NPR Music - Breathe: Songs to calm your nerves

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

We pause to take a deep breath this week and chill out with a mix designed to slow the blood and calm the nerves, including the one song scientists say can reduce anxiety by up to 65%.Note: This episode originally ran on March 26, 2024.Featured songs and artists:• Marconi Union: "Weightless"• Mary Lattimore: "Wawa by the Ocean" from 'Collected Pieces'• Van-Anh Nguyen and Noshika Masuda: "Spiegel im Spiegel" by Arvo Pärt• Brian McBride: "Girl Nap" from 'The Effective Disconnect' • Laraaji: "Meditation No. 1" from 'Day of Radiance'• Arooj Aftab: "Saans Lo" from 'Vulture Prince'• Eluvium: "One" from 'Talk Amongst The Trees'• Enya: "Watermark" from 'Watermark'• Adele: "Somoene Like You" from '21'• Dame Kiri Te Kanawa, John Pritchard & London • Philharmonic Orchestra: "O Mio babbino caro" from 'Kiri Te Kanawa Sings Puccini and Verdi'• Yo La Tengo: "Our Way To Fall" from 'And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside-Out'• Cassandra Jenkins: "Hard Drive" from 'An Overview of Phenomenal Nature'• Ruth Laredo: "Clair de Lune" from 'My First Recital'• Rachika Nayar: "Our Wretched Fantasy" from 'Heaven Come Crashing'• Radiohead: "Everything in its Right Place" from 'Kid A'• Clem Snide: "Nick Drake Tape" from 'A Beautiful EP'See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

I was told there would be Reiki healers. Oh, yeah. Sorry, guys. Sorry, guys. They had to cancel. Can you think of any reason why we don't have Reiki healers here? Hazel? I was just thinking you guys don't need it.

Oh, because we're so... Because we're so chill as it is. Oh, I think the truth will maybe come out in this episode. I think you'll find out just how not fine we really are. Here, let me just hit this. piece of music here. And deep breath, we're here. I want you all to remember that you are living, breathing creatures on this planet. You're surrounded by people who love you, and it's going to be okay. It's going to be a good day. Hazel Sills, Stephen Thompson. Let's just take stock here. How's

everyone's stress level been? Hazel. My stress level on a scale of one to ten has been at an 11. This stress goes to 11. This stress goes to 11, so it's different than other stress levels. No, it's been okay. It could be better. I'm making it. You're here. You're here. I'm somewhere around Hazel, around that 10 to 11. You know, we just bought a new car and then hit some road debris.

So I've been on the phone with insurance companies. the most relaxing thing in the world. A lot of logistical plates spinning. It's funny because I often will look for a reason to call my insurance company. Just to check in? Yeah, like because it's just so centering. Yeah, it really is. I won't lie. I mean, I have been absolutely gripping the arms of the great chair of life. Lately gripping and, you know, picking at the fraying ends at the same time. Maybe with a little teeth grinding and sleepless nights thrown in, you know, just a little extra spice. zero out of five stars

would not recommend but I think like you and so many other people out there one way that I deal with it is with music that's the good news because there is so much amazing music to help us navigate the world when things look bleak or you know if it's just a struggle at times so what we thought was

you know what let's do a whole show where it's just a bunch of songs people can chill out too and that's what we're going to do on this week's show we have a bunch of our own that we're going to play but I want to start with this thing that we've been listening to here. It is the one track that scientists, official scientists, presumably working in a lab, you know, presumably music scientists, working in, you know, lab coats and top secret underground research facilities. It is the one

track scientists have determined is the single most relaxing song of all time. It's called weightless by the band Marconi unit. This song was actually created in a lab, researchers collaborated with Marconi Union to come up with this song. It starts at 60 beats a minute, nice rate for your heart, gradually drops down to 50 beats a minute. They had participants in the study listened to it and some other songs, and they did that while performing various tasks and puzzles. And scientists concluded that this song can reduce anxiety by up to 65%. You know, I can't, I don't know what my anxiety level, I don't know, levels are exactly.

