I MADE YOU A PLAYLIST, Vol. 3: "Corduroy"
Layer up, y'all.
Autumn is here, sweater weather is in full swing, yadda-yadda, blah-blah-blah… you can pretend you’re over it, but you’re not! Nice try! Fall is the best. 🍁 Time for hot drinks and pumpkin desserts (MAKE THIS ONE, trust me) and leaf-peeping and all the basic things.
It also happens to be prime music season. Q4—the big guns. Everything is a little wonky this year, of course, but the tunes are still flowing more than ever and I’ve been on the musical equivalent of cloud nine for the past month and change. So without further ado, plz find your headphones and brew a cup of Trader Joe’s Fox Tea—I present to you ~*THE FALL EDITION*~ of I Made You A Playlist!
LISTEN
“Right With You” by Patrick Droney
If you talk to me about music for more than five minutes, chances are I’ll ask if you’ve heard of Patrick Droney. So here you go—now you have!!! You can officially say yes next time. He just released a new EP called State of the Heart, and (unsurprisingly) I love it.
You know the count-on-one-hand artists you come across by some random, cosmic route, and two songs in you just know you’re in it for the long haul? Yeah. I’ll be listening to these songs forever. They’re the ones I reach for late at night on the way home, when I’m sad the party is over or sad the party wasn’t worth the mascara. They’re an all-purpose tonic for any time my heart doesn’t feel quite itself.
If you’re just now discovering, maybe start with “The Wire” (a personal desert-island top track), then revisit “Ruined” and “Brooklyn” from his debut EP, and then take the entire new collection for a start-to-finish midnight drive or two. “Right With You” (above) is absolute dynamite, but don’t sleep on “Where You Are” or “Glitter,” either.
BONUS JAMS: Because there is entirely too much music happening for me to highlight just one project, here are six (6!) more albums I’m into right now:
Thunder Jackson - Thunder Jackson
Listen to “Love Sick Doctor” and “Colours”
Giver Taker - Anjimile
Listen to “Baby No More”
Trust You, Trust You - Temme Scott
Listen to “Everything, Maybe”
Keep ‘Em on They Toes - Brent Cobb
Listen to “This Side of the River”
Fake It Flowers - beabadoobee
Listen to “Horen Sarrison” and “Dye It Red”
Only Real When Shared - Caiola
Listen to “Alaska”
READ
Gene Weingarten’s “A neighbor asked for a tomato. This is where the story gets weird.” (The Washington Post)
Hahahaha (<— read as nervous, frantic laughter, not lighthearted LOLing). HOLY $#&%$*#. Just read it. Everyone in my Twitter feed posted warnings but I was still unprepared. It’s peak “chaotic evil” on the good/neutral/evil chart and I loved every second of it.
Daniel Riley’s “The Making (and Remaking) of Timothée Chalamet” (GQ Magazine)
Timothée Chalamet has been hiding in Woodstock and listening to Bob Dylan a lot because he’s going to play him in an upcoming film that will certainly be the death of me. This should be reason enough for you to click on this profile, but if you need more convincing, here’s what else I can offer:
The story’s structure takes you from your mountain cabin along a very curvy, windy (but beautiful) backroad to make a giant, leisurely loop, returning you safely to your starting point for a nice cup of hot cider. Major “it’s all about the journey” energy.
The photos. (Especially the one in which Timothée is wearing his own Juicy Couture jacket because of course he can turn a silly middle school trend into high fashion. See here.)
Greta Gerwig, Saoirse Ronan, Wes Anderson, etc. talked about working with him and my heart is still warm from reading their comments.
CJ Hauser’s “The Second Mrs. De Winter” (The Paris Review)
Hold up. Pause. Proceed to click if and only if you have read/are familiar with Daphne Du Maurier’s gothic romance masterpiece, Rebecca. If you have not read, please do so immediately. There’s a Netflix adaptation coming October 21 but it will inevitably fail* to meet the book’s very high standards.
If you are indeed a member of the Rebecca hive… WOW, this essay is a must-read. It’s smart, relatable, and low-key heartbreaking, but mostly I loved it because it helped me re-contextualize the characters I first met as a high school sophomore against a decidedly more mature ~adult~ backdrop.
*Don’t worry, I’ll be watching the new movie the day it comes out, because Armie Hammer (duh). I just already know the book is better.
