Playlist: Midwestern Survival Guide
by Ria Dhingra
I like the Midwest
It’s moments like these where I am dangerously underwhelmed.
I shape the dirt with the sole of my shoe, pushing till the ground fights back.
I am neither content nor complacent, but—right now—this is comfortable.
At a party, someone tells me they wish to move West. A sentiment I often share.
The urge comes and goes, we were all taught to swim, but never given the chance.
I am not sentimental, still, it feels treacherous to abandon a place called home.
Sometimes, my nights are lost in cars. Parking lots, backseats, aimless circles.
Crying out the window for both tragedy and beauty. Next morning, I shower you
with pleasantries: return them. The birds get too cold, we find one crumpled at my doorstep.
The rain is lovely. As are the bookstores and the prairies and most of the people.
They return from out West, sacrificing oceans for summer swimming pools.
Our parties stop, along with the rain— the dirt hardens. I’m still here,
yearning for freedom from the land itself
and myself who is built up from the dust.
Having spent my entire life in the Midwest, I promised myself that when the time came for college, I would leave. I would pack up, go somewhere new and become self-made despite being from suburbia. I think most people my age shared that kind of sentiment, this intrinsic desire to flee all that we knew. I now go to school at UW-Madison… Clearly, my plan worked out. But I’m not upset about it. Honestly. For the longest time, I viewed the Midwest as a cage that kept me from experiencing life. Now, I’m starting to recognize the beauty within the simplicity. It’s a love-hate relationship: living here. It’s poignant nostalgia holding you back and dreams of something bigger pushing you away. Regardless, at least for now, we’re all still here. So, here’s some tracks that help me endure it. Songs that capture the beauty, the boredom and the bittersweet relationship we all seem to have with home.
“Welcome to Your Life” Grouplove
“We’re such a big mess. And I love you…Welcome to your life. It could be a fantasy.” This song is off Grouplove’s third album, Big Mess. Much like the album title, it's loud and messy, encapsulating the overwhelming, technicolor, euphoria-like emotions one somehow manages to feel while caught up with dreams of growing up and moving out.
“Into the Ocean” Blue October
I first heard this song performed live in an amphitheater outside of Chicago. It was pouring rain, muddy and miserable. Yet, amidst the storm, I was deliriously happy. This song perfectly captures that contrast, it’s like joy in a storm. “I wanna swim away but don’t know how.” The melancholy lyrics paired with the upbeat soundscape create an earworm you can’t help humming along to.
“Crooked Teeth” Death Cab for Cutie
As a middle track in Death Cab for Cutie’s sixth album, this song (like the Midwest) is incredibly underrated. “At night, the sun in the tree made the skyline look like crooked teeth.” The lyrics capture the imagination needed by youth to survive suburbia. Personally, this song reminds me of driving to Chicago with my dad and seeing the skyline slowly form together in the driver-side window.
“Cigarette Daydreams” Cage the Elephant
Getting your driver’s license was the pinnacle of freedom in my Illinois hometown. It meant having a car, putting in the key, and going–anywhere. Most times, “anywhere” meant speeding down the freeway until curfew. Still, the potential of knowing you could just keep driving was an exhilarating sort of thrill. This newfound feeling of freedom is tinged with an edge of profound sadness: after all, shouldn’t life be more than an empty highway to nowhere? “You can drive all night, looking for the answers in the pouring rain.”
“Daydreamer” Young the Giant
“It’s a feeling you can’t describe.” “You’re a daydreamer. And it’s the same thing over and over. We’re running for our lives.” “So disconnected. It’s not real life.” “You were dreaming all the lies.” “We just might die. But we feel so alive.” Need I say more?
“Dreams” The Cranberries
A single off their first record, “Dreams” by the Cranberries sounds like the kind of song you play at both the beginning and end credits of a coming-of-age film. The sound is restless, the lyrics inspired, “My life is changing every day. In every possible way.” It’s one of my dad’s favorite songs. We used to sing it together as we cruised down flat interstates, moving from Illinois to Indiana to Ohio.
“Stargazing” The Neighborhood
With not much to do in hot July summers, us Midwesterners spent humid evenings barbecuing and stargazing. These nights, like the constellations, like the verses of this song, are dotted together–flashbulb memories to sustain us in cold winters. “All the patience that I've got. It's not enough to save me.” During those winters, we wonder if the memories are enough.