I need an app for that. I'm like, is it down by 65%? But it is very relaxing. I do think there's a difference between this song has been medically determined by scientists to lower your blood pressure and a song that you connect with the way you connect to a friend. The music that I find most relaxing feels like I'm communing with somebody who wants me to feel better. I remember listening to the song and thinking, yeah, that's lovely. Yeah. But it's not necessarily going to access a deep well of emotions for me.

It's not going to settle my jangled nerves in quite the same way that something that feels that I'm connecting to emotionally is going to do. Dar-dhar human, we have music for you to make you feel better. I feel pressure almost. Like, oh, like, this has been created to relax me. Am I feeling relaxed? Is it really happy? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

And if I don't, then I'm more anxious because the science isn't working. I can't be fixed. I'm broken. Broken beyond medical repair, yeah. Well, one of the things that they did acknowledge in the study was that our personal taste in music are certainly hard to account for. And, you know, if you just don't like the song, it's probably not going to be very effective. But we do have ones that we know that we like because we brought them to play today.

Hazel, I want to start with you. So the first relaxing song that I brought to the table is the song Wawa by the Ocean by the harpist Mary Latimore. One thing you notice right away when you look at this track in your library is it's 10 and a half minutes long. That is a consistent theme with so much of the, you know, it's like we know you need this and three or four or five, six minutes probably isn't enough. We're going to go ahead and give you the full 10 and a half minutes of this because that's probably how long it's going to take. Well, it also reduces your number of tasks. Oh, like I don't have to think of the next song for 10 minutes. Yeah.

Yeah, Mary Latimore, I'm a huge fan of her work. I feel like most of the time when you enter my apartment, I'm probably playing Mary Latimore's music because I just find it so unbelievably soothing. And Mary is a really interesting artist because she's a harpist, and she is really interested in sort of subverting. what most people expect of harp music. You know, I feel like a lot of people

come into contact with the harp at wedding receptions and hotel lobbies. It's just very, like, simple and beautiful, but she does something really incredible in her work where she kind of loops her harp playing and sort of uses the entire harp as an instrument. And this song, just the way that the harp, the way she layers it,

it just brings such an immense, beautiful, calm in me. The harp is such a fascinating instrument because I think it's one of those instruments that people's relationship with it is often based on kind of cartoonish appropriation of it. It can be very precious. It can be

way over, yeah. But there's an earthiness to the way that she plays that makes it as calming an instrument as it can be. Beautiful pick, Mary Ladamore, that's from her album collected pieces. Wawa by the Ocean. Stephen, what do you got? Well, man, I could have picked about a hundred pieces of music off the top of my head.

I know when I suggest this to you, you're like, I could do this in my sleep. And literally have. Yes, yeah. Yeah. But I really, in terms of beautiful, calming, instrumental kind of ambient music was some of the hardest to narrow down because there are pieces that I come back to again and again and again. I could have gone with the score, Nicholas Brutell's score to the movie If Beale Street Could Talk is one that I come back to again and again. The score for Arrival by Johan Johansson, as well as the Max Richter Orchestra piece on The Nature of Daylight that bookends that movie. Those are pieces of music I come back to again and again and again, and they immediately slow the blood.

And in that spirit, the first pick that I ultimately went with is a piece by Arvo Perth, the Estonian composer, called Spiegel im Spiegel. This piece is used in many movies and TV shows. It's popped up again and again. If you go to this song's Wikipedia page, it includes a list of like two dozen different films and movies that it's been used in. And the scene that it soundtracks for me, and I'm sure for many people listening, is the scene in the finale of the good place that makes absolutely everyone ball their eyes out. The scene that starts with the words, picture a wave. And if you're not already crying, then you haven't seen this scene. But there are many, many, many different versions of this piece floating around.

But the one that we decided to go with is by Van On Nguyen and Yoshika Masuda. There are so, so many different beautiful versions of this piece. You can go on YouTube. You'll go to YouTube, for example, and find a live performance of this song. Read the comments, and it'll be people saying things like, I was listening to this track over and over again with my husband as he lay dying. Oh, God. And this was the piece that we chose.

I mean, people's relationship with this piece runs that deep. And so this dovetails perfectly with something that we've kind of talked about in the run-up to this conversation about how many pieces that relax us also have the power to make us ball our eyes out. Yes. And what it is about relaxing music that allows us to kind of unleash pent-up emotion that we've been carrying around. I mean, relaxation or relaxing or calming the nerves requires a release, right? I mean, don't you think? I mean, and sometimes the best release comes in tears. I mean, how many times have I just felt like crap?

