150 Favorite Songs: post-script

Well, that was fun. Thank you for following along with me on this project. I’ll be a little self-indulgent now, as a treat for finishing all 150 entries without missing a single one.

1) I am really proud of that lil’ factoid I just identified! I’ve often said that, when your job is writing, it’s really hard to find time to write for free, and while that’s mostly true, this project also taught me that it’s sometimes an excuse, too. I took this on as a way to wake up my fingers in the morning before starting work, and then because I’m me I started writing 1,000-word-plus entries (sometimes much longer), and i’m pleasantly surprised that as I got deeper into the project, I was able to maintain that commitment. I’m about a third of the way through my next book, and I think that this project helped me develop some muscle that’ll help me get it finished sooner than later, so I’m glad about that.

2) Some stats that probably only interest me: The Cure were the most-represented artist on this list, with four songs (“39,” “Want,” “Burn,” “From the Edge of the Deep Green Sea”). A few other artists showed up three times: Black Sabbath, Yasiin Bey/Mos Def, Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan, the Old 97’s, Prince, Rollins Band, and Bruce Springsteen. The Afghan Whigs and the Twilight Singers, which are effectively the same band, appear twice, but if you add songs that I first learned through covers performed by Greg Dulli, that would get you up to seven. None of that should be a surprise if you’ve known me for a while.

3) The nineties were the most represented decade by a lot, with fifty-five songs, with the following decade getting another thirty-five. The 2010’s got eighteen songs, the 1970’s got fourteen, and no other era got more than single digits. The oldest song on the list was “Everyday” by Buddy Holly, while the newest songs were “We Need More Bricks” by Neck Deep and “Like I Used To” by Sharon Van Etten and Angel Olsen.

4) The process for creating the list was that I made a long list of about three hundred songs that were candidates. Then I made six different playlists, numbered from 150-126, 126-101, 100-76, 75-51, 50-26, and 25-1, and started plugging things in where they felt right, with each playlist getting twenty-four songs to begin, since I knew there would be songs that I had forgotten that I wanted to add. Some songs would get pushed forward as I went—”Redemption Song,” for example, started somewhere on the 126-101 list, but every time it was time to write it, I thought, “this song should be higher up,” so it kept getting bumped to the next list. Some songs were on the list for a long time, and then when it came time to write about them, I decided I didn’t have much to say, so I pulled from a list of alternates. This mostly happened early on, although “Rainbow Connection” only made it onto the list, and in the top twenty, shortly before I wrote about it. I feel good about that call. (The song that got cut for it was “If You See Her, Say Hello” by Bob Dylan.)

5) I’m mostly happy with the final ranking, although I think “Burn” by the Cure is too low—it should probably be in the top ten—and if I were picking a 2024 song today to put where “We Need More Bricks” appeared, I would have used “Euphoria” by Kendrick Lamar, which would probably make this list if I re-did it even if I had to bump a different song to fit it in.

6) My favorite part of this project was hearing from other people who love the same songs I do, and who shared their own connection to the music. This project got very personal sometimes, but I’ve been posting cringe on the Internet since I was eighteen years old, and sharing intimate details of my inner life has always been a way to connect with people, for me. I’m glad I got the chance to do that here.

7) The full list is available on Apple Music here. There are a handful of songs by artists who aren’t on Apple Music, so it’s a bit shy of 150, but that’s the best I can do. Some songs, I used a cover version for my personal playlist, and those are the versions that appear here, too.

8) I’ve enjoyed doing this too much to stop the newsletter, so I’ll be back in your inboxes before long. (I’m in Sydney, Australia right now, so it’ll be quiet for a little while.) (Technically, I’ll be in Sydney by the time you read this, but as I’m typing this I’m sitting in front of Whole Foods in Austin.)

9) My tentative plan is to send one music newsletter every few weeks, probably a playlist with some new songs, some old songs, and some thoughts about why I like them; and then to send a more general entry on the weeks where there isn’t a music newsletter. Who knows, though! This started as a newsletter where I documented every meal I ate during Olive Garden’s never-ending pasta season, evolved into a place for me to write about my feelings when my dog got sick, and then eventually became what you just spent the last year reading. I am led by the vibes.

10) Thank you again for reading, it really means a lot to me.