I try to have a fresh playlist to start each year — something that gets the juices flowing and distracts me from my aches, pains and frozen ass as I walk my first few miles of the new year.
This year’s lasts an hour, which should take you 3 or 4 miles. If your mind says “yes” but your body says “no,” treat the first few songs as a guided meditation to help you appreciate what you’ve accomplished, what lies ahead and what a warm ass feels like. Then get moving.
Here’s the list, followed by my blather:
Reflect
“Today is going to be a good day and here’s why,” Evan Hansen writes to himself. “Because today, today at least you’re you, and that’s enough.”
It always is.
“And I think to myself,” Louis Armstrong sings, “what a wonderful world.”
I repeat: It always is.
Let your mental-health demons sit this one out. At least for today, appreciate beauty, inside and out.
Dream
You may never be famous or live forever, but believe in Irene Cara. And appreciate the idea that if you do something wonderful, in work or in life, you may be rewarded years or even decades later. Stranger things have happened.
In fact, “Stranger Things” did happen. Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” was a hit in 1985, but got a huge encore — and new generations of fans — this year when it was featured in “Stranger Things,” the Netflix hit.
Grow
Think about how you can expand your horizons in 2023: people you can meet, new artists you can hear, authors you can read, movies you can stream. I love to include one song from a language I don’t speak, a nod to the vast world called “stuff I don’t know.” Kyu Sakamoto’s “Sukiyaki” reminds me of one of my first coming-of-age vacations, but there’s a ton of artists to choose from, from Bad Bunny to Andrea Bocelli to Blackpink.
The next two songs are from artists I’d never heard of before this year, but I love them because they manage to be upbeat about self-pity, one of our communal bad habits.
“I’m split in half,” Noah Kahan sings, “but that’ll have to do.”
If you’ve lost someone special, it’s easy and very human to dwell on it, but I hope the new year brings you new hope.
And if you’re still sitting at this point, consider “World’s Smallest Violin” as a marching order. It should put a bounce in your step.
Detox
Sometimes the best way you can grow is to let go. Lily Allen offers a two-word guide for dealing with toxic people, Lil Nas X, Sia and Beyoncé help build our inner strength, then Lizzo wraps our treatment package in four little words: “It’s about damn time.”
Move it!
Pick up the pace. Only five songs to go. Our next three have “walk” in the title and get increasingly faster. So maybe you should, you know, walk increasingly faster. Your frozen ass will never know what hit it.
Celebrate
Even if you don’t believe in new year’s resolutions, keep this one:
Don’t. Fucking. Die.
Accomplish that and the rest is gravy. Unless we all perish in a mammoth kiln explosion between now and midnight Saturday, we’ve passed our final exam for 2022. So savor the victory as your walk winds down, and appreciate the joy of “Float On” and our new year’s perennial: “I’m Still Standing.”
Murphy Slaw
Something old: The secret to growing old gracefully: getting by with a little help from your friends. “Since pursuits and friendships can compound over time like stocks and bonds,” this story says, “the best time to start investing in your future is in your 30s, 40s, and 50s.”
Something new: It’s a bizarre story that started with this Twitter exchange:
Tate responded with a stupid video. Plot twist: He got arrested. I’ll let Twitter tell it:
Something borrowed: If you know anyone who got an airline headache for the holidays, this tweet has some useful legal advice.
Something blue: Lots of people didn’t make it past 2022, of course. Here’s a Turner Classic Movies reminder of some stars we lost, including Irene Cara. May they all live forever.