The Jenkins Family Top 25 of 2019
Hello! As we’ve done now since 2006, we’ve spent ample time listening to music as a family and arguing about what makes the list and defined our soundtrack of 2019. And now we’re ready to share them with you. But first… a recap of the year.
2019 was shaping up to be just any old year for the Jenk Fam. Then as the summer started, I guess we got bored and decided to introduce MASSIVE CHANGE in several areas. First, we bought a second home out on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. Nothing says “vacation home” like a 3-story Victorian built in 1900, just three blocks from the shores of the Mighty Choptank River in Cambridge, MD. As soon as we get across that bridge (which one can see as a traffic challenge or an opportunity to listen to more music), we find a totally different place where things are more relaxed and calm. It’s been good for all of us. We love the people, the coffee smoothies, being close to the water, and being regulars at RAR Brewing.
But no! That wasn’t enough, now was it? I guess we couldn’t go long without one of us being a Federal employee, so Amy made the leap to become a program manager at DARPA, coming up with projects that create and prevent strategic surprise (gotta hit them talking points). I’m immensely proud of her. While she’s out there doing her biosecurity thing, I’m still doing my cybersecurity thing from the comfort of home. I love my job and, most importantly, I really appreciate the people I get to work with. Did I mention I don’t have to commute anymore?
As the end of the year approached we just couldn’t leave well enough alone and be fine with what we had. So we decided to throw a new puppy into the mix for good measure. We welcomed Maybelle, a dark yellow lab with awesome white racing stripes, to the family in November. She’s cuter than a Baby Yoda and has been a great companion for me as I telework. It’s also clear that she will be a great friend to Etta … as soon as she stops treating Etta like a human squeaky toy. We can’t wait to watch the two of them grow up together.
Etta continues to regularly surprise us and bring her own level of manic (maniac?) joy into our lives. We are blessed with an incredibly happy and good-natured little girl and it’s great to see her get smarter and funnier with each passing day. She loves Cambridge, Girl Scouts, jokes, gymnastics, and art projects. Noah is still living with us at home, but he’s back in school and doing well. He’s learning what it’s like to be be a part of the workforce and we’re trying to get him to adult better whenever possible. We continue to keep our fingers crossed.
So thanks for reading this far. As usual, many of our experiences in 2019 are reflected in our music choices — from the trips across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and to National Parks, to the Etta-led dance parties, to the shows we watched and the board games we played (Wingspan… lots of Wingspan). Here was our Year in Music. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do.
Spotify Playlist
YouTube Playlist
Intro: “Can the Circle Be Unbroken” by The Carter Family
Since we are now old people, we genuinely look forward to new Ken Burns documentaries when they come out. When I found out that his newest one was going to be about Country Music, I was immediately skeptical and (frankly) disappointed. I mean, there’s so much more interesting stuff to do. Where’s my 30 hour documentary on the design, construction, and surrounding culture of the Interstate Highway System, Ken???
But we watched it anyway. And we loved it. I found that I really like this old music and it’s connections to the modern music I’ve listened to for years. I look forward to adding more Hank Williams, Willie Nelson, and the Carter Family to our music rotation. The Carters were so influential to us, we even named our puppy after Mother Maybelle Carter.
So now music has helped us name both our daughter and our fur daughter. Ain’t that something?
25. “It Rains Love” by Lee Fields & The Expressions
I don’t know how I found this song. I don’t know who Lee Fields is. I love his band’s name. This is simply a perfect song and I don’t even want to look for more of his music because I’m afraid it could never live up to this song.
24. “Lying Together” by FKJ
23. “Juicy Wiggle” by Redfoo
I’m telling you, Etta’s after school program listens to some weird music. We finally found the song online after weeks of Etta asking to listen to “Juicy We Go.”
And to connect back to Country Music, compare the opening of this song to the opening of Dolly Parton’s “9 to 5.”
22. “Father Mountain” by Calexico and Iron & Wine
21. “Sunflower” by Post Malone & Swae Lee
I don’t want to like a song from a guy with a face tattoo, but when your daughter requests it regularly and loved the Spider-Man movie, then I guess it ends up on the list. It’s… also a pretty good song.
20. “Hey Rosey” by The National
19. “Patience” by Tame Impala
18. “No Scrubs” by Weezer
I mean, this is just hilarious.
17. “Feathered Indians” by Tyler Childers
Honey tell me how your love runs true
And how I can always count on you
To be there when the bullets fly
I’d run across a river just to hold you tonight
16. “One Trick Ponies” by Kurt Vile
15. “The Dead Don’t Die” by Sturgill Simpson
A Sturgill song for a zombie movie that’s sort of about zombies, but actually just about death and the afterlife and how we deal with it? Perfect.
14. “Late Night Feelings” by Mark Ronson & Lykke Li
13. “Get Right Back To My Baby” by Vivian Greene
Etta and Amy got into roller skating quite a bit in 2019. Amy even drunk-ordered roller skates from Amazon one Friday night, which made for an amusing “what is this package?” game on Saturday afternoon. We ended up going to the Laurel Skating Center a few times this year, which is peak 80’s roller rink. They typically used a pretty standard current pop playlist that someone had set up. The music was fine, but it is exactly what you’d hear on a Top 20 station. [Side note on their regular playlist: Ariana Grande’s “thank u, next” is a perfect roller skating song.]
