at 6:54 AM on Sep 3, 2021, while cooking breakfast, i tweeted:
interested in writers i know and/or like emailing/messaging me about a song they associate with autumn, so i can compile a blog post and companion playlist
when people reached out to send me a song, i requested a little write-up, saying something to the effect of "wonderful. thank you. could you provide a little write-up as well? a blurb would be ideal, some kind of personal story or anecdote, or analysis, something. thank you" so that there could be interesting content to go alongside the playlist itself. some people responded quickly with a song, but required more time to write something, or basically ignored my request for a write-up. i enjoyed laughing at the idea of writers not wanting to write.
below is what i got from people in a sort of arbitrary order. a spotify playlist can be found here (note: two of the songs are not available on spotify)
reading the write-ups, i like the common themes people mention in their relationships to these songs: depression, melancholy, and transparently thematic lyrics or song titles. i also enjoyed seeing different things people associate with fall that i associate with other seasons - for example, i delivered pizzas in the spring and summer mostly, but nathan dragon associates delivering pizzas with fall. i also enjoyed only really being familiar with only a few of the songs people sent me.
Fall music for me doesn't have the qualities of a category I can name,
unlike, say, summer music. Just know it when I hear it. This is one of
my favorite songs, and I feel it is a song exemplary of the fall—walking
through an empty park while wearing a light jacket, etc. I do not know what
the lyrics say, as I do not speak Japanese, and I have not looked up a
translation. I suppose that is another somewhat-maxim I feel about
music: lyrics don't really matter, unless they do. The arrangement is so
beautiful. I really treasure this song. That's all I can say.
---Sebastian Castillo
"Banshee Beat" by Animal Collective
The first Animal Collective song I heard was "My Girls." I saw a
video of three old people reviewing contemporary music. Breakfast at
Sulimay's Music Reviews
is a program from Scrapple TV from Philadelphia. Which is weird because
I lived in Raleigh at the time and had never heard of Scrapple. Now
scrapple's my second favorite pork and corn based breakfast meat and I
live in Philadelphia.
The old people
didn't like "My Girls." They said it was too repetitive and that nothing
would come of the band. Despite their opinion, Animal Collective became
my favorite band for a long time.
I
worked backwards through the discography. Their music made me feel
excited and somewhat insane because each album seemed better than the
last. I remember telling friends, "They never miss, they can't make a
bad album."
Feels was the album I
liked the most. It's mostly analog sounding instruments looped and
sampled. I liked the way Geologist talked about the album. How the band
tuned their instruments to an old piano their friend had. It was
experimental and strange but still pleasant. It was music I could put on
and win people over with eventually. It was music that made me feel
like dancing.
The drums and keys and
guitar on "Banshee Beat" remind me of a campfire. Leaves cracking under
feet on the brick campus. Rain falling while walking to class. A bowl in
my jacket pocket.
There's also something
lonely about the song compared to the others on the album. It's
whispered. Avey sings on it with Geologist and Panda Bear doing
harmonies and ad-libs. But the type of loneliness in the song is only
possible with friends. It feels like stepping away from party noise to
wash your face in the bathroom and think what's waiting outside.
---Graham Irvin
If you google “jackson c frank october lyrics” you’ll get a version that has the first line as “Halloween is signal I received in France”, which should really be “Following” but now I always listen for Halloween instead, see if I can make it out or if I can get it to sit in that colorblind space of perception where it could totally be one thing or the other, you have no idea which.
Halloween is my grandma’s birthday, followed pretty close on by my wife’s birthday, then her mom’s, then mine and Thanksgiving and my nana’s and then Christmas. This makes it kind of sad to hear JCF sing “And it's already over in October / Already Christmas every year”, skipping that whole procession, so now when I listen to the song I just think of a slow march of cake.
