In 2002, I was listening to All That You Can’t Leave Behind from the backseat of a minivan while I flipped through the pictures in Nintendo Power. I thought all songs debuted through Now That’s What I Call Music! I was Coldplay’s perfect mark—I had no idea what a cliché even was.

Writing is not a resource-rich profession. Sometimes, a Wyrm is the best gift I have to give. And say it with me now: It’s hard to make friends as an adult.

This is the final issue of the Earwyrms Canon. There’s no true theme to bind these ten together, except that they were always going to make the list. These were the songs I thought of first, the allies that I trusted best.

The kids go back to school next week, so why not sit back and listen to something new? I’ve always loved Songs of First Semester more than Songs of the Summer anyhow.

Peyote Rock was built by nature’s outliers—crust-punks and cowpokes, volcanic pariahs, those who need their country music with a glass eye and a switchblade. Don’t know what I mean? Just listen.

I must’ve gotten my hands on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas in 2004, when I was 10 or 11 years old. Grand Theft Auto maintains a dual reputation as one of the greatest video games of all time as well as one of those Matrix-level Y2K-era youth corruptors.

The highlight of Murrells Inlet is Brookgreen Gardens, one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen. It’s a 9,100 acre sculpture garden, replete with stone-carved mythic figures and lush with ancient live oaks, many older than the signing of the Constitution.

Music is melodrama. Pageantry, spectacle, vulgar vulnerability—the arrogant may sneer, but pain is universal, and songs are unique in their ability to immerse. The form allows us to wear the feelings of one another.

I’m at a wedding, here are wedding songs! Secular.

A confession: I have not finished a single book all year. I normally average between 15 and 30 by year’s end. And listen, I’ve tried—oh! have I tried.

I was always nervous about demanding a subscription fee. Maybe it’s the farmer in me, maybe it’s because I believe life’s pleasures should be free—and music and writing are nothing if not life’s unique and renewable pleasures.

This issue is full of my favorite drum songs. We keep time without second thought. Time passes through us almost like radiation, suffusing every step of our lives. The drums let us tap into some existential clock.

People, on the internet, a few years ago loudly pleaded “No pandemic art!” to whomever would listen (everybody was). I never agreed with the sentiment, but I stayed out of it—I know trauma when I see it. But today, standing this distance from that initial quarantine, the more I thank God Inside documented it, much moreso than I felt at the time.

Nothing complicated here—sometimes the office closes early for a holiday and you have to send your newsletter quickly because you're going to the pool. We have all been there. Cool off, kitties, and enjoy this little pool playlist.

I call this sensibility Midwestern because it’s an attitude inherent to life on the plains, where you can see storms gather from miles away and can do nothing for hours but brace for the worst. The winters are some of the coldest in the country. There’s a reason some of the only immigrants who could bear it were Swedes, Russians, Norwegians, and Finns.

My friend recently became my roommate, which means I now live with a skater for the Atlanta Roller Derby team—a phrase I would say to my younger self within the first hour of time traveling just to see him smile.

The first time I went crowd-surfing was in a stranger’s dark living room to “Come On Eileen.” I remember being lifted on shaky hands and the warm breeze borne from the drunken crowd. It was during that thumping chant of the bridge, every foot moving to the brow-beating stomp. My nose scraped the ceiling as I sang along.

Well, if it isn’t time again for Atlanta’s good ol’ rock & roll festival, that old Shaky Knees that hijacks an issue every spring. It’s a weird festival, a heady mix of punks with strollers, aging rockers, and new blood all gunning for the same shade in the 80-degree Georgian glare. I love it. Let’s talk headliners.

I’ve put together a playlist of all the music I missed from the past four years. Songs that didn’t make it to the year-end lists, albums I didn’t catch until far too late. An ode to the constant blooming that comes with loving music.

Song ensures Bad is never The Worst. We sing to bring joy to shipless oceans. This batch of Canon songs carry that knowledge—flames of understanding for those thinnest wicks of heart.