FOLLOW
This Twitter thread from Oprah Mag writer Elena Nicolaou has brought me SO much entertainment throughout the last few weeks. She’s been live-tweeting her first watch of Friday Night Lights, and the commentary is hil.ar.i.ous. Even casual FNL fans (myself included) will appreciate her undying love for Tim Riggins and the rest of the Dillon Panthers crew, so buckle up and prepare to LOL.
PLAY
Time for the tunes! Good god, fall playlists are SO DIFFICULT. The precision! The pressure! They have to be cozy and chilly, haunted and wholesome. And to make things even trickier, everyone is very emotionally attached to their own sets of fall favorites. The list of tried-and-true autumnal classics is vast and impressive; it includes the “All Too Well”s, the For Emma, Forever Ago’s, the Hozier and Sufjan Stevens albums of the world. I get it. I accept and respect whatever deep-seated fall music rituals you already practice.
THAT BEING SAID—and this should surprise exactly no one—I crafted a new fall playlist anyway! This is my very best attempt at meeting your ridiculously high seasonal listening standards. It’s called “Corduroy,” and it’s an October-friendly collection of light and heavy, warm and cool, old and new (lots of new!).
For me, these songs pack plenty of layers and offer interesting textures that create a comfortable, versatile genre-fluid ensemble. Think acoustic guitars + sneaky saxophones + angsty indie vibes, all wrapped up in one go-to chunky sweater and denim outfit that works for pretty much anything.
Ladies and gentlemen… Button. Your. Cardigans. Here we go.
Corduroy
Your Tree - Anjimile (Their voice has the perfect amount of haunt for my personal fall aesthetic)
Ever Since New York - Harry Styles (A perfectly fall song from a perfect fall album!)
Your Song - Elton John (When was the last time you REALLY listened to this? So warm. So beautiful.)
Warm Ways - Fleetwood Mac
The Birthday Party - The 1975
betty (Live from ACMs) - Taylor Swift (“Will you kiss me on the porch in front of all your stupid friends” lives in my mind rent-free, always)
You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio - Joni Mitchell
Daniel, You’re Still a Child - Declan McKenna
A Lot to Lose - Temme Scott
Dionne (feat. Justin Vernon) - The Japanese House
Overkill - Holly Humberstone (HOLLY! HOLLY! HOLLY! Go listen to her EP immediately)
Running - Shamir
Visitor - Of Monsters and Men
Chinese Satellite - Phoebe Bridgers
Bloom - Great Grandpa
Cherry - Harry Styles (Ugh, sad and wistful Harry is so good for October vibes)
Oh Gawd - Georgia Greene
Statues in the Garden (Arras) - Local Natives
Every Way (Supernatural) - Stephen Day
Without You - Perfume Genius
Own Medicine - Caiola
Fallen for You - Bartees Strange
Bleed to Love Her - Fleetwood Mac
Don’t Wanna Be Without Ya - Penny and Sparrow
Land - CARM feat. Justin Vernon (The trumpet!!!)
Thunder Blanket - Joshua Speers (An actual hug—This is so lovely.)
Kyoto - Phoebe Bridgers (Watch the NYT Diary of A Song episode about this one)
Us - Regina Spektor
AUATC - Bon Iver
Feel the Same - Scott Ruth
mirrorball - Taylor Swift
Good Plates - Michael Bernard Fitzgerald (Sax alert #1!)
Can I Believe You - Fleet Foxes
You Were - Field Guide
Put Your Money on Me - NIGHT TRAVELER
Big Wheel - Samia
cardigan - Taylor Swift
Where You Are - Patrick Droney (Sax alert #2!)
A1) Just Like You - Nick Murphy (Sax alert #3!)
She - Harry Styles
Impossible - Clairo
Falling - Phil Good
Moonlight - Future Islands
The Only Living Boy in New York - Simon & Garfunkel
Better Distractions - Faye Webster
diesel - Golden Vessel (The whole album is great)
Computer Love Song - Carter Vail
Officer of Love - Caamp
out in the wild - REUNION
Fine Line - Harry Styles
Listen to the whole thing here.
(Or if you’re an Apple person, here ya go.)
Well then. Have fun apple picking and let me know how this playlist stacks up to the 1,457 other fall playlists you probably have locked & loaded in your music library! 🙃
Happy listening, as always, and I hope you find a few new faves.
Natalie