On New Year’s Eve, I posted my Spotify playlist with my top songs of the year. Back in the day, I would mail out the CD without a track list and then post the song/artist in January. This year, I’m going to post a song from the mix every Monday along with it’s music video and write a little bit about why this song made it onto my mix. Sometimes I will have a lot to say and other times it will just be that the song is awesome.

ON TO THE FIRST SONG!

Quarter Past Midnight by Bastille

When Bad Blood came out a few years ago, Bastille quickly became one of my favorite bands. All of their songs feel like poetry to me. And something about them just feels familiar to me – each time they release a new song I feel like I am hearing it for the first time again.

When this song came out in May, I was immediately obsessed. I actually searched for the lyrics online and committed them to memory. The story of the song, of hanging out with your friends late at night, not wanting for it to be tomorrow even though it technically is, getting a little silly (“we’re the losers in the backseat singing ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’) as the night goes on, just wanting to sit and talk about whatever – from the day to day stuff to the secrets you’ve been holding on to (“my lips are getting looser, I don’t know what I’m saying”)

And, of course, we can also jump this up to a metaphorical level and just think of it as a song about growing up. I’m 37 so I think that what hit me with this song is that idea of not quite wanting to let go of the before but knowing that the new day has started. It’s not like I’ve stopped having fun, but life gets a little different as you get older yet this song made me want to go out and just be free.

This is the kind of song that I have to crank up and sing along to at the top of my lungs. If I am at home, I will dance around to this song and just let go and be free and lose myself in the melody. That is why this immediately became my anthem for 2018.