And then I cry and then it's all out. I'm like, oh, wow, I feel great. It's just like when you get drunk and you throw up, you feel so much better. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't like crying in the moment. Right. Not a big cryer. I would rather not cry. But it's the release afterwards that feels so good.

And I also feel like a lot of the music that we're talking about, you know, it's really music that sort of puts you in your body and, like, really makes you focus on your sort of self and sort of pushes out the crowding thoughts in your mind. And I feel like once you're sort of in your body, you know, I could see how some of these songs would make you sort of give rise to certain bodily experiences like crying. Release it's like crying. Yes, autonomic responses. I find my great arc of emotion is often, one, anxious, two, crying, three, hungry. Well, Stephen, now you've got me wanting to play on the nature of daylight, and we could all have a huge release or anything from that arrival soundtrack. That's a great pick as well. But I'm going to, I'll keep it in the family of Stephen picks by going with one that you turned me on to.

I don't know how many years ago, 15 years ago, I don't know. It's a track called Girl Nap from the artist Brian McBride. Brian McBride, he was half of a duo, an ambient duo called Stars of the Lid, and this song, Girl Nap is from an album called The Effective Disconnect, which was a soundtrack he did for a documentary about bees and how we're losing our bee population. and it came out in 2009 called Vanishing of the Bees. He actually just passed away this past August.

But I have returned to this song so many times in the year since Stephen first tipped me off to it. I remember one time in particular, we used to do these live concert webcasts from the 930 Club in different places, and I wouldn't get home from those very often until like two in the morning or whatever, and I'd just be fried beyond belief. And I remember getting home from one of those webcasts and sitting in my car, and I could not even get out of the car or go into the house

without taking the time to decompress, and I put this song on, and it just, it completely recalibrated me. The complete collected works of Stars of the Lid are the best friend of any anxious person. Yeah. There's an album by Stars of the Lid called Stars of the Lid and the Refinement of the Decline that I have listened to. I do not know how many times. But when Brian McBride died last year,

I was so sad that I had not had a chance to thank him. Yeah, yeah. I was pretty crushed, too. I think he was only 53 years old or so. He's in his early 50s. Yeah. All right, we need to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with more music

to calm your nerves right after this. Let's stay in this sort of sonic space and go to another pick. Hazel, what do you got? I was just going to say that note on sort of like having a song that you regularly decompressed to. I just feel like something that is uniting a lot of the songs that we're talking about so far as like having a deep relationship with one piece of music that, you know, sort of soothes you. And one of those for me is meditation number one by the great artist Laraji.

Undeniably gorgeous. It does make me think, you know, one of the. The risks that you always run with music like this, once you step into the whole ambient world, is music that, you know, sounds like it was written to be played out of spa or something, you know. I don't think any of the stuff we picked today really sounds like that at all. But it does have that sort of get your crystals out. We're all going to levitate together and, you know, sort of feel to it. What I find is that a lot of the picks that we've made so far, and La Raja is very much included in this, it can get tagged. is spa music, but if you compare it to the music you actually hear in most spas, it will make you

resent whoever is programming the music at your area spa. Because, you know, I mean, I used to occasionally help out my partner who used to help manage an acupuncture studio. And every time I sat and worked the front desk at this acupuncture studio, I would pull up my own playlist of acupuncture studio-friendly pieces. And, oh, man, it really enhances the experience. It's like any genre of music. There's great versions of it and terrible versions of it. Yeah.

Yeah. I would love to hear La Raja at the spot. I'm not hearing this at the spot. I don't know what I'm hearing at the spot. I feel like when I get a massage, it's like ocean waves. It's a lot of twinkling. A lot of like whale song. Yeah.

