All I Wanted Was To Be Wanted

The making of a great playlist, like a road trip, break up, or triple chocolate layer cake, is hard to do, and takes longer than it might seem.

You gotta kick off with a killer, to grab attention. Then you take it up a notch. But you don’t wanna blow your wad, so you cool it off a notch. And then, inevitably, you rise again to a swirling, raucous epiphany.

There are a lot of rules.

Anyway, I made a playlist for today — a happy day, if it kills me — on my walk to the subway. The sky was raging blue, the air was cool, the sun was bursting through the falling leaves. Even the garbage truck lumbering east on 80th Street looked beautiful.

“Modern Love” – The Changes
“Music Is My Boyfriend” – The Hidden Cameras
“Summer Girl” – Beck
“Hummingbird” – Wilco
“New Slang” – The Shins
“Rhinemaidens” – The Envy Corps
“The Sound Of Settling” – Deat Cab For Cutie
“Happy Kids” – Nada Surf
“This Is The Day” – The The
“The End Of The Tour” – They Might Be Giants

My playlist is full of shimmering guitars, rollicking bass notes, sturdy back beats, and vocals invested with levity and swagger.

Anyway, I made a playlist this morning. A happy one. And for the first time, I can sort of see how that is done.