I have a tradition of creating a music mix to represent my life for each year as it passes, songs carefully chosen for important events or the specific moods of each month. I like this habit, this looking back and assessing from such an unusual angle. I skim through old emails, blog posts and calendar entries to jar my memory, and I’ve been at this for long enough now that I also try to keep a running list throughout the year as I live it of songs that I think might fit in somewhere.

Unfortunately I was a little distracted by other projects in early ’09, so I didn’t get around to doing the mix for 2008 until now. (2009 will be posted later in the week.)

So this is the musical soundtrack for my life in 2008. (That’s two years ago, kids – some of you have a hard time following it when I make jumps that far into the past.) 2008 was a big year for me, filled with a hell of a lot of growth and revelation in directions both inward and outward. There were big changes for me spiritually, and our homelife and the way we approached the education of our children shifted in a really big way. I also met a lot of people that year, all of whom influenced me greatly in one way or another, and some became very dear friends. My marriage deepened in a profound way, and I watched my kids begin to try their wings out in the world. I felt a lot of peace in 2008, a lot of quiet interspersed with upheaval, but always of a productive kind.

Zora Neale Hurston wrote that “there are years that ask questions and years that answer.” 2008 was an answer to a million questions I’d been asking for years.

January

Across the Universe – Fiona Apple
“Nothing’s gonna change my world.”

February

Eet – Regina Spektor
“You spend half of your life trying to fall behind.
You’re using your headphones to drown out your mind.”

Amy Hit the Atmosphere – Counting Crows
“If I could make it rain today
And wash away this sunny day down to the gutter, I would”

March

Shine – Anna Nalick
“Isn’t it time you got over how fragile you are?”

April

Lost? – Coldplay
“I just got lost
Every river that I tried to cross
Every door I ever tried was locked
Oh and I’m just waiting ’til the shine wears off.”

One More Time With Feeling – Regina Spektor
“You thought by now you’d be
So much better than you are
You thought by now they’d see
That you have come so far
And the pride inside their eyes
Would synchronize into a love you’ve never known
So much more than you’ve been shown.”

May

I See Spiders When I Close My Eyes – Boy Least Likely To
“I’ve got nothing to worry about,
So I worry about nothing.
I think I’ve got fleas or
some tropical disease
And my spider-sense is tingling.”

Exactly – Amy Steinberg
“When I try to fight or run
I only wind up back at square one
When I think I know what’s best for me
fate, she takes me back
to exactly where I need to be.”

June

At the Bottom of Everything – Bright Eyes
“Oh my morning’s coming back
The whole world’s waking up
All the city buses swimming past
I’m happy just because
I found out I am really no one.”

July

Super Trooper – Abba
“Super Trouper beams are gonna blind me
But I won’t feel blue
Like I always do
‘Cause somewhere in the crowd there’s you.”

Teenagers – My Chemical Romance
“They say: those teenagers scare the living shit out of me”

August

Boats and Birds – Gregory and the Hawk
“If you be my star
I’ll be your sky
you can hide underneath me and come out at night
when I turn jet black and you show off your light
I live to let you shine
I live to let you shine.”

Hazy – Rosi Golan (featuring William Fitzsimmons)
“What if I fall and hurt myself?
Would you know how to fix me
What if I went and lost myself?
Would you know where to find me
If I forgot who I am,
Would you please remind me, oh?
Cause without you things go hazy.”

Closer – Nine Inch Nails
“Help me; I broke apart my insides
Help me; I’ve got no soul to sell
Help me; the only thing that works for me
Help me get away from myself.”

September

Dear God – XTC
“And all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting
In the street ’cause they can’t make opinions meet about God,
I can’t believe in you.”

Blue Lips – Regina Spektor
“He stumbled into faith and thought,
‘God, this is all there is?’
The pictures in his mind arose,
And began to breathe.
And no one saw, and no one heard.
They just followed the lead.
The pictures in his mind arose,
And began to breed.”

October

I’m So Special – Amy Steinberg
“I’m so special, just like everyone else
and I’m centered so perfectly around myself
get me out of me, I’m such a fuckin’ pain in my ass.”

San Francisco – Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
“If you’re going to San Francisco
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.”

November

Creep – Ingrid Michaelson
“But I’m a creep,
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doin’ here?
I don’t belong here.”

Frankenstein – Aimee Mann
“And when later we find that the thing we devised
Has the villagers clamouring for it’s demise
We will have to admit the futility of
Trying to make something more of this jerry-built love
And you’ll notice it bears a resemblance to
Everything I imagined I wanted from you
But at least it’s my own creation
And it’s better than real
It’s a real imitation”

Runs in the Family – Amanda Palmer
“Me? Well, I’m well. Well, I mean I’m in hell. Well, I still have my health
(at least that’s what they tell me)
If wellness is this, what in hell’s name is sickness?
But business is business
and business
runs in the family, we tend to bruise easily
bad in the blood. I’m telling you ‘cause
I just want you to know me
know me and my family
we’re wonderful folks but
don’t get too close to me ‘cause you might knock me up”

December

Incomplete – Alanis Morisette
“I have been running so sweaty my whole life
Urgent for a finish line
And I have been missing the rapture this whole time of being forever incomplete.”

How Far We’ve Come – Matchbox Twenty
“I believe the world is burning to the ground
Oh well I guess we’re gonna find out
Let’s see how far we’ve come.”

cover design by Kelly Buchholz, photograph taken by Kelly Buchholz out the window of a boat passing by Alcatraz. Title “You Are Here” from a famous t-shirt worn by John Lennon, chosen for a general feeling of Zen. “Not waving but drowning” comes from a poem by Stevie Smith. “Not all those who wander are lost” comes from a poem by J.R.R. Tolkien that features in the Lord of the Rings.

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