Hello, Blog! October is surely flying by, and I’m finally getting a taste of the typical London weather: rainy, grey, and wet. Rather than let this get my spirits down, I’ve decided to embrace the persistent gloom and see a silver lining in the overcast skies. This week, I conducted what is one of my favorite annual projects—formulating the perfect seasonal playlist. Seeing as autumn is my very favorite season, every year, I create a new playlist on Apple Music in hopes of perfectly capturing the mood of that particular year, thus creating yearly time capsules that I can later look back on. For any readers out there hoping to create their own fall playlist, I invite you to take inspiration from my last five!
I officially made the switch from Spotify to Apple music sometime in my early high school years, so my first fall playlist is dated in October of 2020. This playlist of 75 songs features artists such as Clairo, Mac Demarco, girl in red, and Tame Impala. Honestly, it’d be hard to get more 2020 than that. Here are my top ten from this playlist:
“Cherry-Coloured Funk” – Cocteau Twins
“One Day” – Sharon Van Etten
“Where’d All the Time Go?” – Dr. Dog
“Where Did Our Moment Go?” – Yea-Ming and The Rumours
“I Think I Like When It Rains” – WILLIS
“We Fell In Love In October” – girl in red
“New Person, Same Old Mistakes” – Tame Impala
“Talking Backwards” – Real Estate
“Salad Days” – Mac Demarco
“I Feel Alive” – TOPS
The following year, I downsized quite a bit and stuck to a playlist of only 14 songs, likely because I was still hooked on the 2020 masterpiece. Some of my favorite songs from this list include:
“I’d Have to Think About It” – Leith Ross
“Motion Sickness” – Phoebe Bridgers
“Roslyn” – St. Vincent & Bon Iver
“On the Level” – Mac Demarco
“Unfamilliar Sun” – Twin Peaks
“Brook Revisited” – Adam Melchor
“Don’t Let Me Down” – Jackson Wooten
“Amoeba” – Clairo
“Everyone I’ve Never Met” – Leith Ross
“Real Estate” – Adam Melchor
Next, we have a bit of a gap, which I blame on the release of Five Seconds Flat by Lizzy McAlpine, an album which completely took over 2022 for me and became such a staple that I guess I didn’t need a playlist. Fall of 2022 was also when my parents gave me tickets to see Wicked on Broadway for my 18th birthday, so I was undoubtedly doing a lot of listening to that soundtrack. Thank you, Stephen Schwartz. Instead of a playlist from fall of 2022, here are my favorites from my “summer 2 0 2 2” playlist which I think transcend the barrier of summer and autumn:
“Remember When” – Wallows
“Half a Human” – Real Estate
“I Love You So” – The Walters
“You Make My Dreams Come True” – Daryl Hall & John Oates
“Gobbledigook” – Sigur Rós
“The Main Thing” – Real Estate
“Something Has to Change” – The Japanese House
“Big Yellow Taxi” – Joni Mitchell
“Disciples” – Tame Impala
“Maggie May” – Rod Stewart
In 2023, I had much more success crafting a perfect fall playlist that I still reach for even today. A humble 17 songs, this playlist perfectly encapsulates how I felt arriving on Wellesley’s campus during the fall semester of my freshman year, walking around campus, watching the leaves change. Here are my favorites:
“Duvet” – bôa
“Spit of You” – Sam Fender
“The Gold” – Manchester Orchestra
“The Headmaster Ritual” – The Smiths
“There She Goes” – The La’s
“Linger” – The Cranberries
“Fade into You” – Mazzy Star
“Dreams” – The Cranberries
“Reflecting Light” – Sam Phillips
“Indexical reminder of a morning well spent” – The Japanese House
2024, was again, sort of a dud. Unlike 2022, I did create a playlist, but I was so enthralled by yet another Lizzy McAlpine drop, Older (and Wiser), that I didn’t feel the need to spend time making the playlist any good when I could listen to Lizzy on repeat! Here are my top ten from that monumental deluxe album, in no particular order:
“Older”
“Drunk, Running”
“Vortex”
“Better Than This”
“Come Down Soon”
“The Elevator”
“Soccer Practice”
“Force of Nature”
“Spring Into Summer”
“Staying”
Finally, we’ve caught up to the present day! This week, I crafted my “fall 2 0 2 5” playlist and considering it’s been on repeat since I made it, it’s safe to say it’s pretty good. With 79 songs and a 5-hour runtime, it’s very hard to narrow down my favorites, but here are the ten I think you should give a listen:
“Thrown Down” – Fleetwood Mac
“Happy with You” – Big Thief
“Gallic Shrug” – Greg Freeman
“Say Uncle” – Jake Minch
“Grime Of The World” – Djo
“Falling on my Sword” – TOPS
“I’m So Serious” – Daryl Johns
“Perfect” – The Smashing Pumpkins
“Silver” – Waxahatchee
“Blindsided” – Bon Iver
And that’s it—60 songs I’ve been enjoying during the five autumns that I think would make a great playlist for this cozy time of year. Thanks for reading, and I’ll catch you next week! 🍂
Cheers! xx