I'm in love with Autumn, it makes my heart swell.
Speaking for myself, I see Autumn as a season of peace and darkness, sensorial nostalgia, colored landscapes, and picturesque daydreams. It's one great season for music and an even better one for discovering new music.
Most of the music I've fallen in love with (and fallen in love to) came to me as the light dimmed and the leaves fell. It left an indelible impression on me and I've never been able to let that music go.
We asked our writers to contribute a few of their favorite tracks for Autumn and here are the results. Not surprisingly, wooden, warm acoustic tones and minimal strumming dominate the tracks, but so do realms of mellow jazz and ghostly visitors.
It's a special playlist and we created it explicitly to share with everyone. Because when we hear music we love, we want to tell all our friends.
There's something for everyone, I think. Some of our writers have explained their choices, others opted just to let the music speak for itself. I've included their explanations after the jump.
We hope you enjoy what we put together. Happy Autumn. May it bring joy and warmth.
(If you're an Apple Music listener, you can find our playlist here.)
The Avett Brothers, "November Blue" - This song is pretty straightforward with the lyrics, but it’s certainly representative of the change that comes with autumn within the context of the protagonist drifting toward the next phase of his life while wanting to keep the love he’s subsequently leaving behind. To be perfectly honest, I relate to it in that I moved out to Colorado this past February and obviously left a lot of things in South Carolina.
Chris Thile, Edgar Meyer, Stuart Duncan, Yo Yo Ma, "Attaboy" - This song is just a really nice backdrop to the scene of autumn. Four virtuosos come together to create a spectacular soundtrack for rolling hills and changing leaves. There hasn’t been a drive through the Rockies where I haven’t listened to this song at least twice.
U2, "October" - I play this brief gem every October 1st. The mourning piano laments decay and impermanence while the last line clings to something that lasts.
Dream Academy, "Life in a Northern Town" - A funereal song dedicated to departed British folk singer Nick Drake, and set it a dying town where "all the work shut down." I picture rain on cobblestones, feel a chill in the air, and welcome the season of descent.
The Six Parts Seven, "Cold Things Never Catch Fire"
I still remember an exchange I had with my wife a few weeks after we first met, where I mentioned listening to the Six Parts Seven and saying "they sound like the fall," which she obviously took to mean the band The Fall, so I had to clarify that I meant the season. Like the weather this time of year the now-long-inactive Ohio band's songs are in a constant state of transition, but also stay their wandering course between highs and lows, loud and quiet. Any of their songs or records fit the mood of this time of year, though they're perhaps best enjoyed while wandering the outside world.
Type O. Negative, "Black No. 1"
I find it difficult not to think of Type O and the cool dampness of fall. Their music is the perfect soundtrack to the season.
The White Stripes, "Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground"
The visuals are amazing and it's a great love song.
- George Welty
Blitzen Trapper, "War On Machines"
For my family, Autumn is about camping. For the past decade the one band most consistently on my camping playlist is Blitzen Trapper. It’s like granola for your ears.
Wilco, "Love is Everywhere (Beware)"
This is a new addition to my Autumn playlist. Every time a new Wilco album comes out, I spend a little time trying to like it. I’ve been walking around humming this song for days.
The Wealthy West, "Get Away"
So many songs on my Autumn playlist are built around how I want to feel while I’m on a road trip. This song encapsulates the wanderlust that comes over me when the fist leaf hits the ground.
Gregory Alan Isakov, "This Empty Norther Hemisphere"
Patrick James, "California Song"
Yoke Lore, "Snowday"
Though not every song explicitly talks about Fall, I reached for songs that had a gentler, Americana rhythm and could fit in well next to a campfire. "California Song" is perfect for driving past changing leaves while "Snowday" has just enough banjo make any gathering feel a little more like Autumn. Gregory Alan Isakov can fit into any season but his music seems more homey during the colder months.
- Jordan Clark
Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova, "You Ain't Goin' Nowhere"
You could pick basically any version and I'd be a happy camper... the Dylan versions are lovely and the Byrds one is nice too, but I'm partial to the one by Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova. Something about their energy on that recording captures the spirit of the fall gatherings that meant a lot to me during my young(er) adult years. It's like I'm on the happiest hayride ever and all my friends are there. (Side note: I play Mr. Zimmerman significantly more in the fall than in any other season, for whatever reason.)
The Walkmen, "Juveniles" – I cannot adequately explain why The Walkmen are the perfect fall music. My friend Jamie once said that their music evoked the mental image of penguins wearing suits walking down a quaint European alley, and I'm guessing he couldn't tell you specifically why either. Some things just do what they do. This song is the most fall of all The Walkmen's fall-appropriate songs to me.
Miles Davis, "So What" – This is sort of cheating, since I listen to this album at least once a week. I was introduced to jazz in fall of my high school senior year, which was also when I started to take reading and learning seriously. This was the first jazz album I actually listened to, and hearing it still puts me in that same contemplative state—which is probably why I keep going back. It's the sound of settling down and picking up a book, of getting comfortable as the temperature drops.
Matt Pond PA, “Halloween”
Maybe a little on the nose, but it definitely taps into the wistful/introspective feeling autumn can have.
Band of Horses, “Is There a Ghost”
The whole song is three lines but there's an entire universe within them.
The Clientele, “Harvest Time”
Because it is.
Neko Case, "Wild Creatures"
A song about how the physical and metaphorical light fades into darkness. These lines always make me think about the choices females are forced to make daily:
Hey, little girl, would you like to be the king's pet or the king?
I'd choose odorless and invisible but otherwise I would choose the king.
Even though it sounds the loneliest and my brother's hands would poison me.