I feel like New Age music and beat music, there's such a huge. huge gradient of what that music can be or spectrum. And I spent, you know, at least in the past few years, in terms of like streaming services and the amount of music that's being made just to sort of like elicit a vibe or something to just put on in the background, it makes me appreciate artists like Luragie a lot more who sort of like helped define that genre to begin with. And I think we're making music and he's been making music to this day that really sort of demands a more.

active listening experience, which can be relaxing too, but there's certainly a lot of new agey spa core music that I feel like is just so wispy and like just for the background. And this is where I want to throw out two quick recommendations. One is LaRaji performed a tiny desk concert. So if you want to get a sense of his performance style and what goes into making this kind of music, I really recommend tracking that down. And the other thing is I have to throw in a plug. I have a mix on Spotify that I made myself called Dinkin Songs, which includes several of the artists and actually, I think a couple of the pieces we've already played here, but it's about a two-hour mix of head-filling, almost entirely instrumental music that you could play at a spa and not be irritated.

Well, what's another pick, Stephen? Well, I've got a piece from my favorite album of 2021, a vulture prince by the artist Arruchafthab, and she's since put out more fantastic music. and it really has become one of my favorite artists of the last few years. The piece that we're going to play is called Sonslo. Yeah, this whole record, Vulture Prince, also a favorite of mine from 2021. The whole record is very calming. There's something so soothing about it and yet so transporting at the same time.

it's kind of lifting you up and putting you in another place. She has that gorgeous, gorgeous voice. And she's working across a number of genres. She's synthesizing her own background and different scenes that she's, like musical scenes that she's been in her life. You can just hang on every vocalization, even obviously if she's singing in different languages, you're still able to be swept away by the feeling in her voice.

I finally picked up this record on vinyl and just like having this crackling on a turntable in your living room as the fireplace is going is really highly, highly recommended. Yeah, it's her voice really and how incredibly calming and beautiful it is that I feel like, you know, sells this song as a relaxing. Relaxes me, track. Yeah, there's a certain resonance in the frequency she sings at That I bet those scientists, if they measured it, could tell us exactly what it is and the frequency of her voice that is, you know, making some little brain synapse fire or some little protein squirt out somewhere that's making this all feel better.

Take that scientists. Are we, wait, are we scientists now? We're scientists. We are. I'm doctor. Call me doctor. Yes. Yeah.

Absolutely. Aroge Offtaub. I was so glad to see you pick this one, Stephen. That's a great picture. from vulture Prince, the song Sonslow. I'm going to do one more very ambient piece. It's called One, just one, by the artist, Alluvium. There is not a lot of evolution in this song, which is fine by me.

It is. I don't like growth or change. No change, no growth. Well, that is one thing that scientists said. They like that the most relaxing music is predictable, which I totally disagree with. But this song, Aluvium, the project of Matthew Cooper. put out so much beautiful music over the years. This is my ultimate hibernation song. It is the sound

of disappearing completely. The world has gone away and you're in your little cocoon and everything is safe and wonderful. I remember at some point, this has been years ago, NPR Music did a list of our favorite summer songs and I was asked to contribute and this is the one I picked. because I hate summer and all I want to do because I hate the heat, I hate sweat. You're an indoor kid? I am an indoor kid

built for the frigid mountaintops in some remote area. But all I want to do in the summer is hibernate. I just want to hide from everything. I want to get under the covers and put this on. I almost have like reverse seasonal effective disorder if that's even a thing. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Like, it makes, I get, I'm miserable. I hate it. Like, I start to, when it starts to get cold in the fall and winter, like, I come alive. It's my time. I'm just imagining myself, like, sitting by the pool, drinking a pinocalada in the sun, listening to this song as my summer. Well, when you put it that way, I feel like it works.

I'm sitting by the pool with a drink watching the sun go down listening to this. Yeah. It's funny because I heard Hazel saying that, and I feel. Like Robin's like, that's not founder's intent. You're supposed to listen to this on headphones under a thick layer of blankets. No, I think sitting by the pool works. I mean, I would never do it. But I imagine there are people who would enjoy that.

Yeah. I have to thank you, Robin, because while I got you into Brian McBride and Stars to the Lid all those years ago, you got me into Alluvium. And Aluvium is another one of my go-to ambient artists, along with groups like Hammock and Slow Meadow and the Calm Blue Sea and there's so many of these wonderful, wonderful ambient instrumental bands that I've come back to again and again over the years. And Alluvium's really one of my favorites and you were 100% the person who got me into it. Oh, well, thank you, man.

