Timeless Moods

🎵 Listen now: Timeless Moods on Amazon Music

How I Built the Perfect Playlist (for me)

Some playlists come together in an afternoon. This one took all day — and I wouldn’t change a thing.

It started simply enough. I had three songs I kept coming back to: Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, Brothers in Arms by Dire Straits, and Silent Running by Mike + The Mechanics. Three long, atmospheric, emotionally rich tracks that shared something I couldn’t quite put into words. A mood. A feeling. That sense of sitting alone with your thoughts and not minding one bit. But I didn’t want a playlist with just three songs…so I started thinking.

I wanted more of that feeling and so, the building of the playlist began.

The Idea

The goal wasn’t to make a “greatest hits” playlist or a “classic rock” playlist, I already have those. It was something more specific — I wanted a playlist I could sit down, close my eyes, and just escape with. A dreamland where emotions run high, where there’s sadness, anger, happiness, and ultimately a place to just drift away from the world for a while. Songs that wash over you. Capture you with deep feelings. Songs where the guitar solo hits and time just stops. Melancholic but not (too) depressing (the jury is out on that one). Epic but not bombastic. Timeless.

What emerged over hours of adding, swapping, debating and rearranging is Timeless Moods — a growing collection of music spanning six decades, from Procol Harum in 1967 to The Offspring’s reimagined piano ballad of Gone Away released in 2021.

The Sequences That Surprised Me

The best thing about building a playlist is when the songs start talking to each other in ways you didn’t plan.

Take this run early in the playlist: Silent Running flows into Don’t Dream It’s Over, which flows into Drive, which flows into Fast Car. I didn’t notice it at first, but every one of those songs is about escape — fleeing danger, refusing to give up, driving away to somewhere better. A complete story arc hiding in plain sight.

Or the centrepiece: Estranged by Guns N’ Roses into Since I’ve Been Loving You by Led Zeppelin into Moonlight Mile by The Rolling Stones into Fell on Black Days by Soundgarden into Nothing Else Matters by Metallica into Dream On by Aerosmith. That’s nearly 40 minutes of slow-burning, emotionally devastating music back to back. The heart of the playlist — and it hits hard every time.

The Closing Stretch

Then there’s the ending. The final four songs are The Crystal Ship by The Doors, Gone Away (Piano Version) by The Offspring, Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley, and The River by Bruce Springsteen.

What I didn’t realize until I listened through was that The Crystal Ship opens with the line: “Before you slip into unconsciousness.” It’s like the playlist gives you permission to let go completely — and then Gone Away, Hallelujah and The River just finish you off in the most beautiful way possible.

The playlist opens with Tears for Fears singing “Welcome to your life, there’s no turning back” and closes with Springsteen asking “Is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?” I didn’t plan those bookends. They just happened. But I think somewhere in my subconscious I wanted it that way — a playlist that begins with life’s possibilities and ends with its hardest questions.

I have included the full track listing below and a link to the Amazon Playlist if you want to check it out.

The Full Playlist

45 songs, 3 Hours 30 Minutes

1. Everybody Wants To Rule The World – Tears for Fears
2. Enjoy the Silence – Depeche Mode
3. Comfortably Numb – Pink Floyd
4. Brothers in Arms – Dire Straits
5. Silent Running – Mike + The Mechanics
6. Don’t Dream It’s Over – Crowded House
7. Drive – The Cars
8. Fast Car – Tracy Chapman
9. You Are So Beautiful – Joe Cocker
10. I Want to Know What Love Is – Foreigner
11. Wicked Game – Chris Isaak
12. Mad World – Gary Jules
13. Dreamer – Ozzy Osbourne
14. Estranged – Guns N’ Roses
15. Since I’ve Been Loving You – Led Zeppelin
16. Moonlight Mile – The Rolling Stones
17. Fell On Black Days – Soundgarden
18. Black – Pearl Jam
19. Nothing Else Matters – Metallica
20. Dream On – Aerosmith
21. The Show Must Go On – Queen
22. Behind Blue Eyes – The Who
23. Wind of Change – Scorpions
24. Dust in the Wind – Kansas
25. In the Air Tonight – Phil Collins
26. Glycerine – Bush
27. Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd
28. Mainstreet – Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
29. Hotel California – Eagles
30. Landslide – Fleetwood Mac
31. Fire and Rain – James Taylor
32. If You Could Read My Mind – Gordon Lightfoot
33. A Face in the Crowd – Tom Petty
34. And It Stoned Me – Van Morrison
35. Right Down the Line – Gerry Rafferty
36. Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door – Bob Dylan
37. Blackbird – The Beatles
38. Time in a Bottle – Jim Croce
39. Imagine – John Lennon
40. A Whiter Shade of Pale – Procol Harum
41. The Crystal Ship – The Doors
42. Sound of Silence – Disturbed
43. Gone Away (Piano Version) – The Offspring
44. Hallelujah – Jeff Buckley
45. The River – Bruce Springsteen

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Listen to Timeless Moods on Amazon Music. Best enjoyed with headphones, a comfortable chair, and nowhere to be for a while. Make sure to follow the playlist so Alexa can find it next time you want to listen!

Enjoy!

Have a playlist or songs you enjoy? Drop them below! 🙂