playlist memoirs: changes
On curating the perfect playlist for autumn
Autumn is, without a doubt, my favorite season.
Maybe it’s because my birthday falls smack dab in the middle of it. Or maybe’s it’s because everyone finds the time and strength to reset—more than half the year behind them, the rest of it coming down the shoot with flaming colors of red, gold, orange, and maroon. It’s a time of change. It’s a time of rest and new school clothes and baked goods and rain and chore coats and all the things that make life in a four season-having region worth living.
Actually, I think it’s because Fall is objectively the best season. The September-November season holds the greatest holidays, one after the other. All the best decorations are Fall-related. It’s harvest season—apple picking, corn mazes, hay rides, and every other rural tradition I grew up loving in my beloved Appalachian Mountains.
No other place on Earth is as gorgeous as the Appalachians on the first weekend of October, particularly in New York, Virginia, and Vermont. The cool, brisk breeze floats in and out of the atmosphere with the falling leaves. Fall is the time of poetry—when Frost, Soto, and Oliver poems fill my tote bag, and inspiration strikes at a moment’s notice.
Fall has also historically been a time of great change for me. Be it new school years beginning or the transition to a new age, I suffer some growing pains every time this season graces the Northern Hemisphere. Fall is also the time of love and heartbreak. Too many anniversaries, birthdays, and breakups to count.
Over the past six years, I’ve made it my mission to craft the perfect Fall playlist. It’s become an annual tradition unlike any other, principally because it’s stuck with me and all those with whom I’ve shared these playlists.
What makes a perfect fall playlist, you may ask?
Well, for me, it’s gone through a lot of phases.
Changes Part I-V:
Towards the beginning of this process, way back in 2019, I was less focused. I added songs and artists I was listening to at the time and felt would lend themselves well to an hour-long, passive listen on autumn drives.
By the fourth year, I had moved to New York and directed my attentions towards classical music and jazz. Sinatra, Coltrane, and John Brown punctuated a playlist full of autumn’s best.
At the time, I was working at an orthodox Jewish women’s college on the corner of 59th Street and 11th Avenue, trudging through the endless Autumn rain in my docs and black maxi skirts. I read all the infamous dark academia books and spent my twenty-fifth birthday treating myself to a date at the Morgan Library and Museum. It was a bit too muggy that year for a proper autumn chill, but the rain fell in sheets.
Thus—changes part iv was rainy and slow.
By contrast, autumn of 2023 was an extraordinarily messy time.
After years of suffering from severe fatigue and abdominal pains I thought were normal, I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease and forced to quit eating all my favorite foods over night. I had to take time off of work and spend hundreds of dollars just for specialists to tell me I needed to go see another specialist. I was forced against my will to slow down and rest. My life would never be the same.
Changes Part V subsequently captured this paradox—featuring just as much slowcore and shoegaze as it did furious classical music and wandering folk rock. I felt trapped in my own body and its inexplicable responses to everything.
On the day of my diagnosis, I had to wake up around 6:30am and spend an hour on three different trains to get to my doctor’s office. At the time, some of the only music that comforted me was early 00s indie rock.
I sat back in my seat listlessly and pressed play on Oh, Inverted World. The next thing I know, I look up and see a mirage—James Mercer was sitting directly across from me on the Brooklyn-bound A train at 7:30AM on a Tuesday in late November. I was spell-bound, unsure if it was really him or if my mind was so desperate for meaning that it created him in the face of random bearded dude wearing a beanie.
Actually, I still have no idea if that was really James Mercer or not. I want to believe it was. I mean, what are the odds? Like, yeah I learned I have an autoimmune disease that will irrevocably alter the course of my life, but also ran into James freaking Mercer on the train while The Shins played on my headphones. Talk about serendipitous!
I have since associated the Shins with this time in my life—the autumn I turned sick.
Last year, I was finally coming into my own after a fairly trying 2023. I was fresh off a round of iron infusions and almost a year into a strict gluten free diet. I was finally making friends and going to concerts left and right.
Still, I felt artistically and emotionally blocked. My writing just wasn’t coming along, and my teaching felt even more robotic. Everyone could see it. I barely ate, fearing the ghost of gluten everywhere. I cut all of my hair off, shedding whatever held me to my past. I visited Vermont for the first time and seriously questioned if I should abandon everything, move there, and start homesteading. (I do this every time I visit the Appalachian mountains, regardless of the time of year.)
Then, Hurricane Helene tore through my home region, leaving it drowned and gasping for breath. I was listless—both longing to be home with my loved ones and grateful to haven gotten out when I did. I wrote about that conflict here on Substack, and a few of you wonderful souls— James Hart and Mills Baker—brought me the first seedlings of thoughtful engagement. These precious seeds have blossomed into an incredible community of readers, listeners, and writers.
I made four autumn playlists in 2024, all disjointed and disconnected from one another. I was clearly struggling to capture my feelings about the moment in song. Everything changed in an instant, leaving me and so many stranded.
Then—well, we know. Something else happened that we’re still dealing with—something we would soon rather forget ever happened. The only solace I could bring myself was to remember autumn’s reminder that this too shall pass.
This year, as I’ve focused on listening to more albums and spending less time on Spotify, playlist making has shifted to the backburner. As I craft the Fall Playlist of 2025, I’m shocked by how little I’ve considered it until this moment. In year’s past, I’ve dedicated most of August and all of September/October to building these perfect mixes.
Now? I’m just not sure I think about music or playlist making the same way anymore.
Much like my albums newsletter, these playlists functioned as a form of reflective practice—a way to consider the past year in music. The changes series is less a summary of what I was listening to at the time and more a series of letters written to my future self.
“This is how you were feeling at 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26.”
“This is how you observed the world.”
“These are the songs you loved with your whole being.”
I would listen to them over and over as a way to process whatever the hell was happening around me. While I mostly made them for myself, my friends appeared to love listening too. They encouraged me to share them more broadly. I wasn’t quite sure how to do that, much less if anyone would actually care to listen.
Somehow, I’ve found an audience of willing listeners here on Substack.
I don’t know if these playlists will mean much to any of you. However, if anything, I hope they bring you all some comfort in these truly bizarre and scary times. I’ve linked all of my fall playlists below. Feel free to choose the year or genre that speaks most to you.
Looking back, I have to say changes part v is probably my favorite. If you’re in doubt, you can start there.
Regardless, I hope you all enjoy :)
Happy Autumn 🍂🎃🥰
the changes series
bonus fall playlists
Playlist Memoirs is a series of personal essays about my music awakening. With the mass exodus away from Spotify, I decided to start documenting my Spotify playlists in writing. I wanted to bring meaning to the hours and hours of streaming data I’ve compiled there over the last decade. Even if Spotify is a soulless, corporate monster intent on stealing from its artists and robbing its users blind, I still grew up on it.
I hate Spotify but could never hate what it brought me.
my meal is here
Ahhh, “What Once Was.” Great stuff - thanks for sharing this list.