I’ve always been a fan of songs that whisk me away from the present moment. Walking back from classes at Rockefeller Hall, it’s nice to pretend that I’m above the trees, floating in the sky rather than trudging back to the dorms. Here I’ve compiled a playlist of songs that will (hopefully) help relax you and fade away the background noise as you head into finals season.
1. Lorde: “Ribs”
Starting off with one of my personal favorites, we have “Ribs,” which begins with a 48-second intro of layered vocals. Although the intro gets progressively louder as the song builds up to Lorde’s lyrics, the vocals still have slight variations in volume, creating a pulsing effect. For anybody who has visited Disneyland’s Hyperspace Mountain, this song feels like the build up to takeoff, while we float idly in space.
2. Sufjan Stevens: “The Predatory Wasp of the Palisades Is Out to Get Us!”
This one’s a bit older and more obscure, but it’s another song that I have on repeat. Stevens uses the metaphor of a wasp to describe the intense emotions of feeling imminently attacked while hiding a young but beautiful same-sex relationship. While the use of an extended metaphor already makes this song feel like an escape from reality, my favorite part of the song is the instrumentals. Towards the end of the song, the instruments, led by a trumpet, take over, creating a fluttery crescendo. The instruments suddenly drop out, going back to the story. Overall, I think the song is a musical and storytelling masterpiece.
3. Charli xcx: “party 4 u”
Like Lorde, Charli xcx is another artist whose style I think lends well to the floating feeling. The use of electronics more than typical instruments has a very sci-fi space feeling. “party 4 u” is made to be an electropop dance song, so the psychedelic feeling definitely works well for this playlist.
4. Tame Impala: “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards”
I personally think this track is quite different from Tame Impala’s usual work, feeling stylistically closer to the music of the 1960s and ’70s. The slower, stretched-out vocals in this song feel quite aloof, giving listeners the chance to step away from themselves and float away.
5. David Bowie: “Space Oddity”
I couldn’t create a playlist about floating without including this classic Bowie song. “Space Oddity” tells the tale of Major Tom, who is in space. The verses alternate between messages from Ground Control to the major and comms from Major Tom to Ground Control. Ultimately, Major Tom is stranded in space with all communications down, and he resigns himself to a life floating in space.
6. Orchestra Club, Alina Kay: “Everything is Romantic”
I don’t think the original quite captures this feeling, but this remix of Charli xcx’s song is fast-paced and euphoric, wonderfully encapsulating the feeling of aloofness. If you’ve been on social media lately, you’ve almost certainly heard this song accompanying videos of joyful, dreamlike moments. The repetition of the line “Fall in love again and again” lifts listeners up as Kay’s backing vocals add an ethereal layer to the song.
7. Coldplay: “Midnight”
This Coldplay song is much more focused on the instrumentation than the vocals. Even the vocals are stretched and synthesized to have a more instrumental feeling. The song feels light and airy, leaving listeners in a suspended state.
8. sombr: “back to friends”
I think “back to friends” has a pretty different feel from the rest of the songs on this playlist, being musically heavier, but it still fits in pretty well. The distortion of sombr’s vocals, combined with the strong layering of these tracks with the backing vocals and drumming, makes “back to friends” feel like it is on a different plane, separated from our everyday toilings.
9. Hans Zimmer: “Cornfield Chase”
The only entirely instrumental song on this playlist, “Cornfield Chase” (written for the 2012 film hit Interstellar) is a classic. The movie’s whole soundtrack could easily fit the theme of floating, as the film is about a journey through spacetime, but I personally think this song works best with the dramatic buildup of the pipe organ accompanied by the backing orchestra.
10. Tame Impala: “Let It Happen”
I was listening to this song with my brother during Thanksgiving break when I was overcome with a feeling of intense calm. Tame Impala’s extensive use of synths makes many of the group’s songs psychedelic and spacey, and this is especially evident through “Let It Happen.”
11. Radiohead: “Let Down”
“Let Down,” a 1990s hit, has recently regained popularity through its extensive use on social media. I think the ending of the song most perfectly captures the feeling of this playlist. Halfway into the song, the vocals fade to the back to allow the instruments to take the main stage, building up for almost a minute and a half until the lyrics resume in full force. The song discusses the feeling of alienation and disillusionment, which I think goes well with the idea of floating away from the present.
12. Lorde: “Buzzcut Season”
Lorde does an especially good job of emulating the style of this playlist, so I’d like to end with another of her songs. Like many of the other songs on the Pure Heroine album, “Buzzcut Season” uses delicate instrumentals and layers the vocals and instrumentation to create an airy sound. This track, about feeling carefree while ignoring the chaos of the outside world, is a bit happier (or at least oblivious), so I’ll leave you to sit with this before you have to float down and rejoin the Cornell reality.
You can find the playlist here.
‘Solar Flare’ is a weekly playlist column where Sun contributors spotlight a slice of musical taste with the campus community. It runs every Monday.
Katherine Winton is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at kgw45@cornell.edu.
