Happy last Monday of 2025, folks! It’s been a helluva year, I think we can all agree, and I’ll be glad to see the back of it. But there were a lot of songs I listened to pretty much on repeat this year, such as the following:

1. The Wallflowers, “It’s a Dream”: I love the rhythm of this song and the interior rhymes Jakob Dylan throws into it. And that’s a great chorus, too.
2. Lord Huron, “Meet Me In The Woods”: I apparently have listened to this song about 50 times this year, and I only first hear the album in…August? September? Geez.
3. Langhorne Slim, “House Of My Soul (You Light The Rooms)”: This song lights to rooms in the house of my soul.
4. Matt Berninger, “Little By Little”: I loved this album and I love this song. It just has such great momentum and a catchy melody that I can’t stop humming to myself.
5. Bob Dylan, “Red River Shore”: Why does this song feel more like a relic of a past century than something Dylan penned in 1997? And yes, I realize 1997 was last century, but you know what I mean. This feels like a song that has always existed, not one Dylan conjured from the aether while working on Time Out of Mind.
6. Mon Rovia, “Heavy Foot”: It’s a simple political song masquerading as a stomp-clap-hey song.
7. Chris Smither, “Origin Of Species”: Satirical look at the ascent of man through a warm, folky groove.
8. Glen Phillips, “Go”: Just one of the most affecting songs I’ve heard in recent years. It’s beautiful and haunting and moving.
9. Bob Dylan, “Boots Of Spanish Leather”: One of the saddest early Dylan songs, if you ask me. There’s no bitterness in it; the bitterness came later, I think. There’s just a resigned sadness in it.
10. Hurray For The Riff Raff, “Snake Plant (The Past Is Alive)”: It’s amazing what you can do with just two chords.