Red Leaf Latte (songs for the fall)

I have an obsession with seasonal songs. Songs that match the winter, the spring, the summer, and the autumn. They don't eve have to be released during said season to match it; I just feel the cold or warm tones and assign it to whatever playlist is made for it.

As usual, I have some autumn songs to share with y'all, and I  had to double check that I'm not posting some of the same songs I did last autumn before I did, because I kinda have a tendency to repeat myself without knowing it. 

Without further ado, here is the first batch of my Autumn Playlist (no real theme to it):

- Place In My Heart By Taylor McFerrin featuring Ryat

Yes, the son of Bobby McFerrin (fangirl moment) teamed up with Electronic Pop/Avant-Indie singer Ryat to create this ethereal blend of acoustic and electronic. I don't know what the lyrics are about, but I sing along with Ryat's adorable lilting voice (which reminds me of Bjork--good thing.) And it's all set to a 7-count. YES.

- Time Lapse Lifeline By Maria Taylor

I first heard this song on an episode of BONES. If you don't' know what that show is...that's a post for another time. But for now, this song is a drive-on-the-freeway reflection of life and its fleetingness. It's fully acoustic, and extremely catching. "Keeping up, keeping up, with the time lapse lifeline..."

- Dust By Van Hunt

Van Hunt is my imaginary friend. I bet i've posted about him before. But i'll post about him again because he's that great. What I love about this song is the juxtaposition of upbeat and happy music with such resigned and downtrodden lyrics. "I'm already insane, I'm already in pain...I am dust, blown away over the edge." Meanwhile the electric guitar is riffing in staccatos and everybody's one-two-stepping on the dance floor. t's those musical contradictions, the unconventional, that attract me in particular, and this TIMELESS song is proof of that.

- Battery Kinzie By Fleet Foxes

I've given up on trying to figure out the exact count go this song, as it's a little all over the place, but again, it's unconventional, and it's an element that helps the song. It's just the epitome of Autumn, this song. And just like "Dust," the lyrics are a melancholy tale set to an upbeat major beat. After much deliberation, I conclude the song is definitely about a man going to see a woman he loved, but another man is with her now. On the SongMeanings website, most of this has been debated. Certain lines confuse, others are more clear....ah, whatever. The song is beautiful.

- Chapel Song By We Are Augustines

That picking electric guitar, that fast kick and full tom drums...I already knew I was going to like it. Then Billy McCarthy's voice comes in...I have literally never heard anything like his voice in my life. And at first I thought it was too different for the music, but the longer I listened, the more I found it fit perfectly. "There goes my girl...into an old chapel..." This was a man who is watching the love of his life get married! The almost sobbing tone of his voice makes perfect sense! And the longer I listen, the more I feel his pain,and his acceptance that he has to move on. "Tear up the photograph...Cause it's a brand new sky." 

- Talk About Our Love By Brandy featuring Kanye West

Afrodisiac and Full Moon are two very special albums me. If i look though some boxes I'm sure I'll find the booklets that came with them, that lyrics I tried to memorize fr every song. This song, "Talk About Our Love," was one of my favorites off Afrodisiac, cuz I loved singing the chorus the same way that Brandy did. Kanye West delivers an easygoing rap that doesn't feel out of place with the music--that I believe HE produced anyway. West has always had a knack for picking good pieces of old songs and turning them into something for the hip-hop masses to enjoy, and this song is one of the early examples. 

- I Wish By Carl Thomas

Ah, a classic. I think we can start calling songs from 2000 that we still listen to "classics." Hard to believe that was 14 years ago, isn't it? Time does fly...but not the emotions that Carl Thomas effortlessly pours into this laid-back beat of piano, bass, and strings. It's the universal human love story "I feel in love and they're taken." Thomas's song describes the moment anyone in the same position has had when dealing with a never-meant-to-be love, "I Wish I never met her at all....She still belongs to someone else." It's the kind of emotion that the cool breeze only magnifies.

- Truth Is By Fantasia

Geez, what's with the sad love songs this Autumn? I didn't even realize most of these songs are about a broken heart until I reached this one! Anyway, I think we are all familiar with Fantasia, an American Idol winner from the early 2000's with a knockout voice that made Paula Abdul cry. This was from her first album, and it's a song I always liked, for it's crackly piano, clean kick and rimshot, the melodic progression, and catchy chorus, all of which compliment the sad circumstances the singer's found herself in--wishing for an ex back, when that ex is now with someone else. "When it's all said and done, I guess i'm still in love with you..." (sniffle). Something about this song gives it a cool, borderline wintry feel, and so it must have a place in today's post of Autumn songs. 

More to come soon!

- CDM