2020 in Song

Over the past month, I have had an excessive amount of time to reflect on 2020. It was a year like no other that allowed me time to build on some of my old passions which have become dormant due to the craziness of school, work, and having somewhat of a social life. With quarantine, however, I did not go to school, and I barely worked, and my social life went from having game nights with friends to spending perhaps too much time with my cats. In March of 2020, I revisited an old flame. Music.

I have always been a big music fan. In high school, I waited patiently for Vampire Weekend’s fourth album and would browse my dad’s old records to see if there were any old bands I could revive. Over time I kind of fell into listening to the same five bands/artists over and over again, and I regret to say it but some of them happened to be big pop stars like Ariana Grande and Sean Mendes. *If that’s what you’re into, please do not be offended. Who am I to judge? I almost bought $150 Ariana Grande tickets for my 18th birthday. You do you and listen to whatever you want to. Everyone has their unique music taste and that’s not to say one person’s is bad. Unless you like country music. Then your music taste is bad.*

With quarantine, I was able to discover new bands and new music I had no idea I liked. As the months of 2020 passed, I began to relate to some of the timeless themes in the words which were sung and unsung. Towards the end of the year, I began to think about each month and what songs I associated with them. As my list became complete I realized just how important music is to me and how wrong it was for me to neglect this omnipresent lover. So to make amends I present my 2020 in song.

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January - “Sunday Best” - Surfaces

The beginning of the year did not quite foreshadow the rest of 2020. I started the year celebrating the new decade with some of my closest friends from home. I think it may have been one of my favorite New Year’s Eves as I sang *NSYNC, ate some great cheese, and overall enjoyed the presence of the people I missed the most while I was away at school. During the same week, I met then Democratic Candidate, Pete Buttigieg. At the time I was fully on board the Pete train, making phonecalls for his campaign, donating money, and donning my “Boot-Edge-Edge” merch. Meeting Mayor Pete was an extreme highlight of my year, not to mention I was interviewed by a reporter from Rolling Stone Magazine and featured in an article a little later in the month. Yes, January was off to a good start. Even when I went back to school, I was having the time of my life. I became closer with my friends and made new friendships, I was doing well in my classes and making strides in my campus jobs and organizations. Some might say I was, “feeling good, like I should”.

This brings me to why “Sunday Best” by the Surfaces in my elected song for January. This song is about not worrying and just enjoying the moment. It’s a reminder to be confident and optimistic. At this point, I was spouting confidence and optimism. I was ready for 2020 to be the best year yet and I couldn’t wait to, “take a walk around the neighborhood” and prove it to the world. I was building momentum, and I was doing it fast. I was beginning what I now refer to as the happiest time in my life.

February - “Don’t Stop Me Now” - Queen

Now continuing to February. Despite her cold and harsh attitudes, I knew February was going to be THE month. I can safely say, February was the best month of 2020 for me. I was unstoppable, much like Freddie Mercury was in “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen. I was beginning to find a passion in journalism, learning what it truly meant to be confident in myself, and I had gotten the perfect job opportunity with my school. I was thrilled with where I was. Not to mention my relationships were thriving and blossoming, and I felt like I was finally finding a place in my college community. To be quite honest I felt like Amory Blaine in his first year at Princeton in This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald (I apologize if you don’t understand the reference, but you should read this great classic if you would like to relate). I felt like a powerhouse, I was “traveling at the speed of light”, rocketing my way into the future.

I ended February embarking on a trip to South Carolina for an alternative break during spring break where I would be working with Habitat for Humanity alongside the Chaplain of my school. I can safely say this was one of the most formative experiences of my life. Not only was I with five other college students with an amazing work ethic, but I was re-learning what service really meant to me. I remember while we were riding back to our housing from a day with Habitat in our college van, one of the girls played “Don’t Stop Me Now”. I sang along in my head, and silently said, “Hell yeah Devon, you are unstoppable and no one can slow you down now!” Boy was I wrong.

March - “Stranger”- Vampire Weekend

This one is a little basic, I know. I remember in March seeing many of my friends posting to their Instagram stories how relatable “Stranger” was at this time. It’s true though! “Things have never been stranger… things are gonna stay strange.” Somehow my favorite band had perfectly summed up what quarantine was going to be like. I didn’t really have an idea about how things were going until I returned to school from Spring Break. Everyone, of course, was talking about COVID-19 and how bad it was getting, but it wasn’t until the first week in March when my fellow students were worried about being sent home. I remember getting the news so vividly. I was in the dining hall eating dinner with a group of friends. At 5:59 we received the email from the President of the school telling us we were to go home and hopefully we’d be back in three weeks. The dining hall erupted in shouts of excitement, worry, and dismay. Some students were crying while trying to get ahold of their families, while some were celebrating that we didn’t have class for the rest of the week. The only way I have been able to describe that night is the vibes were strange.

