Some songs are time machines. Press play and you’re fifteen in the backseat again.

Music gets stored alongside whatever was happening while you listened, so a few seconds of a song can hand back an entire season of your life. That is memory being generous rather than cruel. It is also quiet evidence that ordinary days are being recorded even while they feel like nothing much.

Pay attention to which songs do this for you and what they carry back. Keep a short playlist of the ones you are glad to revisit. And notice what is playing now, because this is the music that will return you to this year.