning. She refers to her fusion genre as “ArtSoul” and that apt description could not be more evident than it is on this haunting little track. It’s otherworldly. It’s sacred. It’s essential. 
19. Hiding Out In The Open (Feist): thirty-four-year-old Kendra got a new Feist album, a new Sufjan Stevens album, and a new Rufus Wainwright album all in one year. And sixteen-year-old-Kendra is super happy about it, especially the opening line to this track – Everybody’s got their shit/Who’s got the guts to sit with it?
20. Holding Pattern (Nickel Creek): at this point, I’m convinced that everything Chris Thile touches is pure gold. Celebrants, which was released in March of this year, is no exception, and this track colored my late Spring more than any other track had in a long while.  
21. Henry St. (The Tallest Man On Earth): as if my Spotify knew I was headed to New York even before I did, tugging on my melancholic heart so hard I thought it was the end of me. Ugh. And love. 
22. Serendipity (Laufey): that a generation has fallen in love with a brand of jazz inspired pop music that appropriately nods to the brilliance of the singers the came long before her is an absolute delight. This song encapsulates everything that is good about New York rom coms, especially my beloved You’ve Got Mail, and is set, serendipitously, in the neighborhood where I am now lucky enough to live. I listened to I more times than I’ll care to admit while walking down Central Park West in the Fall, reminding me to love my tender 13-year-old self, and most importantly, reminding me to dream. 
23. Stop This Train (Joshua Redman): this was a year of Joshua Redman covers of songs that I already loved and somehow learned to love a little bit more. I was restless in the Spring as if I could sense the massive change that was coming, and this track stopped me on the sidewalk in the middle of Savoy as I walked my dog in early June, giving me a good, no great, cry. John Mayer, man; it still slaps. 
24. Everything That Rises (Sufjan Stevens): Javelin is easily my favorite Sufjan album since Illinoise. I listened to this one on repeat for an entire flight in early October, and like many Sufjan songs, I don’t fully understand what it’s actually about, but it made me catch a feeling, and it’s a feeling that I instantly understood. Whatever the word for this is, I dig it and need more of it in my life, musically and otherwise. 
25. Easy/Sweetly (May Erlewine & Packy Lundholm): if there’s one song that sums up 2023 for me, it’s this one, which came to me at just the right moment, as all May Erlewine songs do: nothing’s gonna come easy/but it might just come sweetly sometimes. So true. So lovely. So perfect.

I make playlists! Every month! Listen along with me if you’re so inclined. Happy New Year, and here’s to more music and more magic in 2024.