Fuck my face, I love fall so goddamn much. Broad declaration: there is no feeling more fantastic than those first few days at the end of summer when you walk outside in the morning to unexpectedly crisp air and blue skies and your brain instantly wakes up from its hazy, humidity-drunk slumber and is all, “LIFE!” It’s like an orgasm for your soul.
When this magical time graces the world every year, before the mellow winter hibernation sleepies set in, it injects everyone with one last rush of seasonal adrenaline. If the dog days of summer are the time for sweaty, late night, getting-gross-and-loving-it dancing, then those crack of fall days are the time for early morning, windows open, putting on an extra layer dancing while you get ready for work. It’s a very specific, very fleeting moment in the year. As such, it deserves its own playlist. These are the songs to listen to while you let the newly-brisk air kiss your pores closed for the first time in months.
1. “This Head I Hold” by Electric Guest
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBZgHVXGyBg&w=584&h=315]
Science fact: It is not possible to hear this song and not move your body. Secondary science fact: It is not possible to listen to this song without immediately listening to it again. The only thing wrong with this song is that it doesn’t last forever.
2. “Calm Down” by The Love Language
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj45XbqsnAw&w=584&h=315]
“I will NOT!” she said is response, as she proceeded to dance ecstatically.
3. “I Am John” by Loney Dear
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA57ImfVqcE&w=584&h=315]
This song sounds like running down a big hill and then making out with someone cute when you’re all winded and red in the face, possibly with your cold nose running a little BUT YOU DON’T EVEN CARE BECAUSE THEY’RE SO ADORABLE AND ALSO LOVE AND ALSO LIFE AND ALSO THIS SONG.
4. “Revival” by Deerhunter
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iM0YD7CWiXU&w=584&h=315]
Currently, some of my friends are obsessed with this KGB-grade torture masquerading as an exercise routine that promises to make your flabby bits less floppy in a mere 25 minutes a day. Since I’m allergic to jacked up ladytrainers telling me shit like “pain is fear leaving the body” (fuck your life, ma’am), I don’t know if this is true. But when it comes to dramatic changes in the kind of sex appeal you’re rocking, I found a way to get you from Point A to Point B in almost no time. This is a required early fall activity; summer hot and winter hot are very different things. This song shifts your body from the loud, unsubtle sexy of summer to the quiet intensity of cold weather sultry in a short 2 minutes and 14 seconds. Deerhunter is the sound of summer leaving the body.
5. “Never Saw The Point” by Cults
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdukOus7muE&w=584&h=315]
This song is for the sole purpose of dancing around when you get dressed. I know that’s a cliché, but seriously, I don’t who the fuck you’re trying to impress if you think you’re too cool to dance around your room while rejecting every outfit in your closet. If you don’t, you’re dead inside anyway, so get away from my playlist. These songs are for alive, hot-blooded babes who love cool weather and view every banal activity as an opportunity for playing.
6. “Marathon” by Tennis
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsbXcJT8yfE&w=584&h=315]
You know that feeling when you wake up at the private island resort you’ve been hiding out at all summer, and everything is the same – fresh linens laid out, immaculate breakfast of fresh local fruits spread on the table, the quiet business of the housekeepers opening windows and drawing a bath, the muted bubbling of the infinity pool. Only on this particular morning, you’re startled by the how slightly colder the tiles feel as you dreamily walk out onto the terrace, and you pull your Egyptian cotton robe a little tighter around you as you watch the sun rise over your private beach. One of the staff comes outside and silently hands you a steaming cup of coffee instead of your usual refreshing breakfast bellini because she knows, and now you know, that summer is ending, and it’s time to go home. This is the song you listen to as you lazily, blissfully pack your bags later that morning. (I think we can all relate to this exact scenario, right?)
7. “Special” by Garbage
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raRGnueg8Lo&w=584&h=315]
Because A) Shirley Manson always. Just always; B) Fall should always make you always think a little bit of being a kid and going back to school, and thus, of the 90s; C) Because you still have some ragey feelings to work out about your summer fling now that that shit has run itself into the ground.
8. “Good As New” by Vacationer
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDhrEcuqCJs&w=584&h=315]
If feeling the first delicious fall-like weather and listening to 3 minutes of someone saying “good as new” over and over doesn’t cleanse your soul of all the sweaty sin you committed over the last few months, nothing will, god help you. 
