Parade for Rain

ISSUE #6

Here in Atlanta, it's been raining once a day for two weeks. It's not my favorite kind of rain, which is the steady, eternal hydro-static that forces the city to chill for a minute. Nope, these are staccato belches of water, thrown for thirty minutes at most, like flicking water off your fingers in a bathroom that's out of paper towels. These are followed by stretches of choking humidity. Every hour on the forecast says there's a 40% chance, you never know when it's going to hit. You can watch enormous sails of clouds crawling by and know that one in every ten is soggy and ready to spit a storm on you. This is the second weirdest thing I learned about the South, after seeing those sour beers everywhere. Not a lot of tornadoes, though, which is a blessing.

This week, I'm using one of my Essentials tokens and sending you the Rainy Day Playlist. Everybody needs one, like how everyone needs aloe vera in their first aid kit. As you know, there are ten Essential Playlists that we all must have: Rainy Day, Spring-Time, Running & Exercise, Halloween, Midnight, Wedding, Primal Scream, Snow, Unrequited Love, and Sexual Activity (can be segmented into First Base, Casual, Kinky, Honeymoon Phase, and Deep Love). I intend to address every one of these at some point in the future.

Those of you who know me well know that it rains every day in my soul. The sun tends to mock me. It's usually viewed through the small window of a room I can't afford to escape, a constant reminder that while everyone else is having fun on their yachts and with their dogs, I'm doomed to toil away, a talent-less hack. These are not my words; this is what the sun whispers to me. I get all my Vitamin D from Whole Milk.

So I love rain. It takes all the pressure off, the great mood equalizer. Rain music tends to be gloomy music. I tried not to make it too heavy for everyone, I know people have certain thresholds. But it's not sadness I find here, it's relaxation. These songs are for those days you're actually encouraged to stay inside, when finally you have time to read the big book without a nagging F.O.M.O. Of course, I've realized over the years that where others see sadness, I see solace. It helps me get comfortable; the song and I have a common understanding. It's the kind of relief you feel when someone you've just met says something that assures you they aren't a Republican.

There's a good chance that, wherever you are, it's not raining. Maybe it's sunny everywhere but here. That's okay. A secret beauty of rain playlists is that they double as sunset playlists. Essentially, they're cocoon songs. The splashy cymbals, the cathedral-reverb of the guitars, synth-lines that run over you like a chocolate fountain - these all act as an anxiety blanket. With clouds, the blanket is gray; with sunsets, it's orange. It all depends on what you're seeing, and what you're feeling. It's the Brainstorm / Green Needle of music.

Two songs in here are from Lost in Translation, because I watched it again this week, and — you guessed it — it's my favorite. So that's another reason "More Than This" and "Sometimes" show up. You'll see "Sometimes" again when I send my Favorite Songs playlist on my birthday, but it will be a blessing because that is the perfect song to put on when you need to do your creative work.

A few more things about the songs before I go: "These Days" is actually the number-one best rain song, but I had to bury it for transition reasons; that guitar fizzle that opens "Motion Sickness" sounds exactly like petrichor, a word Gabe taught me that means "the smell of rain hitting the hot concrete"; I once told Japanese Breakfast her first album meant everything to me, and I could tell it was way too much; and "Teenage Talk" is crazy because it turns St. Vincent into one of those artists whose best song is never actually on an album, like Joy Division and "Love Will Tear Us Apart." Radiohead was like that too, before they finally put "True Love Waits" on A Moon Shaped Pool. I'd love to do a playlist about those B-side bands, but that's just me thinking aloud. Likewise, can you believe Cold War Kids can cover Alicia Keys like that? They're hit-or-miss, but that cover is a piece of work.

Again, thanks for sticking with me through these first few weeks. I don't want to run out of ideas or end up resting on my yannies, so I'm always delighted to take suggestions for custom playlists. No pressure, but if you ever think of something in your idle time, you're absolutely welcome to email or text or DM me with a suggestion. I can execute it, and make a full playlist with you and your theme in mind. I can credit you in the email, or we can leave it anonymous. The stakes are so low, we can do whatever we want!

Water is a blessing, and every rainstorm is a baptism for a new and improved self.

With love,

Jeff