On a road trip
For quiet melancholic moments with close friends in a hotel room miles away from home. Split a bottle of wine and reminisce about your childhood together.
For a long and solitary journey that you don’t quite know where it will take you. Motorcycle recommended.
For riding off into the sunset with someone you love. Roll credits.
If it’s worth a mention in Kerouac’s On the Road, it should be a staple of your own journey too.
Absolute classic. A song to make you feel like a rockstar on the final leg of your nationwide tour. Mick Ronson’s guitar solo sends my dopamine skyrocketing.
Tidying up the house
The title says it all. Get that boom-bap a blasting as you hoover around the household.
Do you remember that scene in Mary Poppins where Julie Andrews sings to the two children to clean their room, leans out the windows and starts singing to a robin sitting on the branches of a tree, then snaps her fingers and the room magically cleans itself. Well anyway, Ryo Fukui is no Julie Andrews, but he certainly has the Mary Poppins effect and will miraculously declutter your room. Sidenote: those Mary Poppins kids give me the creeps.
The perfect song to conclude a gentle day of pottering. Listen to the whole album once the house, and life, gets messy again.
A fantastic cover, an incredible live album — let the sweet sounds of Kurt serenade you as you fold away some washing. I have folded away countless pairs of socks to this song.
Anything can be an instrument, take for example freshly washed sheets on the clotheslines blowing gently in the breeze. If they could make a sound, this would be it.
At the beach
Dive into the ocean and try your best to touch the bottom ...
Once you’re down there, this is what the fish will be dancing to. Splish, splash and have a boogie!
This song feels like getting sunburnt, or getting sand in your shoes — but y’know, in a good way.
For sitting on a picnic blanket watching the sun set, as the waves roll up the shore and the bonfire peters out.
This song sounds like any beach in Dunedin. Perfect soundtrack for sea-lion spotting and sandcastle sculpting.