I feel like I paid you back. So let's go back to that report that came out. I think the study was actually done a number of years ago, but there was a new follow-up report that came out this last fall about it. they actually compiled a list based on their research of the top 10 most relaxing songs, not just the number one most relaxing. They are, and we'll post this list in the episode description in your podcast feed and on our site if you want to see it, but the songs are in order from number one to 10, number one being most relaxing,

that Marconi Union cut called Weightless, number two, Airstream, the song Elektra, number three, DJ Shaw, Melomaniac Chill Out Mix. Number four, Enya, Watermark. Number four, Inya Watermark. I feel like we should hear a little bit of that one. Yes, we should. Anya, my antisocial queen. I want to say I discovered Inya in the, I think one of her songs,

or maybe several of her songs were used in the Steve Martin movie, L.A. story. It came out like 1990, 91, something like that. And I remember, like, could not rush to the record. store fast enough to find who this artist is because I, you know, I was just always stressed out then in my early 20s and I was school and everything and oh my gosh, how many times I reached for this song from Inya. Yeah, that era for me was when I was trying to write papers or whatever. Right. It was Enya and the Twin Peaks soundtrack.

Oh, that's a good one too. All around that same time, too, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So good. Watermark is the title track. So the album Watermark from Inya. That was number four.

Number five is Coldplay, Strawberry Swing. Then number six, Barcelona. Please don't go. Most relaxing songs. Top ten most relaxing songs here. Number seven, All Saints, Pure Shores. And then number eight, we've got Adele, someone like you. It's crazy to me.

I'm sorry. So sad. That's a really sad song. But it is a reminder, I think, and we're obviously in the midst of a political season. So it's a big year for people misinterpreting song lyrics. True. Interesting. I think that's a case of like that is a relaxing sounding song that is actually about romantic desperation.

I heard that you're settled down that you found a girl and you're married now. But also it could be a tearjerker too, right? And that crying could be a release and maybe that's part of it. Oh, believe me. I love a sad song. Don't get me, don't get me wrong. So that's Adele at number eight. And then at number nine, Mozart's Canzanatta Solaria.

I actually find opera very calming. I could see why it'd be fingers on a chalkboard to some people. But there used to be a show on a member station in Kansas that I used to listen to when I was in college called Opera is My Hobby. Makes me want to look it up to see if it. And it was on like every Friday night or Saturday night or something like that. And that was literally how I spent my evenings. In college, not going out, sitting home alone, listening to opera.

Raging to opera. Yeah, I tend to find opera more stirring. When I want to feel drama in my life, I'm putting in opera. Well, listen to this. You've got to do this. It's Omio Bambino-Caro. Honestly, I think. think I first heard this song in a car commercial.

But yeah, it really spoke to me. I really love it. I don't know. I think it's just gorgeous. So that's number nine was Mozart. And then number 10, Cafe Del Mar, we can fly. There was a quote from one of the researchers in the article, and I'm quoting this from Psychiatrist.com, sedative music is always going to have a slower tempo. I disagree.

Yeah, I don't necessarily agree with that. They go on to say, it's not going to have large leaps compositionally. It's not going to have any surprises. The music should have good predictability, but not be boring. She says as scientists, we want people to essentially be held, contained, and supported in the predictability of the music, no matter what the instrumentations are. I so don't think much of that is true at all. I mean, I do think if it's slower or ambient, I get how that can be relaxing. But what are some other songs that chill you out, but don't fall into that typical.

ambient, maybe predictable category. Yeah, so, I mean, one song for me is the Yoletango song, Our Way to Fall. Hazel, have you ever seen the Onion headline 37 record store clerks feared dead in Yolatango concert disaster? No. Oh, my God, I have to look that out. Interesting pick. I mean, I hear it now that I listen to it, but it's not like what I would immediately reach for.

No, I mean, everything in this story. song is so soft and beautiful and just like the pitter-patter of the drums. Ira's vocals are a whisper. Like they're very close to the mic. And I don't know, as Stephen mentioned in the beginning of this episode sort of like your personal connections to a song or like song as a old friend. And that's how I feel about this song. Like this is song as cozy sweater. This is song as like hug. Something about this song just completely envelopes me and relaxes me and totally takes me to a place of calm. Yeah, this is a go-to record for me too. My go-to track on this record is Tears Are In Your Eyes, which is probably more explicitly sad, which may be why I gravitate.