“Chicago” Sufjan Stevens
It’s not a proper playlist if I don’t manage to reference Chicago directly. In his 2005 album, Illinois Sufjan Stevens, a Detroit native, tries to capture the essence of Illinois through music. His masterpiece, “Chicago” does just that. The song builds to overwhelm you with sound, poignant lyrics intertwined with blaring horns and pensive questions. The song is elegant, fitful, slow, fast, sweet, jarring and everything all at once. It engulfs you in the very best way, much like the city of Chicago with its twinkling lights and promises of excitement. “I was in love with the place. In my mind, in my mind.” Stevens manages to capture soaring expectations and crippling realities, the beauty and tragedy of it all—of Chicago.
“I’ll Wait” The Strumbellas
“You say that I’m a dreamer.” Midwesterners with big dreams survive in tethering ourselves to people, to fostering relationships. That’s why you don’t find this sort of culture, this kindness, anywhere else. The Strumbellas capture this intense love, this passionate care for others in “I’ll Wait,” a soaring ballad with escalating percussion. The pure, unadulterated, joy this song radiates is analogous to the reasons why I personally cannot just cut ties with the Midwest—there’s too much love.
“Trade Mistakes” Panic! At The Disco
The trend of songs with restless excitement continues, and Panic! At The Disco’s 2011 ballad is no different. With lyrics such as “If I ever leave, I could learn to miss you” and “If I could trade mistakes for sleep” the tune ties together mournful regret with jubilant instrumentals. It’s a rising song that swells with each repetition of the chorus, leaving you with emotions on the brink of both laughter and tears. The contrast, the merriment, the misery, is all uniquely Midwest.
“Life in the City” The Lumineers
This song is my absolute everything. I heard it performed live before it’s initial release, in the middle of an aforementioned concert in the rain. After nine hours of standing in the cold, this song alone shocked me back to life. Simple, emotive lyrics and the booming crescendo perfectly capture my mixed feelings about the Midwest. This song is cry— a cathartic release of joy and a call for help. Similar to other songs in this list, “Life in the City '' masks tragic lyrics with swelling instrumentals. Sung in raspy tones, this song has an indescribable nostalgic quality. It’s the last track of the night after the big dance, it’s decompressing after a long day, it’s first kisses and heartbreaks all at once. “Living life in the city. It will never be pretty.” The lyrics capture losing yourself in your surroundings. Feeling euphoric, then feeling lost and giving into forms of weakness you know better than to bend to. It’s been three years since I heard it and I still listen to this song everyday. It’s straightforward, it’s overwhelming—it’s enchanting.
“Between the Bars” Elliott Smith
Coming off the “life high” from the previous song on this life, Elliott Smith’s “Between the Bars” is a wistful, melancholy tune. “The potential you’ll be, that you’ll never see.” This song is direct, an acoustic reckoning: one that forces listeners to acknowledge that trapped feeling they often ignore, the one that resides deep in their chests. Unlike the last four songs, this is not a ballad. There are no booming instrumentals to distract you from the words. And the words are in pain, are painful. Still, Smith is not totally hopeless, not utterly pessimistic, promising to keep the world “still” for us as we process it.
“Team” Lorde
Picking up from the state of existential crisis the last song may have left us in, Lorde reminds us to keep moving forward in “Team,” a song that calls out the expectations that ruin reality, the Midwest, to begin with. The catchy chorus and rebellious teen attitude blend to form a perfect pop song: one that’s memorable. “I’m kinda over getting told to put my hands up in the air.” I spent my Friday nights in Target parking lots. Enough said.
“Rivers and Roads” The Head And The Heart
The last song in this playlist is slowed down. Yet, unlike most of this list, these lyrics are not remotely tragic. Instead, they are nostalgic, longing and bittersweet. Fun fact: the Midwest is in the middle of the country. I know! Shocking. But this means people pass through all the time, they come and they go. We all will too.“A year from now, we’ll all be gone. All our friends will move away. And they’re going to better places. But our friends will be gone away.” My teachers in high school used to say that we would “all be back” and that people from this part of town “always do return.” Maybe they’re right, maybe they’re wrong. Regardless, there will be movement. “And my family lives in a different state.” Upon moving, the restlessness, the desire to even want to move, a characteristic so profoundly Midwestern, might finally subside. I hope it does. But the truth is, I know it’s more complicated than that. Afterall, the Midwest is more than just Plaines, more than aimless car rides and geography. The Midwest—the people you love—it’s home. “Rivers and Roads. Rivers and Roads. Rivers till I reach you.”