Music for Reflection in 2024

Writing a soundtrack for your life

There needs to be more time for reflection. The Christian tradition of Lent is about entering a period of contemplation for 40 days, reflecting Jesus’s entrance into the desert, until Easter. In Islam, Ramadan serves a similar purpose. However, life needs more times, perhaps weekly pauses, that we can catch up to ourselves. I know it’s called sabbath, but too often this is not a day of rest. As a society, a people, human beings, we need time to just “be.”

There have been very few years that I have been able to do this for myself, and this one has been more meaningful than others. Unless we stop our business, we cannot reflect. Unless we reflect we will not know the reason we are so busy.

Write the soundtrack for your life. What plays on the background? What drives you from scene to sene? These are my seven songs for this season, my mixtape for this time. Please add your songs in the comments.

1. “Hurt”
Cover by Johnny Cash
Written by Trent Reznor and performed by Nine Inch Nails on The Downward Spiral

Cash’s interpretation of the song gives it a dramatically different turn than Reznor’s version. The melody on the guitar is slightly different, with Cash omitting a few minor and discordant notes that are signature of NIN. However, Cash’s rendition is, in a way, more moving given his biography being played as background to the song. Originally, Cash resisted the tune, but producer Rick Rubin insisted that Cash included it in his last, non-posthumous studio album, American IV: The Man Comes Around, based on the strength of the lyrics alone. It is a perfect final book end and reflection of a life lived in paradoxes.

2. “Somebody That I Used To Know"
Written by Gotye (Wouter André "Wally"De Backer)
Additional vocals by Kimbra

After this single won two Grammy awards for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance and Record of the Year, and the duo award was given to Gotye and Kimbra by the artist formerly known as Prince, Gotye retired his persona and went on a hiatus. Although he is still performing, making music, and producing other talent, he has not performed under the name Gotye since 2014, three years after this song was released. Can the success of a song drive an artist into hiding? Perhaps it can for one who wanted to retire at the top of his game.

The song is about the place of loss for both people in a relationship and their perspectives. No relationship is one-sided and it tells both stories, but the end is still separation. Like the song itself, there is not a single emotion, but a complex array of notes, tones, and samples.

3. “Wish You Were Here”
By Pink Floyd

I come back to this classic over and over again. It is composed by David Gilmour and Roger Waters, with vocals provided for by the former. It is a reflection about one’s self and existence, what one chooses for freedom. Somehow the studio version is much more compelling than the live version of the song and it’s that rare occurrence that what was created once can never be recreated again. I used to play the song in the early 2000s driving in a friend’s classic Benz he gave me and thinking about what to give up and what to keep. This theme questions the cost of our soul and the faustian bets that we are willing to make each day, which something I constantly return to.

4. “Let Her Go”
By Passenger (Michael David Rosenberg)

This is another breakup song (don’t worry I’m not going through any kind of romantic separation), but more than that. It’s about not appreciating what was there until it is gone. There is version with Ed Sheeran that I resisted playing because I’m not sure if I really like Sheeran’s music, but it is actually a good addition to the vocals. Passenger’s vocal range is high and perhaps Sheeran’s tone balances it out. You decide.

5. Someone You Loved
By Lewis Capaldi

Although this song toped the charts in the UK, it was a sleeper hit in the U.S. Perhaps because we have a more difficult time with grief than the British do. The song is about the death of Capaldi’s grandmother and it took him six months to write, which speaks of how the art process is often grueling work. The pandemic hit Capaldi hard and he had to return to his parent’s house in Scotland to record his send album. Because of his fame, the pressure to perform manifested in nervous tics and he was later diagnosed with Tourette's syndrome. All this is to say that life as a famous musician is not easy, especially one with real talent. It’s important to take care of ourselves during times of grief.

6. “Cold Little Heart”

By Michael Kiwanuka
From Love and Hate

This is a performer I can listen to all day long. His tone is silken smooth and the lyrics sink under the skin. “Cold Little Heart” can be heard as the opening to HBO’s Big Little Lies. I came upon the song sometime before that just by accident and probably played a hundred times that day. It is about the what love can do to us, both providing an avenue for pain and for life: “And I know in my heart/ In this cold heart/ I can live or I can die/ I believe if I just try.” We can close our hearts to the possibility of one, but then there would be no possibility of the other.

I’m providing a link to Kiwanuka’s NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert during the pandemic. Usually, the NPR special is performed in a tight office space in the NPR studios, thus the name, but because of COVID-19 this concert was in Kiwanuka’s London home. All of the songs are amazing.

7. “Fast Car”
By Tracy Chapman

Several weeks before Chapman showed up for her performance of “Fast Car” with Luke Combs at the Grammy’s, I played this track several times over. Let’s say, it was not the easiest time in my life, but it is both a realistic and deeply hopeful song: “And I, I, I had a feeling that I belonged/ I, I, I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone.” When Chapman performed on stage with Combs, you can hear the love in this song as if she were singing it the first time in 1988. It is easy to understand how this story can easily move from pop/folk to country. The feeling of longing, desperation, loss, and freedom are profoundly particular as they are universal.