My Favourite Songs Right Now | World Music Day 2020

Sunday 21st June was World Music Day, so I thought today I would honour the occasion with a special post. Music plays a pretty big part of my life, as I’m sure it does for all of us. I have playlists for pretty much everything – an anxiety playlist, a getting ready playlist, a cry it out playlist, a Taylor Swift playlist, you name it. Spotify has been keeping me company over these last few months rather than regular news updates on how many people have died from coronavirus combined with Steve Wright singing along to literally every song he plays (we usually have Radio 2 on at work…), but to avoid wasting time trying to decide on a playlist, I’ve been hitting shuffle. However, with my music taste, it can be rather eclectic. The other day, I had Last Resort by Papa Roach, followed by I See the Light from Tangled.

Anyway, in honour of World Music Day, I thought I’d share a little bit about some of my favourite songs at the moment. Bear in mind, a lot of them aren’t really THAT recent – we’re talking pre-lockdown charts at the very latest. In a lot of cases, these are songs that I’ve only just discovered for one reason or other, or songs that for some reason I just can’t stop listening to. Enjoy, and also please don’t laugh at my awful taste in music.

Now Playing

Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap

Too Much – Carly Rae Jepsen

Love Will Tear Us Apart – Nerina Pallot

Yes, it’s another Normal People reference. I can’t help it. I have a problem. I grouped these three songs together because not surprisingly, all three of them feature in Normal People. I’ve mentioned multiple times before my obsession with this show, so I won’t go into it AGAIN, however I feel the soundtrack itself needs a shout out, because it’s fucking brilliant. Hide and Seek (featured in episode 2) is just heartbreakingly good and is just all the feels, while at the same time has you wishing that you were in the backseat of Connell’s Ford Fiesta (if you know, you know). Too Much (featured in episode 6) is actually quite the bop and in all honesty, the line “when I’m drinking, then I’m drinking too much” sums me up perfectly. As for Love Will Tear Us Apart (featured in episode 8), again, it’s just so intense and is the kind of song you’d listen to while looking out of the window on a moving train – as they do in the show.

Gorgeous – Taylor Swift

Paper Rings – Taylor Swift

Death by a Thousand Cuts – Taylor Swift

Call It What You Want – Taylor Swift

Cruel Summer – Taylor Swift

If you were expecting a Tay-Tay free playlist, soz. I have my mental bank of my favourite Taylor Swift songs, but I go through phases where I end up listening to certain songs of hers nonstop. The above five are currently the ones I’m obsessed with. Not gonna lie, Gorgeous in all honesty, sums up my feelings towards Paul Mescal (aka. Connell in Normal People – FFS Ames you are 28 and married – it ain’t gonna happen). You guys are my friends, I can be honest with you. On the other hand, it’s also a bop.

As for Paper Rings, it brings back happy memories of dancing with Lillie when we went to Swiftogeddon last year. While we’ve been meeting up for a few socially distanced bitching walks, I’m really missing our nights of drinking wine and dancing to Tay-Tay while chatting absolute bollocks. Paper Rings was one of the first songs we danced to at Swiftogeddon and it was just awesome. Cruel Summer was one song from Taylor’s last album that I’ve always liked, but over the last few months it’s become one of my absolute favourites – I think mainly because it’s just such a good song to belt out while you’re driving. I’ve really missed driving over the last few months! Death by a Thousand Cuts is another one that’s a really good driving song too – I literally can’t explain why I love it so much.

Call It What You Want wasn’t always up there as one of my favourites, but since watching the Miss Americana documentary, I’ve really started to like it. There’s a scene in the documentary where she’s playing it on guitar to her boyfriend and it’s just the most adorable thing in the world, and I think knowing the context of the song just makes it that much more enjoyable.

How It Feels – Zuzu

How to Be Lonely – Rita Ora

Your Girlfriend – Blossoms

Say So – Doja Cat

Good Stuff – Griff

This is On You – Maisie Peters

What did I tell you? A VERY mixed bag. Quite a few of these are songs that were played on Radio 1 (during the days in the office when our boss was working from home we’d switch the radio station) and that I just ended up really loving, while others are songs I’ve discovered through various TV shows during lockdown. How it Feels by Zuzu is quite the earworm, and it was through her performing it on Russell Howard’s Home Time that I discovered it. It’s so catchy and it’s probably one of the only songs that me AND my husband both like. Seriously, that never happens. Check out her EP on Spotify, she’s bloody good. 

How to Be Lonely by Rita Ora is another lockdown song I discovered through a TV show (I have no idea whether or not it’s been in the charts as I’ve stopped listening to the radio for obvious reasons), when she performed it on Home Alone with Joel Dommett. I’m not particularly sure why I liked it so much – I think I’m perhaps putting it down to the heightened emotions we’re all feeling during lockdown.

The final four of these songs were all discovered through our listening of Radio 1 in the office, pre-lockdown of course, and they were all just songs that I liked listening to and spent hoping they’d be played next instead of fucking Yummy by Justin Bieber. Since getting used to the working from home thing, they’ve all been regularly queued up on my playlists each day. Both Good Stuff and This is on You especially are songwriting gold, and I urge you to check out both Griff and Maisie Peters on Spotify.

So, that’s my round up of my favourite songs at the moment – have you heard any of these? What are your favourite songs right now? Let me know in the comments!

Featured image by Ryan Quintal on Unsplash.