Schmutzie's October 2020 Mixtape

October 2020’s mixtape is about 2 hours and 35 minutes long and has 39 pop, rock, salsa and tropical, punk, metal, R&B/soul, alternative, classical, singer/songwriter, Celtic, soundtrack, indie rock, and soul songs across 7 decades. This playlist is available on both Spotify and Apple Music, and if you scroll to the bottom, you’ll find embedded widgets you can play right here. I’m finding that getting lost in extended playlists is helping to keep my brain from obsessing about the news, so I hope I can offer some of that relief to you.

I have a few favourites on this mixtape. I don’t normally tell you which ones I love the most, pretending like they are all favourite children, but I realize now that I’ve been anthropomorphizing the songs — I do this with nearly everything — and it’s a ridiculous thing to do. Black Sabbath’s “Paranoid” isn’t going to go home sad because I tell everyone I listen to The Kinks’ “Top of the Pops” twice as much. Asaf Avidan’s “Lost Horse” isn’t going to turn all mean girl because it’s the one I sing too loud in the kitchen rather than Angel Olsen’s “Sweet Dreams”.

I imagine each song as a bit sticky and blobular, affecting an approximation of people’s limbs to either grab their toys and go home or pull themselves up pompously high, but these are songs, not people, and they’ll be just fine sharing a playlist lineup with other songs I like both more and less than them, I’m sure.

My 7 most favourite songs on this mixtape are as follows, in order of appearance:

1. The Kinks’ “Top of the Pops” is singable and danceable, and, incredibly, it’s FIFTY YEARS OLD. When I hear it, It’s somehow so present, so unglued from a particular time, even as it opens and closes with 50-year-old pop culture sound bites.

2. Asaf Avidan’s “Lost Horse” has a chorus I love to wail along with because its rise and fall really makes you feel like you’re going somewhere, and it’s repeated enough that I can get a few good and satisfying rounds out of it before it ends.

3. Daniel Johnston’s “Story of an Artist” makes me feel that rainy long weekend afternoon kind of sad that you can dip into like a delicious meal. We’ve all felt that angsty-ish loss of dreams unrealized, our egos knocked around by time and personal limitations.

4. Iris DeMent’s “Let the Mystery Be” is one I can’t believe I hadn’t heard of before this last month. YOU WERE ALL HIDING IT FROM ME. I’ve been obsessing over the mortality of nearly every thing since my 5th birthday, and this song helps me ease up on the tension between looking for the answer and letting it go.

5. Fenne Lily’s “I Used to Hate My Body But Now I Just Hate You” is me in my 20s after I wasted so much of my love.

6. Cigarettes After Sex’s “Young & Dumb” leaves me deeply conflicted, because misogyny is so damn done, but the lyrics roll around wonderfully on the tongue, and so I am caught in a whirlpool of what the hell is wrong with me, because I’m literally a feminist activist. I guess some things just are what they are, or, rather, I let them hang out and be problematic as long as they stay in their own little corner; otherwise, it could take an entire feminist studies major, a decade of therapy, and possibly some time in court to figure this out.

7. Arlo Parks’ “Hurt” gets me dancing in such a satisfyingly slow, smooth way (my imagination is rich) that I can pretend I have anywhere near as much cool as Parks carries herself with, but I also have a long history of weakness when it comes to women and nonbinary people in suits (see also: k.d. lang on the Arsenio Hall Show, Crystal Waters in her “Gypsy Woman (She’s Homeless)” video, Cate Blanchett’s serious serial offences, and Tilda Swinton, dear god, and let’s not forget Marlene Dietrich).

October 2020’s playlist on Spotify and Apple Music:

1. Make No Mistake Misses Blue — Fabian Simon & The Moon Machine (2020)  2. Velvet Underground — Jonathan Richman (1992)  3. Los Chucos Suaves {feat. Macha) — Son Rompe Pera (2020)  4. Top of the Pops — The Kinks (1970)  5. Take a Chance — Naked Giants (2020)  6. Paranoid — Black Sabbath (1970)  7. Bad Days — The Flaming Lips (1994)  8. Float On — Modest Mouse (2004)  9. The Whole of the Moon — The Waterboys (1985)  10. Ready to Start — Arcade Fire (2010)  11. Other Side — Shamir (2020)  12. Sweet Dreams — Angel Olsen (2013)  13. Lost Horse — Asaf Avidan (2020)  14. Matter of Balance — Theo Alexander (2020)  15. Story of an Artist — Daniel Johnston (2006)  16. Robot Blues — The Incredible String Band (1970) 17. Happiness Is a Warm Gun — The Beatles (1968)  18. Dreams Wash Away — Joe Wong (2020)  19. anything — Adrianne Lenker (2020)  20. What Is There — Delta Spirit (2020)  21. Kisses — Lomelda (2020)  22. To Meet You There — Anjimile (2020)  23. Middle of the Night — Wes Swing (2011)  24. Let the Mystery Be — Iris DeMent (2009)  25. How Lucky (feat. John Prine) — Kurt Vile (2020) 26. Catch the Wind — Donovan (1965)  27. Let’s Move to the Country — Bill Callahan (2020) 28. Everything Is New — Slow Club (2014) 29. Family Still — Told Slant (2020)  30. Mad World (feat. Gary Jules) — Michael Andrews (2001)  31. Calm — Patient Hands (2019)  32. So Longer — Dig Nitty (2020)  33. I Use to Hate My Body But Now I Just Hate You — Fenne Lily (2020)  34. Young & Dumb — Cigarettes After Sex (2017)  35. Worm In Heaven — Protomartyr (2020) 36. I Would Find You — Oceanator (2020) 37. Hurt — Arlo Parks (2020) 38. Joy Is You — Oscar Jerome (2020) 39. Dreams — Fleetwood Mac (1977)