One Sunday afternoon at the rink, things were starting to slow down and there were only about four other folks skating. They were clearly regulars in their 30s or 40s, practicing skating backwards and other “cool skating moves.” Eventually one of them snuck over to the computer and changed the playlist, starting with this song. Which is another perfect roller skating song. This was followed by a couple of Chuck Brown Go-Go songs, some now-even-more-inappropriate-than-usual R. Kelly songs, and a couple more I didn’t recognize. The regulars were jamming out and having a great time and we’d been invited to their roller skating block party. It was magical.
Side note: This was my first Shazam Hat Trick (Shazaming three songs in a row while on skates).
12. “Golden Wings (Instrumental)” by Gabriel Garzon-Montano
We were listening to this song in Yellowstone’s Lamar Valley after watching the bison* roam around our cars and crossing the roads in front of us, and Etta noted that she thought this song sounded like bison walking around. It was a perfect match. We have a dance for it now and everything.
*Despite what the song says, they aren’t buffalo. They’re so bison that their scientific name is Bison bison.
11. “All My Happiness is Gone” by Purple Mountains
I’m a sucker for sad songs, and this is one of the saddest.
10. “NUN WITH A MOTHERF*&*ING GUN” by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross
I went into the Watchmen show totally prepared to be disappointed. Especially after the Zac Snyder movie. I was wrong. They really made something special with an absolutely incredible soundtrack. We’ll note that Etta says she hates it because it doesn’t have words (which is BS because see #12 on the list), but it does remind her of chasing the boys on the playground — which is like 100% perfect for a Sister Night song!
9. “Truth” by Mark Ronson, Alicia Keys, & The Last Artful, Dodgr
This whole album is a MOOD. Breakup music that you can dance to.
8. “Truth Hurts” by Lizzo
If you don’t like Lizzo you are dead inside.
7. “Sing Along” by Sturgill Simpson
Sturgill’s album this year was very different, sounding nothing like the classic country sound of his previous albums, but more like 70s rock. It’s a great road trip album. But while I like it, I also hope he comes back closer to his original sound at some point.
6. “Future Me Hates Me” by The Beths
One of the more clever, funny, and yet truthful songs I’ve ever heard. She essentially performs her risk analysis of the situation and then just goes, “Eff it. YOLO!”
5. “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” by The Carter Family
I literally cannot get this song out of my head. I heard it during the documentary and it has stuck with me and I just can’t shake it. It’s beautiful. It’s also this little quanta of tune that has been replicated all over the place since being popularized here by the Carters.
There’s this great story of how The Carter Family ended up being regulars on a radio show in the 1930s in Mexico. Why Mexico? Because the “doctor” that owned the station could avoid US laws that required radio stations to operate at lower power and remain regional. He set up a radio station just over the Texas border and cranked up the broadcast power so high that it overpowered US radio stations and allowed him to advertise his impotency treatment to men all across the US. What was his impotency treatment, you ask? Grafting sheep glands to your testicles to give you back your gumption.
Anyway, to advertise your miracle sheep gland grafting operation, you need some entertainment to draw in listeners. People aren’t going to just tune in to your radio station to hear stories of men getting their sexual potency back through the glory of sheep glands all day. So he hired The Carter Family and other country musicians of the time to come and play music between his ads. That drew in listeners from all over the country, such as a young Johnny Cash who would later marry Maybelle’s daugher June, exposing them to the music of the Carters. While also driving in patients that would pay good money to have sheep glands grafted to their testicles.
At the time, Sara Carter was divorced from Pleasant and hadn’t seen the man she’d had an affair with, Coy Bays (who was also her cousin… yeah, yeah hillbillies yada yada), in several years. Knowing that their voices carried all across America, Sara dedicates “I’m Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes” to Coy on a whim. Coy hears it in California — live! — and drops everything to go and get Sara in Mexico. It’s a crazy story, especially when you consider it was the 1930s and they didn’t have Facebook to find their lost loves. It was all thanks to a quack doctor that liked to graft sheep glands onto men’s testicles and his overpowered radio station.
4. “Where’s the Catch?” by James Blake & Andre 3000
In a thousand years, I never would’ve predicted that Amy would like this song. It’s the type of song I usually gravitate too (weird, but catchy in some way) and Amy can’t stand. Kind of like this year’s Bon Iver album. But she loves this song. I still don’t understand this woman. I guess it keeps things fresh.
3. “Borderline” by Tame Impala
We spent most of 2019 waiting for a Tame Impala album to drop, and we ended up with two songs from that still-unreleased album on the list. Now that it drops in 2020, I guess we’ll have to see if their luck continues.
2. “Highwomen” by The Highwomen
We were pretty stoked about the idea of The Highwomen, and were very excited to hear their take on “Highwayman,” the #2 song on the 2007 list thanks to a trip that Amy and Noah took out to Yellowstone with Jessica. Fast forward to 2019 and Etta now has her own version of the song that we listened to on a family trip to Yellowstone with Jessica ending up at #2 on the list. You can’t make this stuff up.
Side note: Etta refers to these songs as the “Boy Version” and the “Girl Version,” each with their own interpretive dances.
1. “Here With Me” by Marshmello & CHVRCHES
Another song sourced by Etta and the first time one of her songs makes the top of the list. Quite the accomplishment at age 6. It helps that it’s sung by an old Jenk Fam favorite in CHVRCHES. It was also comforting that she realized she liked this herself vice us pushing a song on her. Clearly we’re raising a kid with good taste.
Outro: “Will the Circle Be Unbroken” by Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
Bringing it full circle.
See what I did there?
Happy Holidays and good luck in 2020!
