Another new year, another playlist

From Etta James and Bikini Kill to Taylor Swift and Beyoncé, it’s an eclectic mix

Dec 20, 2024

As we’ve done in past years, we’ll lead into 2025 with a playlist — one I plan to use on my New Year’s Day walk. In case you’re too overwhelmed preparing for Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa right now, I’ll include the playlist in next week’s Simply Slaw column, too, but without the value-added blather you’ll get today.

This year’s theme is discovery, as all 25 songs were new to me in 2024, even if a bunch are oldies, as I am. They’re in five sections, with unrelated but powerful reality-show auditions separating them. Maybe one of the videos will be your first discovery of 2025.

If you exercise through the whole playlist, you will have walked for an hour and 27 minutes, enough to kick ass on just about any New Year’s resolution. But there are lots of paths, either by skipping songs or whole sections. The year is at your feet.

Start with a stretch

Our first section has only two songs, but the echoes are infinite, giving your body and soul 10 minutes to limber up.

I know this is hard for young’uns to believe, but not every Baby Boomer has heard every Beatles song ever recorded. My ignorance extended to “Blackbird,” which I’d never heard of before Beyoncé did a cover this year.

Once Paul McCartney teaches you to fly, Cynthia Erivo will help you soar. “Defying Gravity” has been a musical-theater staple for decades, but Erivo’s version is as great and powerful as any song you’ll see at the movies this year. Or any year.

I’m through accepting limits ’cause someone says they’re so
Some things I cannot change, but ’til I try, I'll never know

Wake up and lose the toxins

Move a little faster through the next four songs, giving yourself a jolt of mental espresso and maybe trying to let go of any lingering bad feelings from 2024, whether it’s your own weaknesses, disrespecting others or not taking responsibility for bad habits. Yell along with some of the lyrics if you think it helps and won’t get you locked up.

While you’re at it, adopt this mantra from lifestyle guru Sabrina Carpenter:

I can’t relate to desperation
My give-a-fucks are on vacation

Reinvent yourself

If it’s good enough for Beyoncé, it ought to be good enough for you. The first of these next four songs is the biggest hit from Cowboy Carter, her country album that also includes “Blackbiird.”

If you come up with something fresh for the new year, maybe you’ll be able to strut with the confidence of GloRilla, Miley Cyrus and BTS. Listen to Miley:

Well I’m not a trick you play
I’m wired the different way
I’m not a mistake I’m not a fake
It’s set in my DNA

Get up to speed

The next 10 songs have one thing in common: nothing. They’re just meant to get your feet, your heart and all other parts moving, whether you like Queen or Springsteen, Chappell Roan or Bikini Kill. Don’t read a Deep Message From Dave into the lyrics — some are great and some are crazy, but most are (as Mary J. Blige puts it):

Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh
Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh
Just fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh
You see I wouldn’t change my life, my life’s just fine

Take it all in

The last five songs are for taking deep breaths, smelling some roses, appreciating life’s changes, being there for someone, cherishing special people (preferably without getting hit by a double-decker bus) and celebrating any world that lets us hear Etta James sing Guns N’ Roses.

And you didn’t think I’d leave out Taylor Swift, did you? She closed out her Eras tour by tweaking two words in one of her best songs. So here’s our last quote (Taylor’s Tweaked Version):

You held your head like a hero
On a history book page
It was the end of an era
But the start of an age

“Long Live.” May we all.