--- Tom Snarsky
---Troy James Weaver
Honestly the whole album, Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Part Two: No World For Tomorrow is an autumn album for me. I'm pretty sure I've listened to it every autumn since it came out in 2007. It came out on the 23rd of October, so that's an easy enough reason. It came out in the fall and I listened to it obsessively as I had with their three previous albums. I was a freshman in high school at the time, 15, and had started to move away from being more of a bring fantasy books to school to read in class nerd to a wear all black and hang out with the kids with weird hair and Tripp pants who play smash bros in basements while listening to System of a Down nerd. Only one of my friends was into Coheed and Cambria at the time, and my interest in the band surpassed his very quickly.
This being the fourth Coheed and Cambria album made the rotation of albums fit in perfectly with the seasons. Their first album, Second Stage Turbine Blade is a spring album, their second, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: Three is a winter album, their third, Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV Volume One: Fear Through The Eyes of Madness is a Summer album. I still go through each of these albums once a year, usually during the season I associate them with.
I have lots of music that I associate with seasons, I have a roster of summer artists, I generally also go through and listen to a bunch of psychobilly and horror punk during the fall as well.
The song itself, "Radio Bye Bye," is a great autumnal song. It's got their proggy basslines, a very poppy melody, cheesy lyrics, but a dark tone and overall theme. There is still the brightness of summer, but a longing sadness, knowing that something is coming to an end. I usually listen to this song whenever a relationship of any kind I'm in ends, by the way. It's a great song for endings. The whole album is the apocalyptic end of the band's original storyline. (I assume you're aware of Coheed and Cambria's schtick, but, if not, they're a concept album band with a running story throughout almost all of their albums.) This album also came out during a tumultuous time in the band's history, it was barely made, and with it being the "end" of the story, a lot of fans were anxious to know if there'd be another album or if the band would go their separate ways. A spate of solo albums from members was coming out around this time too, adding to the anxiety.
This being the fourth Coheed and Cambria album made the rotation of albums fit in perfectly with the seasons. Their first album, Second Stage Turbine Blade is a spring album, their second, In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: Three is a winter album, their third, Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV Volume One: Fear Through The Eyes of Madness is a Summer album. I still go through each of these albums once a year, usually during the season I associate them with.
I have lots of music that I associate with seasons, I have a roster of summer artists, I generally also go through and listen to a bunch of psychobilly and horror punk during the fall as well.
The song itself, "Radio Bye Bye," is a great autumnal song. It's got their proggy basslines, a very poppy melody, cheesy lyrics, but a dark tone and overall theme. There is still the brightness of summer, but a longing sadness, knowing that something is coming to an end. I usually listen to this song whenever a relationship of any kind I'm in ends, by the way. It's a great song for endings. The whole album is the apocalyptic end of the band's original storyline. (I assume you're aware of Coheed and Cambria's schtick, but, if not, they're a concept album band with a running story throughout almost all of their albums.) This album also came out during a tumultuous time in the band's history, it was barely made, and with it being the "end" of the story, a lot of fans were anxious to know if there'd be another album or if the band would go their separate ways. A spate of solo albums from members was coming out around this time too, adding to the anxiety.
---Joe Bielecki
idk why “mad world”.. maybe its the music video. there are leaves.
OHHH
MAD WORLD = Fall bc Donnie Darko, which takes place in the fall near halloween
---Cavin BBall Bongzillaz
My primary way of listening to music is the CD player inside my 2009 Honda Civic. I enjoy viewing my car as a ~$6000 CD player, or alternatively also as a 3000 lb CD player. I own about 10 CDs. I get anxious changing discs while driving and maneuvering 3000 lbs of steel, highway hurtling so fast everything, concrete and sky alike, looks torn—during a blizzard, I once crumpled a car like a beer can simply by swerving at a slug-like crawl into a guardrail—so I often just let the same CD repeat for the entire drive, sometimes for hours. For this reason, I like listening to disc one of the compilation album Slanted and Enchanted: Luxe and Reduxe by the band Pavement, because it has 24 tracks. Track 23 is “Secret Knowledge of Backroads.” It sounds like a breakdown on the side of the highway. Nothing abrupt and fiery, but rather the slow, prolonged halt of an 18-wheeler, like a whale’s moaning. I spent my youth beneath the earth in mildewy basements, so I chart life in terms of video games and anime, summer the cicada flash of Neon Genesis Evangelion, winters cold with Metal Gear Solid’s fortresses. This song, to me, is the “Metroid Prime 2: Echoes” of Pavement’s music (Metroid Prime 2 is also the “autumn” of video games). Whereas the original Metroid Prime was almost cartoonish with its video game tropes, lava levels, forbidden space research labs, sentient plants spitting acid as boss fights, Prime 2 is a bleak sequel, its world husked: smog-fogged skies, polished killer machines patrolling lifeless corridors…A few lyrics I like from “Secret Knowledge” are Kick the sand / Kick the can. A Honda Civic crumpling like so much aluminum. Kick it in the face of another man / So you kick it out, it’s out of town. Robots, long outliving their creators, relentlessly pace a gleaming necropolis. I’ve never felt like I do now.
