Happy Monday, folks! It’s a weird week here in Northern Virginia (they’re really all weird weeks, if we’re honest), with no school for me tomorrow due to a special election. Here’s a playlist to get us through it all.

1. Massive Attack and Tom Waits, “Boots on the Ground”: A collaboration I didn’t know I want that uses a great extrapolation of “The Earth Died Screaming.” Love it and want more.
2. Paul McCartney, “Rinse the Raindrops”: Realized over the weekend that McCartney went through a pretty experimental phase in the early 2000s. This song is 10 freakin’ minutes long and only features one verse, but it never sits still and never gets boring.
3. Thundercat, “Anakin Learns His Fate”: Dude fuckin’ rips it on the bass and writes some of the smoothest jams I’ve heard in a long while. Also, he’s clearly more than a bit of a nerd.
4. The Pauls, “Beyond Bourbon”: Buddy from work’s band doing an original song of theirs. It’s a cool little barroom weeper.
5. Gillian Welch, “Red Clay Halo”: I’m an Okie. I know from red dirt. So does Gillian Welch, apparently.
6. Sting, “When The Angels Fall”: I always felt like this song was a suitably epic way to end the Soul Cages album. I also think the song meant more to me (or felt like it did) when I was in college, when everything feels like it means something more than it probably really does.
7. Wilco, “Jesus, Etc.”: Still one of my favorite songs off of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which remains one of the best albums of the past thirty or so years.
8. Jars of Clay, “Grace”: I still go back to this album every so often, and everything from the way they structure the songs to the harmonies and instrumental solos gets me every time.
9. Jimmy Reed, “Ain’t That Loving You Baby”: Sometimes, you just need a little dirty blues. Today is one of those times.
10. Rilo Kiley, “I Never”: Hard to imagine this band would try to pull off some blue-eyed soul, but they do it anyway.