[Listen to our May 2021 playlist on Spotify.]

Songs for the Road

Road trips are a great time for music, and I tend to love music that suggests a journey or a story. In fact, the first music I can recall hearing with any specificity is an album by Dana Key called The Journey. I don’t listen to that album any more, but I loved it as a kid, the way it took me somewhere and had a narrative shape. These days, even as I sit at my desk, music opens up a sense of spaciousness, and being on the way that helps me feel a bit more human. Here’s hoping these songs might also resonate with you on your journey.

All Ashore — Punch Brothers
These guys are all virtuosos, and in addition to their technical mastery, this song shines with the band’s ability to craft a narrative shape and feel to their songs. I’ve always loved their fusion of genres and emotional range, and this song is an example of all those hallmarks.

Hornets — Aoife O’Donovan
A bouncing song of restlessness, longing, and delicious harmonies. O’Donovan’s music beautifully intuits the connection between love and loneliness, a theme that strongly resonates with me.

Neon – Live at the Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles — John Mayer
On this live album from 2007, it’s clear that before he was anything else, Mayer was a musician who’s not afraid of the blues and long instrumental interludes. I love the way this song takes its time, and comes and goes from the chorus.

How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful — Florence & the Machine
Bright brass punctuates this song so well. I have a special attachment to it as the song was inspired in part by her first concert performance at the Hollywood Bowl, where I was in the audience.

unwelcoming — Joy Oladokun
This song is as groovy as it is heart-breaking—some journeys through this world are particularly fraught with danger and alienation. That Joy Oladokun can sing about it in such a soulful way is a moving act of resistance, as is the entire album this song is from, in defense of my own happiness (vol. 1).

Life On The Road — Newcomers Home
These guys were a local band in my adolescence in Colorado, and lead singer Katie Herzig’s craftsmanship as a singer-songwriter inspired me and showed me the genre’s possibilities. I particularly loved the narrative shape of this song, the way the mandolin evokes the sound of rain, and the building harmonies in the refrain “Kyrie Eleison.”

Human — Daughter
The lilting guitar riff and the tension between the drudgery of dailiness and a deeper sense of humanity is enough to keep me coming back to this song, but I also have memories of listening to this track in the car, hugging the Pacific Coast Highway along Big Sur’s rocky coastline.

In Dreams — Ben Howard
Ben Howard knows his way around a guitar, and this song is another favorite accompaniment to my West Coast road trips. The song, too, is a journey moving from the surreal, impersonal “violent crack of atoms” to a confession of need, and the musical tension resolves.

Can’t Get It Right — Matthew Perryman Jones
Another song of restlessness—“Counting up the lines on the highway like I’m counting my regrets” says it all. MPJ is one of my favorite songwriters for his earthiness and insight.

Scenic Route — Jars of Clay
I’ve always appreciated Jars’ ability to experiment with different genres and Dan Haseltine’s lyrics like the central metaphor of the scenic route in this song. The album this song is from, The Long Fall Back to Earth, was the soundtrack years ago for a road trip from California to Colorado with my sister as we worked through some of our relationship’s growing pains.

Don’t Wanna Fight — Alabama Shakes
Speaking of interpersonal conflict, this song is a plea for interpersonal harmony, and with a bass line that helps keep me moving on a run.

Down — Andrew Belle
There’s a dreaminess to this song that evokes that dizzying sense of entering anything uncertain.

Broken Harvest — Madison Cunningham
If Andrew Belle’s “Down” is about the dizziness of being on the high of new love or a new pursuit that involves risk, “Broken Harvest” is the counterpoint—what happens when it comes crashing down? “When you’re living on a dreamer’s salary, a broken harvest feels like robbery.”

Roma Fade — Andrew Bird
Since his Christmas album Hark! released late last year, I’ve been on an Andrew Bird kick. Insightful lyrics, a range of moods and subjects, a touch of whimsy, and gorgeous instrumentation have me currently obsessed with his discography.

Green Lights —  Sarah Jarosz
Sarah Jarosz’s work has an earthiness and spaciousness to it that I love, and this song in particular evokes the sense of wide-open expanses and the possibilities that a sense of belonging brings.

The Hidden River of My Life — Sufjan Stevens
I love everything about this song—the musical arc of it, the imagery and specificity of the lyrics, and the idea of love as what undergirds a particular life. I return to this song again and again because I find it consoling but in a way that isn’t at all sentimental.

Nothing Left to Lose — Mat Kearney
I’d listen to this song about a move, and the leap into the unknown that is, on drives back and forth from north Orange County to San Diego. I also listened to it while driving the I-5 North, moving from California to British Columbia.