---Nathaniel Duggan
This song reeks of fall. The music video, which I just watched in preparation for this message, actually opens with sun shining through barren trees, and people scavenging through fallen leaves. The song builds to what I would call a crescendo of melancholic euphoria, which is a feeling I associate strongly with autumn. There’s also a line in the song that goes “There comes frightful news from town / Of great evil abound” which makes me think of October and Halloween, and there’s a sort of Wicker Man vibe to this song, like the villagers coming together to perform something sinister.
---Ben DeVos
I'm a fuckin halloween boy, so just ignore the fact that "summer" is
right there in the title for a goddamn second, okay Zac? I live in
Southern California, where the differentiation between summer and fall
is slim (Levi's 511) as hell, so what is a season to you might not be a
season to me (so defensive). But one thing that always seems to
break with the equinox is nights cooling down to sweatshirt-based
wardrobes, wind blowing rustling leaves that may or may not fall, and
spooky movies. Though kind of a shit film, I Know What You Did Last Summer features
a Type O Negative cover of Seals and Crofts' "Summer Breeze" that
should not bang/drone as hard as it does. This song reminds me of
nights turning cold and the fear of death lurking just around the
corner. Happy Birthday Zac, and remember age is just a number.
---KKUURRTT
possibilities feel endless and they are, because you're fifteen and haven't fucked up yet. you don't even know fucked up yet. you kiss softly, laugh loudly, weep in the middle of the night. you get mad over nothing and forget it the next day. someone gave you adderall or some acid. someone else gave you a hickey. someone else gave you a handful of CDs, whose songs will be burned into your psyche until you die, the first time and the last time. everything feels important right now. the way summer slides into fall, making each breath you take more thrilling. the way it feels to make three sandwiches for two hungry friends who got stoned off a coke can in your backyard. the way pop-punk still pays homage to hardcore even though it definitely isn't anymore. you think it's all pretty sad and wonderful, and you're right. you think you know all a person needs to know about love and sorrow and joy. you do know all you need to know. it's saturday.
---Austin Islam
Heard the song for the first time in the fall of my senior year of college. Went through a big Magnetic Fields phase that summer and someone tipped me to Jens Lekman. The sample sounds lifted from Saturday morning cartoons, but Jens performs like a weary lounge singer. I worked at a coffee shop at the time and I remember a weeknight closing shift. The place was packed, but it was just a bunch of studying students so it wasn't busy and I remember this song coming on my iPod which was hooked up to the soundsystem and I watched the leaves blow across the street and waited for someone to ask me who sings this song.
---Kyle R. Seibel
This is the perfect song to listen to while skipping middle school, strolling through the streets of suburbia and dodging cops on a crisp fall day. The visceral riff is perfect for tightening your hoodie strings and stomping on crunchy pine cones. The driving melody pairs well with angsty mischief and the smell of fresh spraypaint. J Mascis’ melancholy, bittersweet vocals are the perfect soundtrack for picking through cigarette butts in front of Kroger, hoping to find a long one. I don’t even remember who gave me that mixtape, but I remember playing this song until it warbled and never quite making it to school as the landscape turned from orange to grey and the rhythms became more sprawling and earthy. I suppose it’s a really poignant breakup song too, but I was 13 so I didn’t know anything about that.
