Happy New Year!  As we put 2020 in the rearview mirror (finally), we all need a bit of safe celebration.  So, since this year felt more like a decade, I give you ten more of my favorite stimmy songs for the new year!

Air on G string, J.S. Bach – This is my all-time favorite calming down music.  It’s quiet and gentle and floats like a feather from a higher energy to a lower, more grounded place.  I go for this after a good cry, after a meltdown, any time I need to take five minutes and just breathe.

Across the Universe – IMHO, this is the most soothing, lovely song the Beatles ever wrote – but their version is not the best (don’t hate me).  As I mentioned in my last list, Rufus Wainwright’s voice and delivery have a wonderful effect on me and his version will always be my fave!  Somehow he makes it sound like he does the whole thing in one breath and it feels at once surreal and grounding.

I’m So Worried – Monty Python’s absurdist humor is a great balm to my anxiety.  While I love Always Look On the Bright Side of Life as much as anyone else, this is the one I go to for ridiculing the intrusive anxious thoughts until I laugh at them.  Something about taking anxiety to exaggerated lengths seems to cut the legs out from under my panic.  Even when I was going through a bout of stress-induced hair loss that was really scaring me, Terry Jones singing “I’m so worried about my hair falling out and the state of the world today” gave me a little giggle and made me feel better.

On the Banks of Red Roses by Battlefield Band – There are a lot of versions of this song out there, but Battlefield Band is the one I love best.  There’s something in the rise and fall of this melody, I can’t quite explain it.  It floats and drifts and keeps circling through its chorus.  I sing it while I do laundry and I end up winding my way through chorus after chorus until I get distracted enough to stop.

I can’t find this on YouTube but it’s from the album Happy Daze.

’39 by Queen – I LOVE this song.  It makes me envision Twilight Zone episodes and fantasy stories.  And the chorus is almost a folksong with those lovely harmonies.  It’s one of those songs that seems to end just as I’m getting into it, plus it threatens to end very abruptly before it finally resolves, making me always want to play it again.

Hey Baby by Ringo Starr – Ok, I never said that all my favorite stimmy songs were great art.  This song may be repetitive and simple but it’s that very repetition and continuation that makes this song one that I can get lost in.  And that great beat means it’s made to be danced to, as well!

Crimson and Clover by Tommy James and the Shondelles – This may be the simplest, most repetitive melody I’ve heard since I learned Frere Jacque in preschool, but the way it continues to build on itself to create complex harmonies and variations is what makes this a great stimmy song for me.  The extended version is the very best because it includes a guitar solo as well as a bass variation, which is even better.

We Only Come Out At Night by Smashing Pumpkins – This one has another simple, repetitive verse to it and yes, that’s what I love about it.  The rhythm lends itself to a gentle but active rocking that helps me get into a nice flow state without getting too blissed out.  However, as an Aging Goth, I do kinda feel like a poser listening to it while driving to work in the mornings.

And Your Bird Can Sing by the Beatles – Here is a great happy stimmy song that opens with one of the greatest guitar riffs ever!  It’s instantly danceable (a great point in any song’s favor for me), the harmonies on the end of each line are beautifully complex, and it ends on one of those unresolved chords that makes me want to replay it until it finishes properly.

The Vampire Club by Aurelio Voltaire – I couldn’t finish this list without another favorite by Aurelio Voltaire!  This one has a great old school 50s-60s rock’n’roll vibe that I just can’t get enough of. Not to mention it’s pure nostalgia for us Goths Of A Certain Age.  This song never fails to get me dancing and laughing and it often gets replayed a couple of times before I can let it go.

Happy New Year, everyone!  May 2021 be orders of magnitude better than the last ten years that were 2020. 

What are your favorite stimmy songs?  What tunes are good for calming down, happy dancing? How are you celebrating the new year?

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