But man, I mean, this band has such a mix of soft groove paired with Old Friend. The songs are really, they speak to you very directly and they understand, if that makes sense. So I'm with Hazel 1,000% on this song. You know, also, this song does have a bit of a narrative. Like, it does have a bit of a drive. You know, it's a wistful, romantic song. It's about falling in love. And that doesn't take me out of my relaxing state.

I think this is a perfect example of a song that, that's, you know, relaxing and calms me down, but it also has personality. And it's not like blank slate spa music. It's not ambient music. And so that for me makes it kind of like a standout. Yeah, I totally hear it for sure. I'm not saying I don't hear any of that. And I just, my first thought wouldn't be, oh, I'm going to grab some Yolotanga.

But, I mean, now hearing this, it makes me think that I need to get that into rotation. I'm always doing that. I'm literally always wicking up with my cup of coffee. on a nice Sunday morning and I'm like, what do I want to listen to? I'm absolutely reaching for Yoletango like so often. Get into it, Robin. Stephen and I were just talking about how we should maybe do a show about the perfect Sunday morning record because like that's...

It's and then nothing turned itself inside. My go-to for Sunday morning is always Miles Davis is kind of blue because it has that sort of wake and slowly ease into the day feel to it. All right, Stephen. I mean, I think all of my remaining picks fall into the category of perfect Sunday morning hang. Maybe that's the show we're already doing and we didn't realize it. Maybe. We do need to take another quick break, but we'll be right back after this.

It's All Songs Considered from NPR Music. I'm Robin Hilton. I'm here with NPR Music Editor Hazel Sills and NPR Stephen Thompson, and we're playing music to slow the blood and calm the nerves. Well, what's another pick, Stephen? Well, every time I hear this song, it's a wellness check. And I know how I'm doing psychologically and perhaps psychiatrically. When I hear this song, how I react to one of the last verses in this song.

The song is called Hard Drive from 2021 by the singer Cassandra Jenkins. So these are real things that happen where you can apply these important concepts and understand that when we lose our connection to nature, we lose our spirit, our humanity, our sense of self. A security guard stopped me to offer an overview on phenomenal nature. She said sculpture is not just formed from penetration. You see, men have lost touch with the feminine, and with her pink lipstick and her queen's accent,

she went on for a while about our president. You know, the 7th Ray, knew about St. Germain. And he told me about chakras and karma and the purple flame. The birth of the cosmos, the ascended masters, and the astral plane. Yeah, Stephen, I almost picked the mind. It's just a hard dream. Yeah, Stephen, I almost picked the world. this song for this episode because this feels like more than a song to me. I feel like you describing it as sort of like a wellness check is such a great way to put it because to me this

feels like a meditation. Like it's, it's, there's something about Cassandra Jenkins sort of zooming in on these little stories of her and her friends going through life that feels so beautiful to me. And it's a song with, again, drive narrative, but takes me to such an incredibly soothing place. Yeah, Robin, I'm going to ask you to do me a favor. I'm going to ask you to play. So I was going to try to read the lyrics to this verse, and I realized that I absolutely cannot do it without crying.

Oh, man. Can you play, can do a needle drop for the verse that starts with the words, I ran into Perry at Lowell's Place. I ran into Perry at Loa's place. Her gemstone eyes caught my gaze. She said, oh dear, I can see you've had a rough few months. But this year, it's going to be a good one. I'll count a three and tap your shoulder.

We're going to put your heart back together. So all those little pieces they took from you, coming back now. They'll miss them too. So close your eyes. I'll count to three. Take a deep breath. There's something about her phrasing in that song, and particularly the way she embodies the character of her friend.

