The other day, I asked my students to share (we’re doing bi-weekly, online check-ins) what songs they’d put on their Pandemic Playlist.

Since I asked them to do this, it’s time for me to offer another installment of videos of the songs on my (growing) Pandemic Playlist which you can follow on Spotify here:

RGK OH Pandemic Playlist

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/38kd9cuEaXiCkLiARx0Qg2?si=yUdxA54NQr6vpTxvoWPBzw

Apparently, “pandemic playlists” are quite a thing these days.

As I mentioned in my #1 post on this theme, all of these are songs that I’ve encountered “in the wild” during these pandemic days (except for about 10 of them that the Spotify algorithm smartly recommended as “pandemic” related songs)

The videos featured in this post are all about time and how it’s feeling these days as we eagerly await the time when “life” can “reopen”

Beck’s recent single has an ironic title – “Uneventful Days” but quite accurate lyrics for this period:

Just the opening lines kind of say it all:

Uneventful days, uneventful nights

Living in that dark, waiting for the light

Caught up in these neverending battle lines

Everything has changed and nothing it feels right

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=uneventful+days+lyrics

Then there’s this song which I’ve loved from the 1980’s.

How’s that for a “before” and “after?”

I like this version of the same song:

And this title speaks for itself:

Even these lyrics seem quite apt these days:

Trudging slowly over wet sand

Back to the bench where your clothes were stolen

This is the coastal town

That they forgot to close down

Armageddon, come Armageddon!

Come, Armageddon! Come!

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=every+day+is+like+sunday+lyrics

And while we’re back in the 1980’s, here’s another apt song:

As our restlessness builds, we start a “Final Countdown” to when things shift for us:

How’s that for another “then” and “now?”

Two comments on this one-hit wonder.

Is there any song from the 1980’s with a more distinctive opening chord?

And, why haven’t I forgiven the kid who passed out and puked on my acid-washed denim jacket when I saw Europe open for Def Leppard at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA in August 1988 (when I was 18 and only a couple weeks away from starting college?)

Yes, I have a very specific memory there. Thank you for letting me share it.

Back to more current music (for a moment.) I really dig Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes and this song from a few years back:

I passed on the live versions of this song as I like the sweetness of this video.

I’m imagining that when we start to emerge from this physical distancing, we will feel like it’s the first day of our lives!

And here’s Conor’s new song, his first in nearly a decade:

One more song to close out this post and tie together the 1980’s and the timing themes:

Ahh, no. Instead, it’s time to: