i'm calling it early. welcome to e flat minor summer
It’s that time of year again! I’m going to randomly assign a key signature to the season, with only vibes to guide me, and you the reader are gonna be like, “Huh? Okay.”
So. ARE YOU MISERABLE? ARE YOU HAVING A TERRIBLE FUCKING YEAR? ME TOO! Let’s blast some songs in the key of the anxiety of the soul’s deepest distress, of brooding despair, of blackest depression, of the most gloomy condition of the soul. If ghosts could speak, they would do so in E flat minor, and this summer I think we should hear them out.
Just like last year, I have compiled a starter pack to help you celebrate this extremely important ongoing holiday. 24 songs for 2024. And because nobody likes to write or play songs in E♭ minor, this is pretty much all there is anyway.
#1: “B2B” - CHARLI XCX
Okay, you can’t entirely blame me for putting this summer in the ghost speech key, because the pop girlies started it. E♭ minor is weirdly good for unnervingly repetitive club jams, and doesn’t “I don’t wanna feel feelings” sum it all up?
#2: “HE KNOWS” - CAMILA CABELLO FEAT. LIL NAS X
The instrumentation here is downright creepy at times. You know, for a sex song. What are they doing to that guy?
#3: “ILLUSION” - DUA LIPA
Nobody liked Radical Optimism, it seems. That’s too bad.
#4: “SOUL CONTROL” - JESSIE WARE
Now we’re getting into slightly older stuff. If you are not familiar with Jessie Ware, perhaps become so!
#5: “ON THE FLOOR” - JENNIFER LOPEZ FEAT. PITBULL
Another dance song, though decidedly not a mindless one. JLO has given this almost too much thought. Every possible circumstance of The Floor is accounted for. And if she ain’t wrong, we’ll probably die on the floor. Brazil. Morocco. London to Ibiza…
#6: “I DIDN’T JUST COME HERE TO DANCE” - CARLY RAE JEPSEN
My favorite deluxe track on E•MO•TION, and a segue into the non-club part of the list.
#7: “SUPERSTITION” - STEVIE WONDER
E♭ minor is so tragically underutilized in modern music that I can point definitively to the best song ever composed therein. Here it is.
#8: “THE SOUND OF SILENCE” - SIMON & GARFUNKEL
Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those summers.
#9: “HOLLABACK GIRL” - GWEN STEFANI
Because sometimes this shit simply is bananas.
#10: “S&M” - RIHANNA
I mean, it was in the Challengers trailer.
#11: “MANIAC” - MICHAEL SEMBELLO
A Halloween staple, yes, but I’m more than happy to listen to this weird, scary song all year.
#12: “FEEL GOOD INC.” - GORILLAZ
A melancholy summer where we never smile. This next section of the list is about being BUMMED OUT.
#13: “SAIL” - AWOLNATION
Are we all done pretending we’re too good for “Sail” by AWOLNATION? Because I am. Also, this is the only song on the list where headphones are vital, because I realized recently that when the second verse starts, and Aaron Bruno goes, “Maybe I should cry for help, maybe I should kill myself, (I know I) blame it on my ADD, baby,” you cannot hear the “(I know I)” unless you’re listening through headphones. And I didn’t realize how much I loved “(I know I)” until I thought it had mysteriously vanished. I have not been diagnosed with ADD, so I’ll have to blame this oversight on something else.
#14: “SMILE LIKE YOU MEAN IT” - THE KILLERS
Hot Fuss is riddled with songs in E♭ minor, (which is why it rules) but this is the only one not about murdering your girlfriend, so it is the representative I have chosen.
#15: “SCREAM” - ZAC EFRON
The best song in the entire High School Musical franchise. Here’s the actual scene, which I implore you to watch, because seeing it in theaters in 2008 was a fucking religious experience. And these days, I sometimes do feel like Troy Bolton in that rotating hallway, and not just because I suffer from increasingly debilitating motion sickness.
#16: “REPLAY” - LADY GAGA
I swear to god I am not trying to plug the upcoming Chromatica Ball concert film. I don’t know if this song even qualifies as E♭ minor, because the tonic chord is E♭ major, and everything else is just flattened. But that makes it sound E♭ minoresque enough to me. The ghosts are speaking through that Diana Ross sample.
#17: “SOBER” - P!NK
P!nk’s 2008 album Funhouse opens with the seminal “So What”, wherein she casts off her husband (from whom she was separated at the time) because she’s still a rock star, she’s got her rock moves, and she doesn’t need him. And then literally one song later, she’s trying desperately not to crash and burn. “So What” established that she’s fine without a partner, and in “Sober”, she wants to be fine without drinking. Wants to be. She’s not quite there yet, but she’s taking the first step. And I appreciate the realism. You can’t just get rid of every vice at once.
#18: “PINK TRIANGLE” - WEEZER
Okay, we need a mood-lightener. Relatively speaking. This song is about Rivers Cuomo seeing a woman and immediately deciding he is in love with her, only for his hopes to be dashed when he realizes she has a pink triangle patch on her sleeve. And so the chorus begins with an anguished cry of, “I’M DUMB, SHE’S A LESBIAN.” Which is one of my favorite lyrics of all time. Like, yeah, man. You are dumb. She’s a lesbian. It’s so much fun, but in true E♭ minor fashion, it comes at the cost of someone’s happiness.
#19: “JUST A DREAM” - NELLY
I would like to make a case for this high school classic being one of the saddest songs ever written, actually. Try to listen to it with fresh ears if you can.
#20: “UNTIL YOU’RE MINE” - DEMI LOVATO
“Confident” is also in E♭ minor, and maybe it would’ve made more sense to put that on the list. But like, you know “Confident.” You’ve heard “Confident” a lot of times, probably. You might not know this gem from Demi’s (no skip) first album.
#21: “INDUSTRY BABY” - LIL NAS X FEAT. JACK HARLOW
I’m giving Lil Nas X two spots on this list because I love him, and because this song came out during B Minor Summer 2021, into which I obviously could not incorporate it. And I felt really bad about that. Clearly, this song was ahead of its time.
#22: “COLD AS ICE” - FOREIGNER
It’s just really funny to listen to this in the summer. Look, everybody hates this key. They can’t all be winners.
#23: “IN THE END” - LINKIN PARK
So, when Megan Thee Stallion released the rock remix of “Cobra”, featuring Spiritbox, I had a thought that I have shamefully never had before: I miss Linkin Park. I miss Linkin Park quite a lot, it turns out.
#24: “BULLETPROOF” - LA ROUX
“Superstition” is indisputably the best E♭ minor song, but this one is my favorite.
I have assembled a playlist of these songs for your convenience. I especially recommend listening in the following situations:
When you have to leave the beach early because a thunderstorm unexpectedly rolled in
When you go to a farm to pick strawberries and all the strawberries just kind of suck
When you go to a party and the only thing to drink is IPAs
During a heat advisory
During an air quality advisory
When you accidentally go to an amusement park or whatever on the same day as a large school or church group and the lines are really long
When you realize you haven’t seen an ice cream truck since 2009
To drown out the sound of any and all lawnmowers
On the way home from vacation