Hey everybody, it's me Gunnar again! So I mentioned last week on twitter that I was working on some media about a playlist of songs that have been important to me throughout my life and career. I am happy to say that I have finished writing it up, but I decided to just put it here on my blog instead of figuring out some other place to post it. These are songs that are important to me, and some songs that are tied so strongly to a place and a time or a person that listening to them feels like it just takes me back in time. I think everybody has those songs (or at least, anybody who appreciates music the way I do, which I know I am not unique in), but here is a short list of my own. For the most part, this list is going to start with early memories and work its way back to the present, so just bear that in mind when you judge my musical tastes (I'm kidding, I don't care if you judge my taste in music, I firmly believe that's something very personal and important to everybody and that everyone should love the music they love regardless of what anybody else thinks about it).

ANYWAY, without further nonsense, here is the playlist!

Andromeda - kent
Du kan komma dit du vill om du tror på det
So, this is just a song that always reminds me of when I was a teenager and my dad had control of the playlist for warmups. My dad loves kent more than he loves like, anything, except maybe hockey, and they’re more his thing than my thing but this song always takes me back, and that one line really just comes back to me when I’m feeling down. I’m getting a tattoo this next off season and it’s between this lyric and one other one I’ll talk about later in the playlist.

With You - CAIRO
Took my first step in British Columbia
Ah, this one hits really hard. I put this on in the dark and it’s like time rewinds and suddenly I’m in Kelowna, this fresh-faced rookie with no idea what was waiting for him. I also definitely fell pretty hard for uh…both of my roommates that season, so I spent a lot of time listening to this song and generally pining kind of pathetically. I think it’s okay to admit that now, I’m pretty sure they both figured it out at some point anyway, and I think they’re both back in Russia now. Uh, Dima and Sasha, if you’re reading this, surprise, I was definitely in love with you at one point.

Coast to Coast - Houndmouth
Ain't nobody comin' back for you and me
‘Cause honey we ain't got no political personality
This was another one that I listened to a lot those early days in Kelowna, and made it onto the pump up playlist for practice. I just remember absolutely blazing the full length of the ice hearing this guy on this song going “COOOOOOAST TO COOOOOOOOAST” and feeling really pumped up just from skating real fast. I don’t think this song is actually about hockey but it sure does fit. He also says “goin’ down to the blue line” in there somewhere, so I always end up putting it on my hockey playlists.

Running Back to You - For The Foxes
To keep the light on, honey, is the least that I can do
If I keep running back to you
This is maybe the most time-travel-y song on this playlist for me because depending on what I’m feeling nostalgic about, this song seems to be able to take me back to any of it. I swear it makes me feel everything I’ve ever felt for every person I’ve ever been in love with or had a crush on all at once. Some of those I have already talked about, and some of them are feelings that will never see the light of day or be spoken aloud, but god, this song just wraps me up in all of them at once.

Ready to Go - Bronze Radio Return
Now I'm standing here hungry, and I'm ready for action
I think this is maybe a love song? But it’s mostly just been a song to get pumped up for games for me. There’s not a particular person I think about when I listen to it, it just gets me in my game headspace and it’s been part of my game day ritual for so long that it would be weird if it wasn’t on this playlist.

I'm Gonna Wait - The Temper Trap
And so the last page shall remain
Empty until you write the rest
I’ve spent a lot of my life waiting for things I may not ever get. This one is about people, about things, about a general state of mind, about finding the like…mental grace, I guess, to find beauty in the waiting instead of letting it define your existence, even when it sometimes feels like waiting is all you ever do.

Goodbyes - Post Malone feat. Young Thug
There's no way I could save you
‘Cause I need to be saved, too
I’m no good at goodbyes
I listened to this song on repeat for like a week after I got traded because that’s the kind of melodramatic dumbass I am. I think it’s a song about a guy who is in a bad relationship but can’t break it off, but so much of it resonated for me after I first got traded from Tampa. I didn’t realize it at the time but I absolutely was building myself up in my head to be this cornerstone rebuilding block because I was so sure that was my role to play, and then it suddenly wasn’t, and I had to spend some time in my own head letting go of all the things I’d been preparing for my life to be.

Yesterday Must Die - Missy Higgins
So when the ending, it breaks you
Let the sadness transform you
And something new and beautiful grows
But yesterday must die
Before tomorrow can be born
And this is the immediate follow up to the wallowing in Post Malone. A lot more midnight lying awake and soul-searching happened to this song. I know that lyric there is pretty long but every second of this song was so powerful for me when I was going through the process of pulling up all the old roots in Tampa and putting new ones down in Chicago. Looking back, it couldn’t be truer. I have found something so amazing in Chicago, I have been so overwhelmed with how my heart has taken to this place after I was genuinely devastated when I got here, and I had to let go of the stuff not meant for me before I could see it.

