Songs for the Storm: A Rainy Day Playlist
Philip Glass, “Bed” from Einstein on the Beach
A couple of weeks ago at work, a colleague put on Einstein on the Beach and, just like that, I couldn’t concentrate. It wasn’t that I didn’t like it, rather I felt like the music was taking over my entire mind. It was all I could focus on. As such, its haunting instrumentals and vocals are the ideal accompaniment for a rainy day, when you want to think about anything other than how gray and miserable it is outside.
Cat Power, “Troubled Waters”
From her Covers album, Cat Power’s version of this Duke Ellington song is haunting and delicate and perfectly mimics the way this kind of dreary weather brings us down and down and even further down, as if we’re drowning in troubled waters.
Nina Simone, “Wild Is the Wind”
Well, there’s nothing better to listen to on a rainy day really than Nina Simone’s achingly beautiful voice soaring over the delicate percussion of a piano. And this song in particular evokes the majesty of things that are out of our control, and the inevitability of beauty and love and even Spring, despite the raging winds outside.
My Morning Jacket, “Isobella with the White Umbrella”
No matter how hard you concentrate on the sounds in this song, they never quite come into focus—listening to it is like looking through a rain-spattered window, nothing ever becomes clear, but the beauty is in the distortion.
The Velvet Underground, “Who Loves the Sun”
And finally, a reminder from the Velvet Underground that the weather doesn’t really matter all that much anyway. Nothing really matters, not when our hearts are broken. Not everyone loves the sun. The rain, after all, makes flowers and showers. But that doesn’t matter either. Not when our hearts are broken. Weather is meaningless. Feelings are everything. So feel better, this rain too shall pass.
Listen on Spotify here
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