Falling Hard : An Autumn Playlist

It’s fall and that means it’s loner folk season. British folk too, although I really think dead of winter is when Lindisfarne sounds best. For me though, fall is really about classic Cosmic American Music.

People like fall, right? I’m not too into the foliage thing, preferring sweeping snow-dusted desert vistas to foggy ochre mountains. Luckily, my falls tend to look like low light making chilly hills covered in yucca trees glow, or hanging clouds over my mountain while I shiver away in a sweatshirt when the temperature goes down to 57°. Less extreme surroundings have certainly eased my usual urge for going. And with that…

If you missed volume 1, you can listen to it here (omg it’s nine hours?? wtf). It’s still one of my favorite playlists ever, but it’s time to start fresh (and maybe a ~2 hour playlist will be less overwhelming). Apologies if there are repeats but. Sometimes you want to really wallow in feeling like your heart’s been through a paper shredder, and lots of those songs still do the trick! Although I guess it starts on a high note. Then it takes you down, then mellows out again, and then I lob those last six or seven tracks at you like hurtling balls of exquisite pain. Damn, what beautiful songs. Try not to cry at Link Wray’s “All The Love In My Life.”

Some of these songs are so intense that I padded them with a little acoustic instrumental guitar in between just to give you a break – not that acoustic guitar can’t get intensely intimate and gutting, it can. Just to add a little breathing room. A little space. This is thoughtfully sequenced so please, you know, hit play and not shuffle. Also, after a long burnout period, making this reminded me how much I love folk music, so thank you. I’m back, baby!

Image is the great Agnes Pelton’s “November” or “Murray Peak” (conflicting titles reported).