I was raised Catholic and so most of the songs I listen to throughout December usually remind me of or have a connection to Christmas. If you don't celebrate Christmas or practice a specific religion these are still wonderful songs that are not directly related to religion. With that said, I hope you enjoy these artists and my song recommendations from their repertoire.
1. Mxmtoon
In early December I stumbled across the Netflix original “Dash and Lily”, I quickly became obsessed and had to pace myself to make sure I didn’t finish the whole show in one night. I found that the female main character, Lily, reminded me of a musician called mxmtoon. Some of my favorite mxmtoon songs include, “Prom Dress” and “Ted Talk”. I found these songs talked about the type of person Lily was and I found myself listening to mxmtoon more and more throughout the month of December. Her song “Prom Dress” talks about an introvert who thinks she’s missed out on high school. Everyone talks about how great high school was but the girl in this song begs to differ. To me this song captures high school perfectly for introverted people like Lily and myself. You want to ask for help when you need it, enjoy social events, and feel free to be your authentic self. But at the end of four years when nothing panned out the way you expected it you just want to find a way to escape it all. Mxmtoon’s song “Ted Talk” talks about pretending to be a professional when it comes to love, but not even really knowing if you want to be in love yourself. In “Dash and Lily”, both main characters want a romantic relationship, but they expect it to be exactly like a fairytale, and the truth is love doesn’t work that way. I think “Ted Talk” reflects the simultaneous desire and fear of relationships when they aren’t what you expect.
2. Bruce Springsteen
Last Christmas my older sister received the movie “Blinded by the Light” as a gift. Naturally, we watched it that day and fell in love with the movie. In turn, I fell in love with Bruce Springsteen’s music. I listened to Bruce Springsteen non-stop for the rest of December and throughout January. Ever since watching that move, listening to Springsteen always reminds me of December. Whether it’s the stress of finals week, decking the halls with my sisters, or walking my dog in cold rain, Bruce Springsteen makes my day feel wintery and even better than before. Some of my favorites from Springsteen are “Dancing in the Dark”, “Hungry Heart”, “The River”, and “Out in the Street”.
3. Sawyer Nunes
Sawyer Nunes is a similar artist to Bruce Springsteen for me. While they’re is a major age and musical style gap I was introduced to Nunes in late December just like Springsteen. My sister sent me his song “Opening” from his album I’ll Never Be Amazing. Like Bruce Springsteen for the rest of winter break and throughout January I only listened to Sawyer Nunes. Something I admire about Sawyer Nunes is he uses an obscure rhyming pattern in his songs. When I’m listening to music I like to predict the lyrics based on rhymes. It is particularly fun to try this with Nunes’s songs because they are harder to predict. “Opening” got me hooked on this artist. I found this song described what it is like to be a teenager now: always being angry even if for no reason, staying up late knowing it’s a bad idea, and feeling invincible, are a few things that resonated with me from this song. One of my other favorites from this song is “November, 1998”. To me this song feels like it’s a dream. Like the whole event that takes place is too good to be true. Nunes recently released a new album, Throwing Up. On this 2020 album my favorite is “Not Scared of the Bends”. I think I like this song so much because it reminds me of “Hungry Heart” by Bruce Springsteen. Both use a river analogy to explain they don’t know where they’re going, but they’re also not afraid of it.
You can find my go-to December playlist here.
I hope you enjoyed this month's favorites. Thanks for Yielding!
Alexis
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