On Repeat: March

I made my first monthly playlist in June of 2019, when I was 17 years old. It came to be probably because my friends and I all followed one another on Spotify and I wanted people to know I had good taste in music—a braggy trait of which I’m still guilty—and then I got into the habit. 

At the end of every month, I make a playlist with a few songs I’ve recently come across or been meaning to listen to, and then I add to it throughout the month in question. The monthly playlist is a catch-all, essentially, of everything that I’m putting on in the car, on my walk to class, while I’m tidying up my room at night. It is, cheesy as it may sound, my soundtrack to the month. It’s not by any stretch of the imagination an exhaustive list of everything I listen to in that time—they generally average only forty minutes to an hour—but it becomes the temporary default. The playlists are a mixture of sentimental, catchy, meaningful, new releases, aging classics, and old favorites; they are composed of my new discoveries and forgotten gems and everything in between. 

I am a proud proponent of the hyper and perhaps unnecessarily specific playlist, curated in accordance with a thought or feeling or event so fleeting that it deserves several hours of carefully selected accompaniment, but the monthly is my concession to the general. A monthly playlist has a place for anything. Mine have become something of a time capsule. 

I have made a playlist every month since June of 2019, meaning that as we rapidly approach the five-year anniversary of my little ritual, I have just created my 56th playlist of the month. 

When I made my first, I had no idea how much I would appreciate getting to look back in five years and remember repeatedly listening to “Growing Pains” by COIN as I looked forward with some apprehension to my 18th birthday or the satisfaction of glancing back in time two years to the March ‘22 playlist born of the inevitable situationship’s end. Any number of little moments in my life that I might otherwise have forgotten entirely are preserved in these playlists, pressed like pictures into a scrapbook. I don’t always choose songs to express a certain timely sentiment, but my memories of any given month are often intertwined with the music I was playing at the time, summoned to mind and ear when I scroll all the way down to the depths of my Spotify and press shuffle. 

So without further ado, here is my March ‘24 playlist, track for track. I promise that my friends trust me with the aux.

“Spring is Coming With a Strawberry in the Mouth,” Roger Doyle

“Figure You Out,” Djo

“Friend of the Devil,” Grateful Dead

“New Slang,” The Shins

“Anywhere With You,” Maggie Rogers

“Dublin in Ecstasy,” Inhaler

“Rat,” Nara’s Room

“Head Over Heels,” Tears For Fears

“Prove You Wrong,” The Brook & The Bluff

“Drink Before the War,” Sinead O’Connor

“Joe,” The Cranberries

“Little Things,” Big Thief

I personally vouch for all of these as good candidates for snagging a spot on your queue sometime this March! Maybe you can even toss some of my recommendations on your very first monthly playlist or your hundredth today. I hope that music coils around your memories, waiting for you to tug at the strands.  

Strike Out.

Written and Edited by Sarah Singleton

Chattanooga