little surfer

This local radio station called radioeins is doing summer Sundays. From 9am to 7pm they play 100 songs fitting a theme. The songs are ranked and the ranking is done by journalists and other industry types. A great invention, that I often miss and when I catch it it is rad. Today's topic was melancholy. And since I sat in a car while listening I made a list of my own top ten. I did only use what was on my phone. So there will be honorable mentions. And I do not have a particular order to these.

The Divine Comedy – Your Daddy's Car A toss up between this and Our mutual Friend, but I think this one is more melancholy then depression. An ode to fun and love and how it can all go wrong, get wrapped around a tree. Neil Hannon's music is formative for me. The other end of the see-saw from the heavy music I enjoy. Fantastic lyrics and just really good.

Lucy Dacus – Night Shift This was the song I got to know Lucy Dacus with. It was in an article about best first songs on records and it holds that candle quite high. Countless times I've walked home in the night, listening to this and singing along with myself. It was the one I really wanted to hear, when I saw them live and I compare everything she has done since to this. It is also why I haven't gotten into her later records. These songs may have been great, but they were not Night Shift.

Modern Baseball – Just another face Modern Baseball is certainly a melancholic band for me. Emo after all. Picking one song was not easy. I chose Just another face because it is an end point of sorts. Last song on the last album. A cry for something, feeling bad and holding on, hoping to change. Gosh I really like that band.

The Hotelier – Your Deep Rest I finally got to really shout along to this last year and it felt so very good. Again, choosing one song? So hard. But this one takes the crown. Again a record that displaces all the other music the band made after. For me at least. I could never get into Goodness because Home, Like Noplace is There exists. And now I am contemplating the differences between sad songs and melancholic songs and if I think too much about it this whole list might explode, so I will stop.

Guster – When We Were Stars Guster is a band with a huge following in America. They have their people in Europe, but seemingly never enough to come over. Baby me got to interview them ages ago, when they came over. Must have been 2015. When we Where Stars is from their 2024 record Ooh La La and it is about a relationship falling apart. “You called me his name by mistake, what a funny way to break us open” is a line that just stuck with me. I want to see them play again. I really do.

Julien Baker – Rejoice Again with sad or melancholic. But Baker is exemplary for me for sad tunes and feeling sad as well. And also being powerful. I have a distinct memory of listening to this record while walking around an evening dark Berlin. My girlfriend far away in England and me kind of lonely. This song in my ears and even though it does not connect to the specific lyrics the feelings the song evoked stayed with me. And there is this video of Baker performing the song that just blew me away. Ten years ago. Holy cow.

Tigers Jaw – Never Saw it Coming I got to shout this song the same evening I also saw the Hotelier. My voice was working overtime. Anyhow, the perfect mixture of melancholy and power. Emo really was a formative genre for me, huh. A reflective song, a recounting of faults, but for me it also seems like a realization that life goes on and that is just how things are sometimes.

Vizedikator – 2001 A song about a chance encounter, a night of vandalism and shared time. A connection that seems to have gotten lost. Sadness about the state of the world and anger. This whole exercise is great, because it makes me dig and it also reminds me of songs and records that I really liked and that have fallen behind the couch. Waiting for me to get them out again.

Spring Offensive – Worry fill my Heart A song about needing some money to get through the next weeks. About worries that come with existential questions and a job that grinds you down and really does not pay enough. Spring Offensive were an excellent band.

Mariybu – Crush Nowadays Mariybu makes very different music. Much louder and more extreme. Some would say vulgar. This song enchanted me a while back. Together with the really sweet video the song just stuck with me. And what is more melancholic than a crush that is just that and may not every be anything else?

Honorable mentions – morita doji – goodbye my friend – Frittenbude – Bilder mit Katze – Juliette & The Licks – I never got to tell you what I wanted to – Yann Tiersen – Les Jours Tristes

Next week is “best songs”. I wonder what my head will make out of that prompt in the coming days.