During my last program in January of 2017, I discovered the band COIN thanks to Spotify’s Discover Weekly playlist. This playlist, if you aren’t aware, is a list of 30 songs personally tailored to your music tastes and history. It changes weekly, so I follow the playlist to be sure to listen to the new ones Spotify recommends. At one point, maybe in February or March, the playlist recommended COIN’s “Talk Too Much”, a song that is now the most played on the artist’s music page. I immediately fell in love with the song and the band, and soon added all their songs to my daily playlist (titled “yeah” for no particular reason, I just couldn’t think of another name). I played their songs over and over, in the same order too. First would be Talk Too Much, then Run, Holy Ghost, Atlas, and Fingers Crossed. I used to listen to these songs during my commute to work, which was the ART 10 bus at the time. Then, backstage on the Cast Member shuttle, I would continue listening to these same songs. One of my most distinct memories is listening to Talk Too Much while watching the Twilight Zone: Tower of Terror become the new Guardians of the Galaxy ride. Seeing the scaffolding up close was truly a sight to behold for this new Cast Member at the time.

I still have these songs in my playlist, but I let them play on shuffle now. My commute is different now that I have a car, and getting to my work location requires my phone and headphones be put away. The time when I can really jam out to my music is when I drive to and from work, connecting my phone to my car’s speakers via Bluetooth.

As weird as this sounds, I recently came across that meme of the dancing lizard video. In the video, he was dancing to Come on Eileen by the Dexys Midnight Runners. Since then, the song has been stuck in my head for what seems like weeks. I play it every time I go to and from work. I feel like everyone (or most people) have a soft spot for 80’s music, so this may come to no surprise to some. I wonder what other songs will define the last few months of the year for me?