And the way she says the words, take a deep breath, count with me. It's so soothing and so helpful and so empathetic. You know, the song came out in 2021. which was a, you know, was a tough year for a lot of people. And it's about checking in with your friends. It's about friends who care about you. It's about being reminded of our interconnectedness

and our relationships with other people and how much they mean to us and how much they can help rebuild us. Whether we're going through a crisis or just muddling through. I've talked to so many friends who've had similar relationships with this song. I just cannot recommend. commend it highly enough. Great pick, Stephen. Again, that song is called Hard Drive by Cassandra Jenkins

from the album, An Overview on Phenomenal Nature. I'm so glad you picked that. I mentioned how there was a Mozart track in that top ten list that scientists came up with, and I thought, I want to play a song, I guess it's a classical song, that I know everyone is going to recognize the moment I play it, and I'll just hit it here. this is actually maybe

maybe my single all-time favorite song of all time I've certainly listened to this song way more than any other song in my life I wish I had a lifetime count of how many times I've listened to the song and I played on the piano too and I was a stretch

not long ago where I was playing it multiple times on the piano every night like I'd have dinner and I'd go down and I'd play it And I don't know, it has this very, very profound effect on me. That's really not quite like the way any other song hits me. I don't know if it's just like there's this intricate interweaving piano lines. The melody is just sublime. I mean, the melody is just so enchanting and calming.

There's this incredible build, you know, about halfway through the song, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger. And then there's this release as it comes back down to earth. And I don't know, it's all just glorious to me. I love the idea for you, Robin, because you are a pianist, you're able to self-soothe. Yeah, yeah. That playing an instrument, particularly an instrument with the capacity to really calm people, gives you a way to kind of, I don't know, give yourself the medicine you need when you need it.

Yeah, it's true. There have been so many times when I'm, like I said, gripping the armchair of life. chair of life. Yeah, and then I realize, you know what, I have not, I haven't given myself that time and space. And so I'll go to the piano and sit down and just play for 30 minutes or something. This is also, to me, like, you know, a beautiful song, but also kind of unpredictable, which again, to go back to that study, this is an unpredictable song.

And yet, you know, is so beautiful and grounding. And I feel like the ways in which it builds, like you said, Robin, are a part of its, you know, relaxing nature. Yeah, for sure. It has a real narrative arc to it to me. And I think that's a important part of this music that we love and that calms us is it takes you on that journey. It's leading you somewhere. It's like it takes you by the hand and it says, just come with me for a while. Trust me, you're going to love this journey. And then it brings you back and returns you to whatever space, hopefully, you know, better than you were when you left. So many versions of this song out there. This is a version by Ruth Laredo from her album, my first recital that came out in

1990. A CD that I picked up from the giveaway pile at a member station that I was working at in 1990, it have kept ever since. Hazel, we've come back to you. Do you have another one you want to share? So another song I wanted to play is the song Our Wretched Fantasy by the artist Rachika Nayar. It pains me so much to have to bring any of this music. down, but we had to at least get to this point where it kind of changes. I love all the little tinkling sounds in this cut so much. Yeah. I mean, what I love about this song is that it is quite unpredictable. I mean, it starts in a place that's kind of chaotic, like fuzzy, sputtering, distorted, electronica, and then there's this moment where the song drops and it kind of settles into this

relaxing melody that almost sounds kind of like a child's toy piano or something. something and Rachika is an experimental musician. She's also a guitarist, so there's some ambient guitar in there. And it's a really beautiful song to me, but I feel like there's something about the way that that song drops and sort of the journey that the song takes you on. It feels more than relaxing to me. It feels like there's like possibility. I feel a sense of possibility in this song, and I think that's what makes it relaxing to me. I think the reference you made Hazel to the sounding like an instrument a child might play. It wasn't immediately obvious to me, but the moment you said that, it made me realize, oh yeah, for sure, there's that sort of innocence in it

and a sense of play. And it takes you to that sort of headspace where you're free and you don't have to worry about all the things that you've come to worry about as you've grown older. Yeah, I think like when an artist sort of builds up a song and then like has it come down, that to be can be a moment of instruction. It doesn't have to be one note throughout the entire song or the song has to stay completely steady. And instruction without being this, like, hitting you on the head, obviously. You're like, okay, you know, like, we're now going to close our eyes and here's where we're going. I mean, the Clare de Loon is a little like that, too, right? It takes you and you trust it and it takes you to this place and then returns you. Yeah.

Stephen, I know you brought so much stuff that you want to play, but I'm going to hop in here with one of my picks that I think, you know, maybe isn't immediately obvious. And this was an idea I had. I was talking with NPR music's Otis Hart, and we agreed that radio heads, well, basically the entire album, Kid A, has that effect. But I want to play a song that opens it.

