I lack the mental fortitude to make it through another season with incorrect vibes. Between the Delta surge and lockdown, the permeating stench of paranoia and existential dread teetered on the edge of unbearable. Spring has arrived — and at the risk of sounding like a hippie-dippie bullshit artist, so has a sense of renewal.

I can’t diagnose what it is about the transition into spring that makes things feel so mystical and friendly. Something about the sun being out just makes you want to fall in love and talk to strangers. I was walking down Oxford Street the other day when a woman, arms eagled out like Nicole Kidman post-divorce, announced “SPRING IS HERE” to no one in particular. It was beautiful.

So, as a means to confront the bad vibes that have bogged us down, and to celebrate the changing of seasons, here are a few songs to help you usher in spring.

‘First Love / Late Spring’ – Mitski

New spring, new beginnings, new sweet, painful love — one of Mitski’s finest cuts. My god! it hurts!

“When I wrote this song, I was experiencing the kind of vulnerable first love, and experiencing that kind of love [that makes] you realize how much of a weenie you are,” Mitski told The Cut. “I felt like I was in love for the first time when I was writing that song, and like a kid.”

In the spirit of things, perhaps consider indulging in a viewing of Yasujirō Ozu’s eternally perfect Late Spring. 

‘Spring’ – Angel Olsen

Don’t take it for granted /
Love when you have it /
You might be looking over /
A lonelier shoulder 

It is the unofficial season of yearning, something about the season begs me to indulge in my most melancholy, romantic feelings.

Mark Twain hit the nail on the head when he wrote, “It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want—oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!”

‘Spring’, the warm, piano ballad centerpiece of Angel Olsen’s Mirrors is the definitive soundtrack to these feelings.

‘Spring Affair’ – Donna Summer

If you need a break from the non-stop longing, Donna Summer is the perfect antidote. ‘Spring Affair’, taken off the disco queen’s 1976 concept record, Four Seasons of Love, is steamy and sexy. To be listened to at sunset, preferably in a park, where the afternoon jasmine lingers, comfortably drunk + with a loverrrrrrrr.

‘Solar Power’ – Lorde

Okay, arguably the vibes of Solar Power are more entrenched in summer but something about ‘Solar Power’ feels so spring-y… The only thing that has helped me through this bleak and neverending lockdown is moodboarding spring picnics with my friends via the group chat. This album DEMANDS to soundtrack indolently consuming cured meats and pickled goods in the sun.

‘Love Goes On!’ – The Go-Betweens

Perhaps Liberty Belle and the Black Diamond Express cut ‘Spring Rain’ makes for a more obvious Go-Betweens’ choice, but intuitively I feel like it’s too dour to really encapsulate the kind of spring I’m trying to curate. Spiritually, 16 Lovers Lane is a springtime album.

I know a thing about lovers / 
Lovers don’t feel any shame

Make out in a park!!!

‘Flowers’ – Galaxie 500

Both Galaxie 500 albums felt like they were produced to soundtrack a never-ending spring afternoon. Though there’s something about the dreamy, insouciant ‘Flowers’ that really cuts to the core of what it’s all about.