For the rest of the month, I spent it with my family, all of us cooped up in our house, working, studying, and coping with the little human interaction we had. Much like how Ezra Koenig sings in “Stranger”, “And I’ve got nowhere to go”. From my interpretation of this song, it is about experiencing a big shift in life and attempting to cope with it. Although there are some literal phrases, like the above mentioned, which relate to this time, I think the poetic words have something else to say about quarantine. Finding ways to cope with strange circumstances is central in this song, “I used to look for an answer, I used to knock on every door, But you got the wave on, music playing, Don't need to look any more”. There were no answers at this time. We had to find ways to accept the unknown. For me, similarly, in this song, it was through music and books. Getting lost in another world helped me forget about how strange everything around me was.

April - “I Know Alone” - HAIM

April. What a complete juxtaposition to February. April was a low point for me, as was for many people. We were deep into quarantine at this point, and I felt incredibly alone. Anyone who knows me, knows I thrive from human interaction. Some might say, I am an extrovert. I barely talked to friends and didn’t have any energy to do my school work or even to get out of bed. I didn’t want to tell anyone how I was feeling or what I was going through because it seemed so insignificant to everything going on in the world. I just felt helpless. Around this time I began listening to HAIM. I began listening and relating to some of the things the Haim sisters sang about. I was able to find parallels in what I was feeling to the themes and lyrics of “I Know Alone”.

Specifically, the chorus spoke to me. “Some things never change, They never fade, It's never over, Some things never grow, I know alone like no one else does”. At the time, and even now sometimes, it felt like it was never going to end. Things wouldn’t get better and everything was just a dark murky gray color that sucked all the life out of living. That is, not to sound dramatic. A lot of us were feeling similar ways, and this song reinforces that. Of course, this song was written about a year before COVID, but that same thought still holds true. Feeling alone and isolated is a common human emotion even in normal times. It’s relieving to hear how I am feeling being expressed by a musician. But that’s the beauty of music baby. Like a classic novel, music looks at what it means to be human and orates that story, and sometimes it becomes a comfort.

May - “For What It’s Worth” - Buffalo Springfield

May was a discouraging yet empowering, eye-opening, and stunning month. After George Floyd’s murder by Minneapolis police officers towards the end of the month, the nation watched in awe as Black Lives Matter protestors took to the streets seeking justice for Floyd and so many other black people affected by police brutality. Many of my friends and peers took action as it seemed an entire generation and beyond found their voices to speak up for what they knew was right.

Written about ten years after the start of the Vietnam War, “For what It’s Worth” by Buffalo Springfield expresses a story about a nation in protest. Young people using their voices and warning the audience to pay attention to what is happening. Certain lines that would have taken place in the 60s were mirrored in May of 2020. “There's battle lines being drawn, Nobody's right if everybody's wrong, Young people speaking their minds, Getting so much resistance from behind.” Not only in the BLM protests do we see these exact words being lived, but also in modern politics. During this time in 2020, politicians were becoming more and more divided with every passing day. Each side yelling at the other in their little echo chambers. Because of these “battle lines being drawn” politicians didn’t have the time to agree on what really mattered. Protecting an entire demographic of citizens, getting stimulus checks out to Americans who sorely needed them, protecting small businesses. That’s just to name a few of the key issues. Protestors and activists were gaining momentum for their causes and they had center stage. Once again, Americans were being cautioned to pay attention to these voices and take the right side of history. Much like in the timeless story told in Buffalo Springfield’s classic protest song.

June - “Bummerland” - AJR

This description will be short and simple. I just simply couldn’t have a “2020 in Song” without including AJR’s new release “Bummerland” for one of the summer months. June was a pretty mundane and boring month which is well illustrated in AJR’s single. Although it came out in August, I felt it was relatable to the earlier summer month in the sense that they sing, “better nix my summer plans”. A lot of us had big summer plans which were rudely interrupted by Corona (for good reason though). The song also offers encouragement for next summer and the future when this is over. The message is clear, yeah summer sucks now, but when we get to next summer how sweet that victory will be. Would have been good words to hear in June!

July - “Library Magic” - The Head and the Heart

Back in July, I felt like I was beginning to come to terms with COVID and quarantine. I was battling my boredom and keeping my mind active. I have always been quite the bibliophile. For as long as I can remember I have carried a book around me wherever I go (currently my book of choice is Candide by Voltaire if you were wondering). Around the time I began high school however, I got caught up in my school readings and the fast-paced life I was living. So during this time of isolation, I decided to reacquaint myself with some old friends and meet new ones.

“Library Magic” by the Head and the Heart is all about the love of reading and the adventures you embark on through a book. The chorus, I felt, specifically spoke to July, “I can see the sunshine's rays gleaming through the clear waters, Telling me you gotta hop in for this chapter's ride, There will always be better days”. Poetically and metaphorically, these lines express how despite the hard days jumping into another story can make it all the better. I also found parallels to what reading meant to me at the time in the bridge, “Bein' alone isn't lonely, It's sought after like a holiday, Bein' home is my vacation, Postcard dreams of a full-sized bed”. I couldn’t go anywhere to experience new things and we weren’t having a traditional summer. However, I was able to go on vacation from my own home and go on stimulating adventures to Italy, the UK, 1920s NYC, and Australia. I surely discovered the power of “Library Magic” in July which made it the best month of the summer for me.

