Set Yourself on Colors
You’re in traffic on a Monday morning, or sitting at a desk watching your coffee get cold, or standing on a platform waiting for a train that’s running late. That specific heaviness is all the moment has to offer. The weekend is completely gone now, already turning into fiction in your head, and there’s still the whole rest of the week ahead.
Music is supposed to help with this, but most of it makes it worse. Upbeat stuff is insulting. Sad stuff is just surrender. What you need is something that understands the texture of Monday morning without trying to fix it.
I put together a mixtape for that feeling. Nothing elaborate, just songs that know what they’re doing. Agnes Obel has this quality where her voice doesn’t demand anything—it just sits there, honest and quiet. Two Door Cinema Club understands the rhythm of moving through a day without pretending the day is going anywhere. Bat for Lashes. The whole thing’s called Set Yourself on Colors,
which is a strange title for something mostly about grey and dread, but the songs prove it works.
Does having the right music on Monday change anything? The day’s still the same. The work’s still there, the fatigue’s real. But it changes how you feel while you’re standing in it. You’re not less tired, but you’re less angry about being tired. That’s something.