It's everything in its right place. Of course, everything in its right place. You know, I think what it is about this song, and there's so many that you could pick on this record, I think like Tree Fingers is a really great one, the title cut is a really great one. It's got this sort of hypnotic pulse that just keeps repeating and repeating, I guess validating some of what was in that study. But I think it's that it seems to acknowledge the darkness all around you, while also reassuring you that everything is in its right place.

It's okay. It's repetitive, but I think it's more the tone and the mood that it acknowledges and tries to fold all of that together into a single track and just does so beautifully. There's something about this that immediately when I hear it, my shoulders start to lower. I think of this as a strangely dystopian song, that it manages to be calming and unsettling at the same time. There's a quality to this song that feels very like, things aren't quite right. And yet, at the same time, the music and the vocal are so beautiful and so woozy that it does still relax me. I think it fits this brief, even though it's probably the least content song of any that we've picked.

Yeah, I feel like it's how you perceive this song or how you take this song in is whether, or not you truly believe in the earnestness of everything in its right place. Like, is that, you know, is that a good thing? Is that a bad thing? Like, there is sort of this ominous tone to the song? But I also think, you know, to its beauty, you could hear that as something meditative and, and relaxing. I think that's right, Hazel, exactly what you said about, it's all about how you take it. And, well, you know, like, as soon as if Stephen said dystopian, I thought, well, sure, but, you know, it's a beautiful dystop. But that's good.

I guess what it makes me think is something that I think a lot of people struggle with, and that is not being okay that things aren't okay, if that makes sense. Like, I think this is a song about how things aren't okay, but it's okay that things aren't okay. And I'm someone who struggles with that a lot when I see that things aren't okay. I try to find my way toward a space where I can understand that, you know, sometimes it's okay that things aren't okay. I don't know, Stephen, unless it just makes you want to run for the hills or something. Oh, I, no, I love this song. I come back to this song again and again and again. One of the things that's relaxing about it to me, I don't know, is that it's brilliant. It's just like a

brilliant piece of music. It's such a weird, it's such an interesting turn in this band's career. And I just come back to it again and again because it's so beautiful and beauty comforts me. Yeah, yeah, for sure. Everything in its right plays one of

Throw a Rock, you'll hit one great songs on, I think my favorite radio head album, actually, Kid A. My gosh, there's so much music that we could play crazy amounts of music. We're going to put all of these songs on the All Songs Consider Playlists that you can in Apple Music and Spotify, and maybe we'll throw a bunch of others on there that we didn't get to play.

But Stephen, we'll give you the honor of picking the last track that we'll play for this week's show. Yeah, boy, how to even narrow it down between two of my favorite singers of all time. One is the perfect Joan Shelley, a singer-songwriter from Kentucky who has the most soothing and comfortable voice I've maybe ever heard. She had a song called Easy Now in 2016 that was my, that was like literally a mantra that got me through a long, dark stretch. But I'm going to close out instead with, again, one of my favorite bands of all time, the group Clemsnide. And I've talked about Clemsnide on many an NPR program over these last 18 years that have been at NPR. It's one of the lullabies I sang to my children. It is a perfect song from 1998 from an album called You Were a Diamond.

The song is called Nick Drake tape. You know, Clemsonide, another band Stephen turned me on to, like 20 years ago. And the song that you told me to listen to was Find Love. Which you could also very easily have picked. I could have talked about Find Love, a perfect song. I could have talked about bread from your favorite music. I could have talked about when we become from the album End of Love. Just picking a Clemsnide song for this category,

even though Clemsnide has many songs that are not relaxing. This one that I came back to specifically for this reason, because it is about trying to calm someone down. So we'll go out on this thing, Clemsnide, Nick Drake Tape from You Were a Diamond. Thanks so much to both of you. This music was just so transporting, and I love just hanging out here with you and talking about it. So thanks so much.

Thank you. Thank you. And for NPR music, I'm Robin Hilton. It's all songs considered. Let Nick Trey tape you love. Tonight it sounds so good as brown can get. Sleep is what you should. So close your eyes.

I'll make you. side. And that phone call, I think it was your dad with a birthday wish to curse. We're too tired to get mad. So close your eyes.