September, Track 1: Shotgun

Well, you seemed to like it when we did this with August, or you were at least curious enough to click, so we’re at it again for September.

The idea here is to make a compilation album charting the course of a particular month—September, in this case, because it is September. Part of the idea is having a good arc to it—this is why it’s an album and not a playlist; there’s a Side A and a Side B—and part of it is trying to capture the different emotions of a month in music. The biggest part, though, is that songs are a good jumping off place for writing about things that aren’t songs, at least for me. Consider this the on-site creative writing gym for The Barking Crow.

This month’s tracklist is as follows, and if you use Spotify, you can listen to it in playlist form here.

Side A

1. “Shotgun” – George Ezra
2. “Goodmorning” – Bleachers
3. “Fluorescent Adolescent” – Arctic Monkeys
4. “Sweet Pea” – Amos Lee
5. “Rain King” – Counting Crows
6. “Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)” – Bruce Springsteen

Side B

7. “All the Debts I Owe” – Caamp
8. “Lovers in Japan – Osaka Sun Mix” – Coldplay
9. “I Got You, Honey” – Ocie Elliott
10. “Tyson vs. Douglas” – The Killers
11. “Mt. Joy” – Mt. Joy
12. “Parachute” – Guster

Now. Track 1:

***

September is many things, and it oscillates around on its way between them, not unlike a marble descending a funnel in a child’s toy. At its beginning, though, it’s often carefree. And a little bit excited.

I’ve always been curious as to why George Ezra isn’t bigger in the States. I’m no pop music expert, but I found Budapest so captivating, and when I heard this song for the first time I thought, “Now that song sounds like summer.”

It doesn’t, though. It doesn’t sound like summer. Because in the way it’s about departing, it’s not about departing in a temporary sense. It’s not a being-away song. It’s a being-somewhere-new song. It’s a what-if-this-was-forever song. A song about being somewhere comfortable, somewhere that builds you up. And perhaps this is just me having spent too much time driving through the revelous parts of the University of Texas ecosystem in my work these last couple weeks, sun pouring Vitamin D into my arm while the kids on the sidewalk broadcast their soon-to-shatter feelings of invincibility bounding step by bounding step, but it seems there’s a forever in a September afternoon—a forever that comes from comfort, and from the knowledge that while grayer days will be here soon, they’re not here yet, and they’re not yet even in sight. Not from here. Not in the yellow and green.