Hello loved one and a Happy New Year! Jena and I love the contemplativeness of this season and hope that it is peaceful and restorative for you. I hope you won’t think this is silly but I went to make a new year’s playlist and as I put it together, I thought it would be fun to share it with our loved ones and explain why it’s meaningful to me. None of the songs are new, but maybe a few aren’t already on your radar. It’s best heard loud, with headphones, and in motion. Jena has had some fascinating results from her forays into 23 & Me. I figured since we all have shared DNA somewhere back there and it’s 2023, I’d call this thing 23 & Us.
The first few songs are about looking back and kissing last year goodbye. This Year is about gritting your teeth and powering through a crappy situation, like say a pandemic or an abominable presidential administration. There will be feasting and dancing in Jerusalem next year. That’s right: hope is on the horizon. Never Gave Up is also about surviving in the face of despair. I think of the Ukrainians maintaining their dignity and resilience in the face of calamity. Goodway is a cheerful ditty about saying goodbye to jerks. So many lying charlatans on our national stage come to mind. Alex Jones, the Q-Anon crowd... Good-bye, good riddance! You Need to Calm Down continues this theme. I’m tired of being mad and feeling divided from fellow Americans. Say it on the street that’s a knockout, but you say it in a tweet that’s a cop-out. True dat. I unplugged my Twitter machine after all the recent muskiness, although I know many people use it responsibly. For me, it was like pushing an anger button and I’m perfectly capable of generating my own anger, so... Oh, and my other favorite line: Shade never made anybody less gay. Hell yeah! Let’s focus on ourselves for heavensakes, not putting down each other! As 2022 ebbs, Dr. Feelgood is a little tribute to Dr. Fauci as he enters his well-deserved retirement. The poor guy, Just doing his best to communicate and then to be undermined and demonized at every turn. Thank you bureaucrats, thank you health care providers, thank you hard workers everywhere who show up day after day. Taking care of business is really this man’s game. Next, the list hits melancholy. Our family lost our sweet dog Henry last June and the day it happened, Sea of Love came on the radio and floored me. Do you remember when we met? That’s the day I knew you were my pet. Henry’s passing made a deep impact on our family. He seemed to tell us, it’s okay. Death is okay. Obedience was never Henry’s strength, but he was one hell of a guide. We also lost some wonderful people this year. My Aunt and Godmother Barbara Skelly, our dear family friend Lou Nevins, and my parents’ kind neighbor Rick Rauh, to name a few. I know you did too... So this song represents a moment to focus attention on those we cherished and still cherish. With I Found a Reason, the program turns away from the past and probes the belief systems that shape our worldview. God, I love this song. I do believe you are what you perceive/What comes is better than what came before. But before we can formulate a future, we have to See How We Are. Hopefully things look better to us than they did to John Doe and Exene Cervenka in 1987. Next up is a Taylor Swift song, This is Me Trying, which reminds me that everyone is doing their best and that other people’s struggles are rarely visible. Then another song about beliefs, I Believe, which has been getting me pumped for the last 30 years. Think of others, the others think of you is the standout line for me. This song, along with The Right Place and Helplessness Blues are about finding your vocation, your place. They are touchstones during New Years ruminations. The line If I know only one thing, it’s that everything that I see/Of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak from Helplessness Blues takes my breath away; I also love the shift in thinking from wanting to be unique and special to wanting to be a functioning part of a bigger story. I can relate to that. The Book of Love reminds me of Annie and Danny because they gave us the Magnetic Fields boxed set many years ago but I also like it here because it’s silly and profound. The book of love is long and boring / And written very long ago / It’s full of flowers and heart-shaped boxes / And things we’re all too young to know. How do you write lyrics that amazing? Reminds me that love is all you need, which I would have put on this list because there’s nothing you can do that can’t be done is great new years advice, but everyone knows that song too well already. More on this theme follows with The Party and the idea that whatever it is you want to do, wherever you want to go, For every place there is a bus / That'll take you where you must. This song also has a nice New Years reference and a line that reminds me of the joy of raising Haley and Sidney: You’re like a big parade through town / You leave such a mess but you’re so fun. Next up is Surrender, the Cheap Trick song that I never really liked despite Peter Walsh’s enthusiasm for it. But I got into it this year while fixating on the late 1970s. Its message, to me anyway, is that we’re all alright – even though we’re individually weird as all heck (including our parents). It’s a nice thing to keep in mind moving forward. Then I added Get Together to the mix because I’m a hippy at heart and resented it when Nirvana sang it mockingly on Nevermind. Why?!. It’s a beautiful song with great guitar noodling. The next two songs, Changes and It’s a New Day, go nicely with New Years by pointing out where we’ve been and where we’re going in terms of social justice for all. The Tupac song from 1992 laments that We aren’t ready to see a Black president while will.i.am, writing after Obama’s first election, announces It’s for fathers, our brothers / Our friends who fought for freedom / Our sisters, our mothers, / Who died for us to be in this moment. Although Tupac seems ambivalent about our capacity to change, I feel like that’s the whole point of New Years… that we can assess the past and make adjustments… Let’s change the way we eat, let’s change the way we live and let’s change the way we treat each other… Which brings us to the future. The distant future. The year 2000. The song Robots makes me laugh because it makes Sidney laugh. It’s pure nonsense but reminds me not to take anything too seriously. Binary solo: zero zero zero zero zero zero one… John Lennon’s Borrowed Time was released after his stupid assassination, on the Milk and Honey album. It’s so darn prescient and reminds us that every day is a gift and not to stress over trivial pursuits as we calibrate our lives. Then there’s Dear Theodosia, about the hope incumbent in raising children and the expectation that If we lay a strong enough foundation / We’ll pass it on to you / We’ll give the world to you / And you’ll blow us all away… Going forward, Grace will be necessary in 2023 and beyond. See the good in each other. Find the bridges.. Grace finds goodness in everything. That’s how to overlook pedestrian differences. And finally, Don’t let go of my hand / Now darkness has gone / And This Will be Our Year / Took a long time to come. The perfect message at the start of this and every new year.
To your health, your prosperity, your pursuit of knowledge, and peace in the world! Happy 2023, with love from Jena, Haley, Sidney, and Dougie (who kind of took over the holiday letter this year. Thanks for your indulgence.)
Comments