Flesh And Bone - The Killers
And time is raging, may it rage in vain
And you always had it, but you never knew
Taking a break from the really emotional word vomit to just throw in another one of my big songs that just make me feel good about hockey. This one is, I think, actually about boxing, maybe, but it just really feels like hockey to me, there’s so much physical imagery in it and it builds up to that really dramatic sweeping final bit and it never fails to get me pumped up. Also part of my game day ritual playlist.

Wish That You Were Here - Florence + The Machine
And I never minded being on my own
Then something broke in me and I wanted to go home
To be where you are
I was in a long-distance relationship for a long time. I played for Tampa for most of it and he was (and still is) in Minnesota, so we didn’t get to see each other all that often, and this song gave me a lot of feelings. It didn’t work out, but I can listen to this song and it just hits me pretty hard.

Glory - The Score
"I'm a name that you'll remember
I am more than just a thrill
I am gonna be the greatest ever, now
Watch out, I'm a force that you will fear"
Now for some fun stuff. I made a playlist for our cup run this past season and I have a couple songs from there that I’ve put on here as well because they were especially motivational for me. This was a big one. I would put my headphones on and just absolutely blast this before games, especially those game sevens. I don’t know how you can listen to this song and not feel like you’re destined for greatness.

Young Stars - The Struts
I never gave up, I never gave in
I kept on running 'cause I knew I'd win
'Cause I was born for it, I was ready to go
This is the other one from the playoffs playlist I made that also just became really important to me personally. Full disclosure, I listened to this on repeat for like a week after we won the cup. All the lyrics are so great and I just wanted to play it out loud and drive around town in a convertible with the top down and scream along with this at the city (I did not do this, mainly due to the lack of availability of a convertible at the time of that impulse).

Din Tid Kommer - Håkan Hellström
Res dig efter varje smäll
Du har en ängel på din axel
Din tid kommer
Din tid kommer
Okay. Let’s get into the really gritty shit. This song is maybe one of the most important songs to me personally that I’ve ever had on any playlist. You may have noticed this is where I pulled my title for my Players’ Tribune piece. I’ve listened to this song when I’m at my absolute lowest, I’ve listened to it when I’m feeling hopeful, and I’ve listened to it when I was lying on my bed in the drunken afterglow of winning a cup and patting myself on the back for being as patient as I had to be to get to where I wanted to be. This is the other one I’m debating for my tattoo, because it truly has gotten me through some stuff.

Low - The Slow Show
This is all you, all you know
Always, always low
But it breaks to see it, though
You're getting old, boy
Getting old, boy
So, I could have put this song back in the part of the playlist where I was talking about the sad shit I’ve been through, because this playlist is more or less chronological as far as the points in my career when I discovered these songs and they’ve been important to me. But I saved this one for now because my view on it has kind of shifted. I listened to this song a lot after playoffs losses, especially season-ending ones. It’s one of those songs that helped me get out the sad shit when I was having trouble letting myself let it out. And for a long time it was a song I just listened to when I was feeling down. But over time, it’s sort of become…a song for me coming to peace with my own limitations and the places I’m going to go and the places I may never get to. It’s less of a sad song for me now and more of a bittersweet thing, and I think the song itself actually really reflects that in the way it builds up to that really positive sounding ending after the rest of the song is so…well, depressing. I’m getting old, and that’s okay.

Only Son of the Falling Snow - Bear’s Den
And you’ll say “where do you go wandering?
Where do you go?
Where do you go wandering?”
Well I, I am the only son
Of the falling snow
I listen to this song when I feel homesick, and it makes me feel better. It’s a song that I really relate to personally because…well, I come from a pretty snowy place, and I am in fact my parents’ only son, and he talks about his sister helping raise him in the song and I have six sisters who helped raise me. It’s just one of those songs where I listened to it for the first time and thought…wow, did these guys write a song about me?

Tror jag hitter hem - Lars Winnerbäck
Så det finns mycket trolleri kvar
Nu gör vi om allting igen
Släpp mig varsomhelst
Jag tror jag hittar hem
I saved this song for last because it’s probably the most recent one I’ve been listening to a lot. I listened to it a lot when I went home to Luleå with the cup, and it got really close to my heart. I think as I’m coming to terms with the fact that I am much closer to the end of my career than I am to the beginning, all these songs about home and knowing where you belong start to become more important to me. I still have a lot left in me to give, though, hockey still has that magic for me, I’m still not ready to stop playing, and I don’t think I will be especially soon. And the whole idea of this song just means so much to me because I’ve been so many places in my life, lived so many different places, and we go through this cycle of hockey seasons over and over again, working for different results, adding new pieces, going new places, but at the end of it all, I think that I have myself figured out to the point that I could be anywhere and find my way back to the things and people who are important to me.


So that’s it, that’s the playlist. I hope everybody enjoyed this special edition of my blog, and I will of course be back with an update at the end of the regular season as usual!

Be well, be safe, be happy.
-Gunnar



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