Fall is one of the best seasons of the year (easily in the top four). Many people, including myself, consider it the best season of all. The combination of cooling temperatures, crunchy leaves, sweaters, scarves and all those wonderful spices and smells simply can’t be rivaled.
The unique feeling of fall even extends into the realm of music. Certain songs just sound better during this season than any other season. Songs that invoke nature by utilizing acoustic instruments — such as guitars and horns — feel right at home during the fall season. A good fall song should fall somewhere in between the manic joyfulness of summer and the dreary darkness of winter. They’re not pop songs that you’ll want to sing along to, but they won’t make you depressed either.
So without further ado, here are 10 songs that should be on every fall playlist.
1. “We’re Going to Be Friends” by The White Stripes
You knew this was going to be on the list. The White Stripes song from 2001 opens with the words, “Fall is here, hear the yell / back to school, ring the bell / brand new shoes, walking blues / climb the fence, books and pens / I can tell that we are gonna be friends.” If Alice Cooper’s “School’s Out” is the quintessential song for signaling the beginning of summer, then this song signals the end of it.
2. “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes
Autumn is the time of the harvest, when farmers reap the fruit of their labors that year and stow them away for winter. This Fleet Foxes song from 2011 captures both the tradition of the harvest and the warm orange light of a chill October morning with lyrics like “Gold hair in the sunlight, my light in the dawn / If I had an orchard, I’d work till I’m sore.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6mR8Z-gmK1g
3. “Old Pine” by Ben Howard
This song by British singer-songwriter Ben Howard could easily be confused for a summer song, as he sings about the experiences he and his friends have while camping. But then you realize that he’s singing about experiences that are in the past. “I’ve come to know that memories / Were the best things you ever had,” he sings. This song is all about nostalgia — recalling our idealized memories of summer when we’re in the thick of fall.
4. “As We Ran” by The National Parks
Fall is possibly the best time for hiking in the mountains. It’s cooled down a bit, so you won’t be dying of heatstroke, plus you get to enjoy all the changing colors of the leaves. That’s what makes this song by The National Parks perfect for the fall season.
5. “All My Days” by Alexi Murdoch
As winter inches closer and closer, the days get shorter and shorter. Or, as Alexi Murdoch puts it in his 2006 song, “The days keep turning into night.” Plus, it just sounds like the kind of song you’d want to listen to while driving up the canyon in a beat up old pickup truck one last time before the canyon is covered in snow.
6. “For Emma” by Bon Iver
This song from Bon Iver’s debut album is perfect for those days in late autumn that are starting to get downright cold. It’s no surprise, either. The album was recorded by Bon Iver all alone in a cabin between November and February, so that feeling of solitude and cold really pervades every note of the song and makes you want to get your warmest sweater out of the back of your closet.
7. “Dirty Paws” by Of Monsters and Men
Another song that does a great job of invoking nature is from Of Monsters and Men’s 2012 debut album. It’s all about animals and a forest “that once was green” but then dies.
8. “Timshel” by Mumford and Sons
This is another one of those songs that seems to be on the border between fall and winter. From Mumford and Sons’ debut album, it has lines like “Cold is the water/ It freezes your already cold mind / Already cold, cold mind / And death is at your doorstep.” But although it sends a little shiver down your spine, the guitar is too warm and the song too hopeful to be a ‘winter song.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOHV7ZJZkTw
9. “Charlie Boy” by The Lumineers
This song from The Lumineer’s 2012 eponymous album really brings on the nostalgia. It invokes a fictional time when war was romantic. “Play the bugle, play the taps / Make your mothers proud / Raise your rifles to the sky, boys / Fire that volley loud.”
10. “Sweater Weather” by The Neighbourhood
Honestly, this breaks with the rest of the list as far as aesthetics, but come on, “Sweater Weather”? If that doesn’t belong in fall then nothing does.
