I’m certain that I’m not the only one who gets awkwardly sentimental during this time of year. It probably doesn’t help that I’m already a pretty emotional person, but I’ve spent the majority of the day doing the typical reflecting-on-the-last-year thing and I figured the best way to break myself out of the funk was to write.

So, in no particular order, here is a list of songs I’m listening to on New Year’s Eve:

Motion City Soundtrack – Together We’ll Ring in the New Year

I guess this one is a bit self-explanatory, but it is my go-to New Year’s song. It isn’t particularly uplifting, I’ll give you that, but it captures how I often feel at the end of the night, after all the celebrating is over. Even in the years where I was in a relationship during this time of year, the line “I am often interrupted or completely ignored, but most of all I’m bored” has just always resonated with me.

Vic Ruggiero – Parking Lot

To balance out the somewhat hopeless vibes of the last song, this one is dripping with hope for the future. I honestly had never heard this song until recently, when an old friend and I reconnected, and he recommended it to me. The ska influence definitely peeks through in this song, but I think it would be approachable even if you’re not into the horns-and-skanking scene. I’m really hanging onto this track as a way to will good things into happening.

Taylor Swift – New Year’s Day

Look, I didn’t say this was a creative list. I also didn’t say that this was a happy list. Of all of the songs I could think of today that really capture the weight of how I’m feeling, this one wouldn’t get out of my head. More than any other year in my life, this one feels the heaviest in terms of leaving my life behind and starting over. I tried to play this on guitar this week, but I basically can’t get past the bridge lyrics “Please don’t ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere” without getting all teary-eyed.

Motion City Soundtrack – Resolution

Am I putting two MCS songs on this list? Yes. Am I mad about it? Maybe a little. I think between seeing them this year in a concert experience that was memorable for a bunch of reasons that have little to do with the show itself and just diving head-first into all the music I liked 15 years ago, MCS became a bigger part of 2022 for me than I would have expected. Apparently, they were my top artist on Spotify this year, which I thought was wild. I digress. This song captures the longing and melancholy of a year of failed relationships and the realization that it was destined to be that way.

Here’s to 2023 being a new beginning – see y’all in the new year.