My 2019 Soundtrack

Since 2002, each December I have compiled a mix CD or playlist to document the past year--a soundtrack that charts memorable moments, trends, and events in my life over the preceding twelve months.

The rules are as follows:
-The collection must be short enough to fit on a standard 80-minute CD.
-The song choices are not bound by “favorites” so much as songs that are, in my mind, distinctively connected to the preceding year.

1. "Forever on Your Side" by NEEDTOBREATHE
I'll cop to first hearing this song in a WWE-produced tribute video to the late "Mean" Gene Okerlund. Those odd origins aside, I liked the folksy sound of it and remember listening to this song a good bit as life seemed to take a turn for the better. We were settled in our life in Georgia, and late 2018 had seen not one, but two book deals come through. I'd played with scheduling to get back in the habit of a regular gym regimen, and even landed a phone interview for a job I'd applied to on a lark over the winter break.

2. "Shallow" by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper
In March, I took my first overnight trip away from my son, to fly across the country from Atlanta to Portland, OR for a whirlwind AWP Conference. It was heartbreaking to be away from Riley for the first time, but I also can't deny a tingle of freedom and ease when the plane reached cruising altitude and I turned to the in-flight entertainment. I chose A Star Is Born, and proceeded to have this song stuck in my head ad nauseam.

3. "One Hand in My Pocket" by Alanis Morissette
This pick is nothing if not anachronistic, but after not listening to this song much for well over a decade, it popped into my head and wound up on a playlist I made just before leaving for Portland. And while Morissette's vocals had the capacity to transport me back much further than when I'd lived in Oregon, listening to this song in my earbuds on the walk from my hotel to the conference center nonetheless became an indelible part of a weekend of reuniting with old friends and talking about writing in Portland.

4. "Eyes on You" by Sara Bareilles
Sara Bareilles grew into becoming my favorite solo artist around 2013 to 2014 with her Blessed Unrest album that I held so dear, and building a greater familiarity with the rest of her catalog in that era. As such, I was pretty excited for the release of a new full-length album Amidst the Chaos, despite feeling awfully underwhelmed with the early-release tracks from it.

I didn't love the album, but "Eyes on You" was a bright spot, and one of the few tracks I found much re-listen value in for its offbeat story and way in which the music progresses.

5. "Shape of Your Hands" by illumaniti hotties
I first heard of illumani hotties via KEXP's song of the day podcast, and though this wasn't the song featured, it quickly became my favorite from the full album for its fresh sound and bittersweet breakup song lyrics. Behind the scenes, the song actually led me to a correspondence with Sarah Tudzin (the lone band member) about potentially using the song for a book trailer. I didn't have the money available to make her people happy, so a deal never materialized. Nonetheless, I love the song and think fondly of spring 2019 on hearing it.

6. "Bad Guy" by Billie Eilish
My students in Georgia--many of them Billie Eilish-crazed--introduced me to this song and its offbeat video. I couldn't deny that it was catchy, and it became one of my favorites of the spring, only to return in the fall a fellow playground visitor played it from his speakers and Riley, too, demonstrated an affinity for it, pausing to bend his knees and dance to the beat.

7. "Stolen" by Dashboard Confessional
I've been known to listen to music to psych myself up before all manner of performance, not least of all including a job interview. Leading up to my campus interview at UNLV, this song came to mind--a totally mellow, saccharine love song that is sort of the antithesis of the harder, louder sound I'd usually take on for that kind of endeavor. However, in listening to it as I walked outside at my old campus in Georgia, the day before flying out to the interview, I discovered not an adrenaline rush, but an overwhelming sense of calm that I carried with me into the interview.

I guess the song worked. I got the job.

8. "All Too Well" by Taylor Swift
I downloaded some new-to-me music in preparation for a cross-country road trip from Georgia to my summer gig in Santa Cruz, California, before we'd move to Las Vegas. Included in this music was Taylor Swift's Red album, which I hadn't had much interest in when it was popular, but since I had become a Swift fan in the years to follow I figured it was worth revisiting.

I liked Red on the whole, but this was by far my favorite track for its conflicted feelings and nostalgia vibes. More than any other song, I link this one to those four days and 2,400 miles alone on the road.

9. "When She Loved Me" by Sarah McLachlan
I accepted a last-minute offer to work CTY summer #20, and with that came the aforementioned solo road trip to get myself and our car across the country, where I'd pick up Heather and Riley from the San Jose airport.

I expected Riley might be a little upset with me after disappearing from his life for five days, after previously only have once been away for three nights, and besides that only going missing overnight once. I wasn't prepared for him to reject me.

He wasn't happy when I greeted them at the airport, a hand-written chauffeur sign for "Mr. Riley" held aloft. He shied away when I tried to touch him, screamed the first time I picked him up, and ran for Heather the first time she went to the bathroom and left him alone with me.

I was heartbroken.

I was heartbroken, not least of all because the job was demanding and in working, conservatively, fifteen-hour days, I didn't have a chance to rebuild our connection much, and began to wonder if things would ever be the same between us. So it was that in a sleep-deprived, professionally exhausted state, I came into the main office where the team worked against a backdrop of a Pandora station of songs from Disney movies, and "When She Loved Me" from Toy Story 2 came on. The words about a beleaguered toy, once the favorite, now ignored by a child who'd outgrown him hit hard--probably harder than they should. When I stopped back at the apartment, I couldn't help myself from crying for a relationship with my son I might've ruined, and the profound guilt than when I'd left him he may have thought I was gone forever.

We got closer again by degrees. Settled in Santa Cruz, he was comfortable going for walks around campus with me when I could steal away from the office for an hour, and back to a more normal pattern in Vegas, we're back to father and son.

I haven't taken that for granted since.

10. "Paper Rings" by Taylor Swift
In Las Vegas, things clicked into place. I was a professor with a good bit of autonomy for the classes I'd teach. Our new home was beautiful. My first book was mere weeks from its release.

And Taylor Swift had a new album.

In the days leading up to my birthday, I listened to Lover a good bit, and particularly "Paper Rings," my favorite track from it, and a fitting anthem for celebrating a new life.

11. "You Don’t Mess Around with Jim" by Jim Croce
After a busy summer didn't afford much time to watch TV, in October I made a point of re-watching the first two seasons of Stranger Things, en route to finally catching up on season three. While I found the third season uneven--and the first few episodes, frankly, weak, I was satisfied on the whole. This song, which plays early in season two and again in season three, caught my ear on this viewing, in part for the ways in which the lyrics arguably reveal about about Jim Hopper and foretell some of the character's trajectory. Without spoiling anything more than that for any reader who might still mean to catch up, this song takes me back to my October immersion in this show.

12. "The Whole of the Moon" by The Waterboys"
I notoriously go all in on Christmas--particularly Christmas movies and music--after Thanksgiving each year. Netflix's Let It Snow caught my attention for not only being branded as a holiday movie but appealing to my teen comedy fandom. The movie didn't disappoint--at least for its quality, though the Christmas-ness felt a little tacked on--and after hearing this song as it was performed in the film, I tracked down the original and came to like it a good bit.

13. "Our Christmas Monkey" from Curious George - A Very Monkey Christmas
There's little in my life that my son doesn't touch these days, and though I have yet to have seen Curious George - A Very Monkey Christmas all the way through, despite multiple attempts, I have heard this song a lot for it being his new favorite, and accessible to play as an isolated clip on the PBS Kids app. With lyrics that include describing elephants as "trunky" and doughnuts as "dunky" to set up a rhyme with monkey, though, who can claim this song is anything less than a holiday masterpiece?