August - “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be a Brighter Day” - Jim Croce

Back In August, it seemed like things were getting better. Cases were going down, I was going back to school, and I was beginning to not feel so isolated. In Jim Croce’s “Tomorrow’s Gonna Be a Brighter Day”, he sings about how he has treated his girl wrong and is promising to make changes and give her a better life. Although there was no girl or boy for me to make those promises to, I was making them to myself. It was time to begin looking on the bright side of things again and remind myself that, “Nobody ever had a rainbow baby, Until he had the rain”. So thanks Jim Croce for reminding me to be mindful, even if it’s not in the way you meant :)

September - “Tired of Waiting For You” - the Kinks

September brought some frustrations for me. I had been set to go back to school in mid-August, where I was excited to begin an internship with a non-profit, get back to learning, and write again for my school’s newspaper. The school had ideas of their own, however. They had changed our move-in date three times before they finally let us come back! So I stayed at home doing online classes for a month while I waited for final decisions to be made.

In September, I couldn’t help laugh hearing “Tired of Waiting for You” by the Kinks. I was indeed tired of waiting around and left guessing as to what the next couple of months were to look like for me. In my melodramatic state I felt a deep connection to the lyrics, “But, please, don't keep me waiting, Please, don't keep me waiting” and “But you keep me waiting, All of the time, What can I do?” I felt like I was begging my school for an answer and what could I do about it? Nothing but wait. I did make it back to my beloved campus, however, so there was a happy ending to this saga.

October - “Heart It Races” Dr. Dog

Going back to school ended up being a bigger transition than I expected it to be. In October I was feeling the stress and anxiety from being on campus during a pandemic. I was missing my life from when I left in March and the liberties I had then. There were times when I could feel my heart racing from the overstimulation to being back on campus after spending six months at home. Throughout the year I had gotten really into Dr. Dog, specifically the song “Heart it Races”. Although there aren’t many lyrics it does express an ignored anxiety. At the time I had a lot of those. I was worried about internships, classes, productivity, credibility. All these things I had been so slow to acknowledge and address, were coming to the surface and they were unnecessary yet valid anxieties when your young adult life is put on hold. I didn’t quite realize that when I went, “back to where we moved out to the places” the title “Heart it Races” would be so relatable.

November - “Picture of My Dress” the Mountain Goats

“Picture of My Dress” by the Mountain Goats is an absurd song one of my best friends showed me that fall. I spent a lot of November listening to it and dissecting it. I ended up even writing an article about it for my school’s newspaper. While it has nothing to do with what was going on in my life, it spent so much time in my mind it should’ve been paying rent to live there. I couldn’t not include this song somewhere in my “2020 in Song”.

It does have a poetic meaning to it though which can apply to looking back at the end of the year. The narrator of the song is a divorced woman reliving her failed marriage, at the end the sun sets on her trip down memory lane and she looks out into the horizon looking forward to what comes next. Similarly, towards the end of a rough year, it is common to look back and think about all the bad and how it went wrong. This song helped to put me into a mindset of looking forward and letting the sun set on any anger, frustration, sadness, and disappointment I was feeling. So I guess this song, though bizarre, has now found a special place in my heart to remember 2020.

December - “Where’d all the Time Go” - Dr. Dog

Finally at the end of the year. Although at times it felt like it went on forever, on December 31st I looked back and wondered, “where did all the time go?” At first, when I assigned this song to December, I thought it was funny because it did feel like things went by very fast. But as I was looking at the lyrics, I did feel like it was a good way to end off this list. In the Dr. Dog song, the narrator tells the story of a girl he has fallen in love with and she’s slipping from his grasp due to some sort of unknown illness. There are so many allusions to death and the tragic pace at which time turns. The narrator is left looking at the damage caused by the death and how to cope with it. In a lot of ways, it is easy to see this illustrated in 2020. Through many disappointments, heartbreaks, and literal deaths and losses it’s easy to be upset with how fast time goes by. This song examines the innate human reaction to loss and watching suffering. We sometimes don’t know how to cope, and I felt this. I was at a loss at how to help those who were greatly impacted and how to help myself work through the emotions of isolation.

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December of 2020 was viewed as the end of something awful and the beginning of something new and better. As I write this at the end of January 2021, some things have gotten better, but things aren’t peachy keen as so many hoped for. As a nation, we still face collateral damage from a tumultuous year that wrecked so many lives. As a whole human race, we are still learning to face adversity and combat new challenges. 2020 was difficult, to say the least, for too many reasons to list. Many of us combatted personal issues while the world battled a silent killer. The times were hard, but music gave some type of relief. The emotions and timeless feelings we felt were represented in music that came out years ago as well as only weeks and months ago. It’s no coincidence that Taylor Swift released two albums in 2020, there was just so much to express! I am grateful for the music I listened to this year, it helped express something I couldn’t express myself.

Happy New Year, stay safe and healthy.