A Playlist For The Middle Schooler At The End Of The World
My Mixtape’s A Masterpiece is a weekly feature in which a guest compiles a playlist around some theme. For Fourths Of July, this week Theodore Shea assembles 12 songs for the pre-apocalyptic adolescent. Read T.S’ thoughts on each song and listen along to the Spotify playlist on top and/or the YouTube playlist at the bottom of the post.
The world was supposed to end in 2012. Perhaps this would’ve been for the best for tmiddle schoolers back then. After having endured years of adolescent drama, awkward dances in a gym, the start of mall expeditions, and all the wonders of pre-teenage teenage angst, it was finally supposed to be over. Just one more summer and then high school…and then, the end of the world. But it was an ill-fated apocalypse, destined to end before the end had even begun. These pre-2013 songs take me back to middle school; back to when the world always felt like it was ending, even as the Earth kept turning all the same.
1. “Into the Ocean” by Blue October
The perfect song for a middle schooler drowning in depression and existential angst. If you throw in a climate-related apocalypse? Even better! It’s like that scene from 2012 with the giant wave that drowns the Earth, only this time more metaphorical.
2. “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol
Okay, now don’t lie to me—we’ve ALL cried to this song at least once. I know it. You know it. Your mother knows it. Your social studies teacher probably also knows it. Definitely the school nurse knows it. Hell, Grey’s Anatomy even knows it and has capitalized on that aforementioned crying.
3. “Everyday Is A Winding Road” by Sheryl Crow
This one’s more of an upbeat song. It’s got just a tinge of hopefulness painted in-between a landscape of all the difficult twists and turns of life. Sure, as the name of the song suggests, everyday is a winding road, but in the wise paraphrased words of Sheryl Crow, with everyday we each get a little bit closer to feeling fine. Certainly something I needed to hear as a middle schooler.
4. “Somebody That I Used To Know” by Gotye, Kimbra
There’s just something about this song that scratches that nasty little ‘the world will end any day now’ itch. Incessantly irritating after having to listen to it on the radio for the 400th time, yet somehow the perfect song to dance your heart out to on your last night on Earth. It is perhaps the perfect song for a cataclysmic karaoke party.
5. “My Immortal” by Evanescence
Woeful and haunting, this song isn’t just simply about grief but evokes it. Sometimes, the things and people that have left don’t leave you. Maybe the end of the world will never end in and of itself.
6. “How to Save a Life” by The Fray
Also featured in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
7. “Maybe” by Ingrid Michaelson
Do you feel like the world’s passing you by with every breath? Like you’re stuck in a constant state of limbo? Then this is the song for you! There’s nothing like a song about lost love to make you feel like you’re missing out on a whole wide world that you’ve barely even had the chance to explore yet.
8. “Bleeding Out” by Imagine Dragons
I’m not ashamed to admit that I was once an avid Imagine Dragons fan. While “Radioactive” might’ve been the favorite child off this album—the one destined to achieve stardom on the radio and in life—“Bleeding Out” was rather perfect for all those melodramatic middle schoolers who instead could only sit and wait for the world to end.
9. “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton
This is another great song to belt your heart out to. It’s not only a bop though, but a wonderfully necessary reminder of the lengths we might go to for those we love and that our loved ones might go to for us. Even more heartwarming if done while fighting off a horde of zombies.
10. “Keep Holding On” by Avril Lavigne
I’m pretty sure I cried myself to sleep once or twice (or several hundred times) while listening to this song on a used iPod shuffle. Very ‘depression meets pop-punk attempt at comforting yourself’ chic. Enough said there, I think.
11. “Love, Save The Empty” by Erin McCarley
Attention: if you or a loved one have been irreparably impacted by this song sneaking into your house in the middle of the night and peering into your very soul, you may be entitled to financial compensation! I’m not entirely sure why so many of the songs I’ve chosen for this playlist have ended up on Grey’s Anatomy.
More likely, it’s the sense of severe melodrama shared by both middle schoolers and one of the longest running prime-time medical dramas.
12. “Fireflies” by Owl City
The synth-pop sound to my soul. From those very first few twinkling notes, you are immersed in a world that doesn’t sleep…a world that won’t end either, even after you finally close your eyes. Soothing and hopeful all at once. We are all responsible for making meaning in our lives, for keeping the world we all share from ending. This song is just what the doctor ordered to get you through any impending armageddon, and middle school.
