15. Phoebe Bridgers - “Smoke Signals”

This jam is a realization of love. It’s not love at first sight, or some dramatic and sudden Hollywood-esque moment of realization, but rather a slow and enchanting drift into an unknown gravity. It’s the sort of love that sneaks up on you despite its pace, and that’s because it feels so natural, sort of like the growing of one’s hair and nails, one day it exists, too expansive to be ignored any longer. It’s almost as if it takes the slow erosion of time in order to recognize its existence, and then before you know it, the walls that were erected in response to the past are slowly crumbling. The heart begins to soften and let down its guard, coming out of hibernation to acknowledge its surroundings and reclaim the ability to feel.

It’s a beautiful sensation, sort of like a young forest emerging from the ashes of an old one. It’s nourished from experience, birthed from the barren confines of the past to begin anew, strengthened rather than hampered by the memory of what once was. Somehow this song manages to do that beauty justice. It captures the sensation with muddled clarity, translating the emotion into sound and mixing it with memory until it becomes your own. It communes directly with the soul, and in doing so portrays a version of love more accurate than any Hollywood film could ever manage.