Winter can be hard. I don’t feel fully myself in the colder months with the whipping wind and snot-freezing temperatures.
However, one thing that has always helped to keep me grounded in these moments of feeling suffocated by everything around me is music. I grew up in a very music-heavy family, it felt like there was constantly music playing from somewhere in the house.
Now that I live at school, 5 hours away, I do the same thing in my own space.
My music taste, like the seasons, changes. In the late summer and early fall, I listen to a lot of folk music. As the weather gets colder my crave for music switches to older R&B soul voices like Otis Redding and Bill Withers. The spring starts to bring out more jam band sounds.
Don’t get me wrong, I listen to my favorite jam bands like the Dead, Twiddle, and Phish all year long but the weather warming does pull out a thirst to fill my playlists with their songs.
Embarrassingly enough, at the start of each summer, I do listen to country music for a very brief time. I used to work on a strawberry farm when I was 13 with my older sister and her now fiance and all of my sister’s friends. I felt so cool hanging out with my older sister and her cool friends.
My sister’s fiance used to keep his truck doors open and play the radio while we picked berries. Obviously, there is no better genre for farm work than country music. I think these early summer mornings have altered my brain chemistry to enjoy some country on a summer day.
Recently, as the weather has been changing, I have noticed my playlists switching. I have added more indie-alternative and indie-folk. I have been listening to a lot of Dan & Drum and Ezra Bell.
I look forward to the switch in cravings for music each time the seasons change. I find my music can begin to feel stale and the quarterly change of pace is nice.