By Julia Duggan
Staff Writer
I must confess I am obsessed with music. The earliest memories that I have are connected to dancing with my mom to any and every genre imaginable. It did not matter what kind of music it was, as long as I could dance to it. Sometimes I could even convince my Mom to take out her old flute and play the songs she had memorized from her marching band days.
I am a double major in music and journalism, so my obsession for music has only grown as I myself have become more engrossed in its continual study. I must admit I have the strangest taste in music — somehow, I can bop along to both Beethoven and Drake. My family has not known how to react sometimes to the strange and unusual music that can be heard coming from my bedroom.
As I curated this playlist, my goal was to try and find songs that fit or call a certain feeling or message. In case you are wondering, no, this is not one of my random playlists that I can be found bopping to. This playlist contains a lot of various styles and artists in the hopes I can capture the feeling and descriptions of the theme.
This week the playlist is about fall. There are songs that sing about the leaves as they begin to change in September. For everyone who is tired of school, I made sure to include a song that depicts how long September can feel, too.
There are several songs that allude to October and the various feelings Halloween brings. I specifically chose songs that one does not normally think of as being tied to Halloween on purpose, so “Thriller” by Michael Jackson did not make the list this time. I even found a song to tie in with the election and how we are divided, and have a difficult choice to make. November is filled with songs about Thanksgiving and also about how thankful we are. The second to last song is called “Winter Sadness.”
Winter, to me, has always had a sad underlying tone. But to avoid ending on a sad note, I added a song that is upbeat for the final song of the playlist. It is a movement from Beethoven’s sixth symphony named “Pastoral.” The third movement is titled “Merry Gathering of Countryfolk.” The song was originally inspired by townsfolk celebrating in the warm weather. So even if you agree with me that winter has an underlying sad tone to it, I ended with an upbeat song about spring and celebrating. And there are lots of items to celebrate — even if we are still in a pandemic.
http://open.spotify.com/playlist/31M1GrDA9swl6vdEwuKP7A?si=h8FAnG4ITuyScIze8r9PeA
