Eras other people
chose to keep.

1. 01Lover, You Should’ve Come OverJeff Buckley
2. 02The Night We MetLord Huron
3. 03Come Away With MeNorah Jones

Two time zones, one playlist. The distance is real, but so is the fact that we’re always in the same song.

1. 01Dog Days Are OverFlorence + The Machine
2. 02On Top of the WorldImagine Dragons
3. 03Good as HellLizzo
4. 04Feels Like SummerChildish Gambino

You came back the way spring does: unannounced, then suddenly everywhere.

1. 01RippleGrateful Dead
2. 02HoloceneBon Iver
3. 03EstrangedGuns N’ Roses

Six weeks, one bag, a hundred beds. The photos are somewhere in a folder. The songs are still right here.

1. 01LandslideFleetwood Mac
2. 02In My LifeThe Beatles
3. 03SongbirdEva Cassidy

A year of becoming the parent to my parent. Hard, holy, and quietly scored. I would not give the songs back.

1. 01RippleGrateful Dead
2. 02HoloceneBon Iver
3. 03Road Trippin’Red Hot Chili Peppers

Six months, one bag, forty beds. I never felt lighter. The playlist is the only souvenir that still fits.

1. 01The Night We MetLord Huron
2. 02Someone Like YouAdele
3. 03Motion SicknessPhoebe Bridgers

It was real, then it was over, then it was a song I could finally hear again. Kept for me. Not for them.

1. 01Lover, You Should’ve Come OverJeff Buckley
2. 02The Night We MetLord Huron
3. 03来自天堂的魔鬼G.E.M.

Two years of hello and goodbye in the same breath. The playlist was the only place we lived in the same city.

1. 01Glory BoxPortishead
2. 02ArchangelBurial
3. 03By Your SideSade

You lived a year in the world’s margins and learned its secret: the night has regulars, and for a while you were one.

1. 01Dancing QueenABBA
2. 02JuiceLizzo
3. 03Electric FeelMGMT

Some years you survive and some years you choreograph. This one had a setlist, and the kitchen knew every word.

1. 01Mr. BrightsideThe Killers
2. 02Lean on MeBill Withers
3. 03Dancing On My OwnRobyn

Ten years, a hundred group chats, one ringtone. Some people get a best friend. We got a whole soundtrack.

1. 01Re: StacksBon Iver
2. 02Flightless Bird, American MouthIron & Wine
3. 03Cherry WineHozier
4. 04To Be AloneHozier

A season spent learning the difference between alone and lonely — and finding out the quiet had been on your side the whole time.

1. 01Sweet DispositionThe Temper Trap
2. 02First Breath After ComaExplosions in the Sky
3. 03Golden HourKacey Musgraves

Sleep became a rumour and time became a tide. The frequency was exhaustion tuned, just barely, to wonder.

1. 01NineSleeping at Last
2. 02Rivers and RoadsThe Head and the Heart
3. 03Shake It OutFlorence + The Machine

Three hundred and sixty-five days, one at a time, most of them soundtracked. Still here. Still counting.

1. 01I Wanna Dance with SomebodyWhitney Houston
2. 02A-PunkVampire Weekend
3. 03The Book of LoveThe Magnetic Fields

A season of borrowed suits and open bars, of watching people you love leap. Somewhere between toasts, you started drafting your own.

1. 01Take the Money and RunSteve Miller Band
2. 02This YearThe Mountain Goats
3. 03Gronlandic Editof Montreal

I handed in the badge and sat in the car and didn’t drive anywhere for twenty minutes. Best silence of my life.

1. 01Motion Picture SoundtrackRadiohead
2. 02LuaBright Eyes
3. 03First Day of My LifeBright Eyes
4. 04HoloceneBon Iver

This era ends the way roads do in fog — not with a stop sign but with a slow dissolve into whatever comes next.

1. 01CeilingsLizzy McAlpine
2. 02Motion SicknessPhoebe Bridgers
3. 03LiabilityLorde

It was not the end of the world. It just had the best soundtrack of any ending I’ve had since.

1. 01Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)Don McLean
2. 02Postcards from Far AwayColdplay
3. 03To Build a HomeThe Cinematic Orchestra

Some springs you don’t announce. You just get quietly through them, and later you find the songs that stayed.

1. 01NightcallKavinsky
2. 02TeardropMassive Attack
3. 03RedboneChildish Gambino

A whole year lived between 11pm and midnight, on the top deck, going home. I miss it more than I expected to.

1. 01At LastEtta James
2. 02Make You Feel My LoveAdele
3. 03Harvest MoonNeil Young

Half a decade in three songs. Ask us to play any of them and watch us both go quiet in exactly the same way.

1. 01Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)Green Day
2. 02All My FriendsLCD Soundsystem
3. 03Closing TimeSemisonic

Four years, one campus, a thousand late nights. We’re scattering to different cities. At least we’re taking the songs.

1. 01Fluorescent AdolescentArctic Monkeys
2. 02SofiaClairo
3. 03Lovely DayBill Withers

The boiler lied, the landlord vanished, the ceiling had opinions. It was yours. That was the entire, glorious point.

1. 01Here Comes the SunThe Beatles
2. 02VincentDon McLean
3. 03Float OnModest Mouse

A summer measured in blood counts and small mercies. These songs sat with us in every waiting room, and stayed.

1. 01DreamsFleetwood Mac
2. 02This Must Be the PlaceTalking Heads
3. 03ViennaBilly Joel

A playlist says I was thinking of you. This says it in a way you can frame. Same songs, kept forever.

1. 01The Boys of SummerDon Henley
2. 02Wichita LinemanGlen Campbell
3. 03Thunder RoadBruce Springsteen

He didn’t leave me letters. He left me a record collection, which turns out to say more than letters ever could.

1. 01Where Is My Mind?Pixies
2. 02TieduprightnowParcels
3. 03NightsFrank Ocean

Half your heart in each postcode, the bassline carrying the layover. You never chose a city; the summer chose both.

1. 01All My FriendsLCD Soundsystem
2. 02NobodyMitski
3. 03DoomsdayMF DOOM

Limbo, it turns out, was not a waiting room but a workshop. The question mark straightened into an arrow when you weren’t looking.