My Gen X Playlist for 2025

Songs to listen to at The End of the World as We Know It

Photo by ActionVance on Unsplash

I don’t have a good ear for music, which is too bad for someone married to an audio engineer with a recording studio in the attic. But I still love music for its ability to affect and intensify mood. Sometimes, listening to the right music is enough to draw me out of a funk.

There is no music stirring enough to fix my dark mood as my country sinks into fascism, but recall that we have been through dark times before. We even survived a civil war. To survive, you must carry on. And sometimes that might mean trying to feel a little bit better with music.

This is my list. People of different ages who like other styles of music will have their own, and should share them in the comments. We could all use a good playlist right now, right?

Do You Hear the People Sing?

From Les Misérables

I have never been able to actually see this play, but of course I’ve read Victor Hugo’s book and have seen the movies. Despair has led me to this song many times, but it’s even better now: The U.S. Army Chorus had the absolute balls to perform a version at the White House Governors Ball. It probably went over the head of the one to whom it was addressed. This song stirs my blood and reminds me we still have things in this country worth fighting for. (There are many versions of this, but the link below is from a performance of 17 Jean Valjeans from around the world. I chose this version because it implies the union of all freedom-loving people. If it doesn’t make you cry you have no heart.)

Song

Full Lyrics

Do you hear the people sing?

Singing the song of angry men?

It is the music of the people

Who will not be slaves again!

When the beating of your heart

Echoes the beating of the drums

There is a life about to start

When tomorrow comes

Running the World

Jarvis Cocker

One of my husband’s quirks is that when we see a movie in the theater, we must stay and read all the credits. He sees it as honoring their work. So it was that when we saw Children of Men in 2006, I heard the song Running the World and lost my mind. It was my introduction to Jarvis Cocker. Don’t play this song around young children unless you want to teach them a new word. (Incidentally, that movie is set in 2027. Make of that what you will.)

Song

Full Lyrics

Now the working classes are obsolete

They are surplus to society's needs

So let 'em all kill each other

And get it made overseas

It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

R.E.M.

Well, you knew this one was coming. Who doesn’t love R.E.M.? And what other song is so damn upbeat about darkness? Well, there is, of course, another favorite song of mine, The Jim Carroll Band’s manically upbeat People Who Died. But that’s another song for another list.

Song

Full Lyrics

… Team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped

Look at that low plane, fine, then

Uh oh, overflow, population, common group

But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself

World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed

Tell me with the Rapture and the reverent in the right, right

You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light

Feeling pretty psyched

Anticipation

Carly Simon

I recently started noticing that this song often plays in the background of my mind as I walk my dogs. Not necessarily all the lyrics, but the words that repeat multiple times at the end: These are the good old days. Indeed they are. I am afraid that soon enough, the days we are experiencing right now will be the ones we long for and wish we’d paid more attention to at the time. So I’m paying attention now. Are you?

Song

Full Lyrics

I'm no prophet and I don't know nature's ways

So I'll try and see into your eyes right now

And stay right here 'cause these are the good old days

Three Little Birds

Bob Marley & The Wailers

Song

Full Lyrics

Haven’t you ever muttered these lyrics to yourself during a bad time? Well, I sure have.

“Don’t worry about a thing

‘Cause every little thing is gonna be alright.”

Working Class Hero

John Lennon

Back in the CD era, I used to listen to the same Beatles album at work constantly, until one of my friends begged me to please listen to someone else. “No problem,” I said. I removed the Beatles CD from the drive in my computer and popped in … John Lennon. She was not amused. Or happy with me.

Song

Full Lyrics

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV

And you think you're so clever and classless and free

But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see

A working class hero is something to be

A working class hero is something to be

About Michelle Teheux

I’m a writer in central Illinois. If you like my work, subscribe to me here and on Medium. My new book is Strapped: Fighting for the soul of the American working class. And yes, those are my husband’s actual boots on the cover! My most recent novel is The Trailer Park Rules. If you prefer to give a one-time tip, I accept Ko-fi.

Did you know that originally the term “bootstrapping” was used sarcastically to describe an impossible task? Yet now, the meaning has morphed into the opposite.

I invite you to give it a try. Reach back, grab your bootstraps and pull with all your might. How did that work out for you?

There’s a reason we tell people to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps even though we know it can’t be done. It’s one of the ways people in power keep the rest of us from complaining that we’re being screwed. We keep trying and trying and blaming ourselves when we have trouble. Of course we blame ourselves. Who else can we blame?

This is not a self-help book because you cannot single-handedly fix what’s wrong with the system by working harder or working smarter. There’s a good possibility that some of your problems are out of your hands.

This book was not written for the top 10 percent or for anyone who had life handed to them on a silver platter.

Instead, this book is for every working-class, lower-class and even middle-class person who has done everything right but still feels strapped.