---Jerome Spencer
In its tempo, pacing, the vocals, the classic bass riff, the tambourine, it all feels chilly but sunny. Being in a car bopping around. Like I'm delivering pizzas again or doing errands. September/October music. Definitely not November music.
---Nathan Dragon
"Some Nights Intro/Some Nights" by fun.
I associate this song with autumn because I listened to it on my weekend trips to the city. I was fifteen years old, and I would be staring out of the window, admiring the bokeh forming on the window. For some reason, I will only listen to this song during the autumn and winter seasons. The lyrics in the intro discuss disillusionment and falling out of favour with the world around you. I was very depressed in high school, and those weekend trips were the only things that kept me going. It was a whole other life that I dreamed about. I watched handsome older men drink wine under heat lamps outside bars. In some ways, I feel as though I lived vicariously through this song. It’s a song about feeling hopeless and alone which is something I can relate to. I flourish in the nights of autumn, and Some Nights gives me visions of how I imagined life to be when I walked the streets of the blurred city.
---Courtney S. Gray
I cheated a little bit
when choosing this song. The first thing that came to mind when thinking
of "fall songs" was something off U2's October because the album is
called October and has a picture of the band looking cozy and I have the
record and like to put it out next to my record player in October. But I
don't especially love any songs from that record, and plus, even though
early U2 is magic, they're super unhip now and I'm a little bit
embarrassed about liking them, though clearly not embarrassed enough not
to still mention it here, first. My second impulse was Modest Mouse,
but I don't want to keep being exclusively associated with them. My
third instinctual impulse was The Microphones.
I looked at last.fm to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything, scanning through logs of what I listened to in fall months over the years, starting in 2006 when my data on that site began (after an earlier purge of embarrassment over what portrait my listening painted of me as a person—revealing a recurring theme of anxiety over musical tastes here). Those were my "formative listening years," and left the biggest impression/shaped my enduring tastes, etc. And I have a horrible memory.
I looked at last.fm to make sure I wasn't forgetting anything, scanning through logs of what I listened to in fall months over the years, starting in 2006 when my data on that site began (after an earlier purge of embarrassment over what portrait my listening painted of me as a person—revealing a recurring theme of anxiety over musical tastes here). Those were my "formative listening years," and left the biggest impression/shaped my enduring tastes, etc. And I have a horrible memory.
My
anecdote/memory is: every time I hear or feel or think about pretty
much any natural force/seasonal cycle (wind blowing, rain pouring, first
snow falling, etc. etc.) this album comes to mind. And I love the way
the songs run together such that, unless I'm looking at the tracklist, I
don't always know when one ends and another begins, or that one stretch
is actually two songs. Fall feels folksy to me, so acoustic guitars
seem right, and fall feels like the time to be "in your feels," and the
crunchy drums and pianos all feel really emotional. There's something so
relatable about the body ache/surrender of "I Want to Be Cold." I like
that this one rocks pretty hard. I love the declarative simplicity of
saying "I want [something about a natural force outside of my control to
overwhelm me]."
---Maggie Siebert
In the fall of 2015, I think, I was very depressed and was getting into more slower and sadder music. For whatever reason I saw that Numero Group was releasing this Bedhead box set and I was really interested in spite of never listening to the band before. It was a lot of money at the time, but I bought it anyway, feeling dangerous and manic, and I listened to the digital download while I waited for it to arrive. I spent a lot of time walking around that fall listening to music, and especially Bedhead. All of it really spoke to me - the mumbling, the quietness, the space, the simplicity, the lyrical themes. To me, it was very new and exciting, and paired well with how bad I felt all the time. The quiet and slow approach they had calmed me against the often overwhelming anxiety, especially as it related to the academic year starting again, when I generally felt the worst, and the depressed lyrics made me feel understood and less lonely. This song is from their third album, Transaction de Novo, where they experimented the most - some more uptempo songs, different time signatures, some more folksy Americana - but this is a more or less 'classic' Bedhead song, perfectly encapsulating their oeuvre, I feel, and so in that sense it encapsulates the entire season of fall.
---Zac Smith
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