Songs that Explain Me, Part 1

There’s a new newsletter from the New York Times written by Lindsay Zoladz called the Amplifier, and in her first piece, she starts with this idea of “Songs that Explain Me” and I love it so much—it’s not music criticism, but more like storytelling track by track: this is who I am.

This is my attempt at it, but of course I couldn’t keep it to 10 or even 11, so here’s the first several, and I’ll send the rest in coming weeks.

I was surprised to find as I wrote this that it feels unusually vulnerable, for a few reasons, at least. First, because music is so deeply personal, and the songs I’m choosing aren’t necessarily the coolest or the best or the most whatever—they’re the ones I listened to on repeat to get me through, the soundtrack to my most meaningful moments and decisions. They say the thing I couldn’t yet say out loud, or they shore up a fragile part of me, even after all these years. They’ve held me, rebuilt me, beat inside my chest when I needed them most.