The Earwyrms Canon, Pt. X: Dissolve
ISSUE #210
This is the final issue of the Earwyrms Canon. We finally made it to 100 songs. It took far longer than it should’ve—that sinister force that keeps me from finishing books and TV and the last bite of any meal seems to have had its claws around this project too. C’est la vie. Now at least they have a home.
There’s no true theme to bind these ten together, except that they were always going to make the list. These were the songs I thought of first, the allies that I trusted best. My reasoning is beyond any rational argument, resting somewhere between pleasure and taste’s foggy silhouette. Anyway—who knows for certain? None of us, yet all of us at once.
“Inside Out” | Spoon
2014
It’s true, I’ve written about this before. I said:
"Inside Out" has gravity. That drum groove is so tight—88 BPM, a heartbeat running just a little fast, the surefooted stomp of a walk with purpose. The band is so in the pocket they're almost indifferent; the drama all comes in the fraying of Britt Daniel's voice. Those fluttering harps sound like passing comets, and soon you remember that time is affected by gravity as well, and your heart is orbiting something too.
Yeesh—well, back then it was only #44, but today I find supreme comfort in its rhythm. It soothes me on my long commutes. I put it on almost every day and it always works the same—like timing the tick of some divine clock and hiding in its wake.
“Lost in the Supermarket” | The Clash
1979
This was one of maybe four songs I would take my headphones out for when I was stock boy at Forever 21. The way those phrases fall off the guitars makes me think of rain. For as virtuosic and varied as London Calling is, this is the closest the album gets to a slow song. Commercial rot was all-consuming even back then, decades before those garish aisles were baked into every screen.
“This Magic Moment” | The Drifters
1960
There are plenty of perfect soul and doo-wop songs to pick from for the list, but my soft spot for this one comes from its witchy sensibility. Enchantment was all over those 60s pop songs, when songwriters streamlined the power of melody and used it to conquer the world, but never so explicitly as “This Magic Moment.” Love is often compared to a spell, but the subtext-is-text of those shivering strings and the wide-eyed charm in Ben E. King’s voice place this firmly in my Halloween canon. Even the Misfits gave it a cover.
“Sometimes” | My Bloody Valentine
1991
The unique sound of Loveless conjures new images, invents a new way to measure dynamics. A sea of static, a comforting hum. I once said, “in headphones, it swirls like the arms of another galaxy, its pulsars beaming through clouds of space dust.” It’s the soundtrack to a forehead pressed to the window’s glass.
“The Killing Moon” | Echo & the Bunnymen
1984
In 2012, I got a job at an Iowa City Spirit Halloween that was run by two party bros who drove in from Fresno. My first week, while I was hanging foam hatchets and building animatronic cockroaches, all Gabe and Jameson would play was Hall & Oates and Prince. Could be worse, to be honest, but when it came time to open, Gabe got nervous and wanted me to make a Halloween playlist. The first thing I thought of was “The Killing Moon,” a gothic anthem full of dark poetry, brush-stroke drumming, and mesmeric guitar. That autumn, I heard it thousands of times over the speakers, walking amidst the dust and dolls—and I’ll hear it every Halloween to come. I’ve often called it my favorite song. I’ll love it every time.
“Love Will Never Do (Without You)” | Janet Jackson
1989
Huge soft spot for this one, an instrumental marvel. It’s swooning, but it’s never twee; exuberant, but not without hints of the void. It low-key goes hard—I love the thunder of that kick drum. And those horn stabs that come in? Herb Alpert, also on the Canon. It was originally written to be a duet, which is why Janet sings the first verse in lower register (she’s playacting as her missing partner). All that lays the groundwork for my favorite part—when she jumps up an octave in the second verse, which mirrors the rush of falling in love.
“Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I’m Yours)” | Stevie Wonder
1970
It’s all right there on the album’s cover—Stevie Wonder popping out of a man-sized box, pointing a finger at something off-screen. Where did they get that box that size? Nobody ever comes out of my mail. That’s what’s so special—this song is an occurrence. It ought to be turned the hell up. I’m always shocked it’s not a wedding staple. Someone mail the DJ a Stevie!
“This Must Be the Place (Naive Melody)” | Talking Heads
1983
Want an impossible writing prompt? Give me a love song without clichés. Yet somehow, in 1983, the Talking Heads did it. Byrne’s voice oscillates between gentle and palpitating, thrillingly liminal, like the time we spend in love. I once danced to it at 3 a.m., in a stranger’s rental living room, with red velvet curtains and burn marks in the coffee table. The room was full of dancing partners singing into each other’s mouths—even when you’re sick of all that, this thing still works.
“Mr. Tambourine Man” | Bob Dylan
1965
When my cohost Ben gave me this challenge, “Mr. Tambourine Man” was the first song that came to mind. It was always at the top of my working playlist. It’s the epigraph to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and there’s a reason Thompson called back to it. It’s a lullaby for the speedsters and insomniacs, for everyone forced to sleep with eyes open, those poor, unfortunate byproducts of the Culture of Grind. Make fun of Dylan’s rambling all you want—and Walk Hard does so perfectly—but play “Mr. Tambourine Man” after a long day of living and you could light a campfire without a match.
“Watermelon in Easter Hay” | Frank Zappa
1979
Any thing can speak: waterfalls, clocks, microchips, grass. Music has no inherent meaning, just like anything else—it contains only what we can bring to it. That’s key to the concept of instrumentation. Some A.I. program already, I’m sure, is able to play something as beautiful as “Watermelon in Easter Hay,” but it’s only the knowledge that there are fingers on that fretboard and a thumb on the back of that guitar’s neck that gives us the ability to pull music out of sounds. Yes, sounds are beautiful, but there’s no meaning without humanity. Banding together is how we’ve survived. Music is the path to a lattice of empathy. The meaning behind nine minutes of guitar solo is whatever you think during the time you spend listening. These thoughts are the most—the best—of who we are.
When I released the first issue of the Canon last November, I was in sitting alone in a hostel in Ireland. I’m a different man now, in many ways regressed—sometimes, this whole thing feels like a bad idea. It has consumed me as a person, in many ways: I often hear a song and find myself blurting out, “This is in the 100!” or “This almost made the list!” The silence or awkward acknowledgement from someone nearby is always, in the simplest word, embarrassing. But nothing stops me from hearing my songs almost everywhere I go now—and the songs themselves are my favorite thing in the world.
Strangely, very few made their way onto the list late. The final delays were mainly me agonizing over how much I trust myself. I tried my best, and I knew it was folly. Intuition is our greatest benefactor and our greatest betrayer. It needs tuning, like an instrument, and constant calibration. But follow it without malice and there is no sin. Life, which is little more than a collection of moments, is no life without those things that you love—so why not gather them all in one place?
I’ll likely redo this list in the future. For now, I’m glad I have something to listen to—it’s the fun of being alive.
Technically, halfway through the year is next Monday, July 1st. This is a leap year, after all. They’re the only years where there’s an even split in days; the only times the divide falls at midnight, not noon.