So the summer is over.

Since abandoning what once felt like a normal life to embark on this weird voyage into the unknown, I often feel as though I live in a strange bizarro-world.

The life of a musician is a little like living on the off-beat.

As most people step to the traditional 1s and 3s of life’s weekly rhythm—early rises, school runs, lunch breaks, 5pm finishes, Friday drinks, and Sunday fry-ups—I find myself on the 2s and 4s.

My Friday night is everybody else’s Sunday night. My weekends happen on Monday and Tuesday. My morning commute usually takes place around 5 or 6pm.

And summer is no different.

As the rest of the world enjoys long bank holiday weekends, trips abroad, or a break from school and the office, I gear up for the most intense months of the year.

This summer I’ve been in London, Newcastle, Windermere, Leicestershire, and seemingly everywhere in between.

I’ve played bars in the Northern Quarter to nobody, a legal temple where Shakespeare debuted Twelfth Night for James I, an Oasis-themed fan experience broadcast live on Japanese TV, and even an Anglo-American private members’ club once presided over by Sir Winston Churchill.

It’s been a wild ride—a cocktail of sleep deprivation, sore throats, technical disasters, service-station coffees, and questionable buffets.

And a lot of fun, obviously.

So, in September, when normal service resumes for most people, I generally feel as though I’m nursing a month-long hangover.

Like I’ve woken up at 3pm surrounded by stale cigarettes and broken bottles, not quite remembering who or where I am.

With that in mind, I wanted to share my top five songs for the morning after.

Tender tunes for sore heads and gentle anxiety.

Songs that capture the feeling of re-emerging from the chaos and catching that first glimpse of yourself in a dirty mirror.

Let me know what I’ve missed—I love getting your suggestions after lists like these. They always give me great things to go away and listen to.

The Boxer — Simon and Garfunkel

I have squandered my resistance
For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.

Paul Simon writes great character songs, and this one is no different. A poor boy arrives in New York to make his fortune with his fists; the boxer embodies the broken side of the American Dream. Whores on Seventh Avenue, the hush of railway stations, the poorer quarters where the ragged people go, New York winters that bleed you like a knife. Sublime storytelling with a chorus so heartbreaking it doesn’t even need words—a reflection on hope, broken promises, and a life retold in the cold light of day.

Sunday Morning Coming Down — Kris Kristofferson

Then I headed back for home
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin’
And it echoed through the canyons
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday

If this were just a list of songs about hangovers, this would probably be the only entry I'd need (maybe I'd add Margaritaville by Jimmy Buffett, though that’s more a song about still being drunk). Kristofferson has long been one of my favourite songwriters—criminally underrated in this country. Rhodes Scholar, fighter pilot, movie star, rock legend, poet, painter: he’s probably one of the coolest men ever to live. Certainly, no one else has ever captured lonely despair quite like he does here. Because “there’s nothing short of dying half as lonesome as the sound of a sleeping city sidewalk and Sunday morning coming down.”

I Hope That I Don’t Fall in Love with You — Tom Waits

Now it’s closing time, the music’s fading out
Last call for drinks, I’ll have another stout
Well, I turn around to look at you, you’re nowhere to be found
I search the place for your lost face, guess I’ll have another round
And I think that I just fell in love with you

Waits is the master of late-night bar songs, and I’ve always loved this one. As a perennially single romantic with commitment issues, it really speaks to me. The song tells the story of spotting a beautiful girl across the bar at closing time and becoming instantly infatuated. As the bell rings and the final beers are poured, you obsess over who she might be, what you together could become, and ultimately how she might break your heart. The song ends just as you light one last cigarette, summon all the courage you have left, and head across the room—only to find she’s already gone. In many ways it’s about the perfect sort of love affair: one that never happens in the first place.

One Day Like This — Elbow

Drinking in the morning sun
Blinking in the morning sun
Shaking off a heavy one
Yeah, heavy like a loaded gun
What made me behave that way?
Using words I never say
I can only think it must be love
Oh anyway, it’s looking like a beautiful day

I still don’t really know much about Elbow. Because they’re from near where I live and have a vaguely medical name, I always resisted listening to them—it felt too on the nose. But this tune, even I haven’t managed to escape. It’s full of my favourite musical tricks: staccato strings on octave notes, a slow build of beautiful, booze-soaked poetry, and a refrain you could sing forever.

Famous Blue Raincoat — Leonard Cohen

Ah, the last time we saw you, you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You’d been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili Marlene
And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody’s wife

It’s four in the morning at the end of December. A mysterious voice writes a letter to his former friend about a strange affair. What’s not to like?

Cohen’s lyrics are so rich they stand up to the kind of scrutiny usually reserved for literature, and this song is no exception. It's the sort of shadowy dramatic monologue Robert Browning would be proud of. It’s been pored over by Cohenites for decades, and every time I hear it I find a new line to obsess about, never quite solving the puzzle. Weary and resigned, quiet and bitter—everything you need when you’re contemplating your own existence.

Those are my five. But please, do get in touch with yours.

Enjoy the end of summer.

And, as ever...

Keep dreaming.

Rob