If I can just get my act together, I’ll be posting the list of my favorite albums of 2019 any day(?) now. In the meantime, though, here’s a long list of the songs that, well, got to me this year.
- “Ain’t Got No Money” – Justin Townes Earle
- “All Your’n” – Tyler Childers
- “Allé Sauvage” – Beak>
- “American Dream” – J.S. Ondara
- “Armageddon’s Back in Town” – Drive-By Truckers
- “Baby Come to Me” – Eliane Elias
- “Big Sky” – Orville Peck*
- “Birds in Train Stations” – Hawksley Workman
- “Blue Plastic” – Yung Lean
- “California Dreamin'” – Jamestown Revival
- “The Capitalist Blues” – Layla McCalla
- “Caro” – Bad Bunny
- “Carry the Weight 2019” – Denison Witmer
- “Cecilia” – Cicada Rhythm
- “Change with the Sun” – Soviet Soviet
- “Cheap Wine” – Charlie Parr
- “Cocaine Country Dancing” – Paul Cauthen
- “The Colors That You Bring” – Damon Locks’ Black Monument Ensemble
- “Come on up to the House” – Joseph
- “Downtown Train” – Courtney Marie Andrews
- “Drunken Angel” – Alynda Segarra*
- “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” – Robert Ellis
- “Exit” – Joe Pug
- “Faraway Look” – Yola
- “Fate Astray” – Kronos Quartet with Mahsa & Marjan Vahdat
- “Father Mountain” – Calexico/Iron & Wine
- “Feed the Babies” – Gary Clark, Jr.
- “Feet off the Ground” – Brent Cobb, featuring Jade Bird
- “Fragile Men” – Hayes Carll
- “Get Out of My Head” – Sofia Bolt
- “Goodbye Baby” – Dave Alvin & Jimmie Dale Gilmore
- “Ground Don’t Want Me” – Josh Ritter
- “Harder Dreams” – John Moreland
- “Heavenly” – Cigarettes After Sex
- “Holy Ghost Fire” – Paul Cauthen
- “House Where Nobody Lives” – Iris Dement
- “How Do You Know If You’re Dreaming?” – David Wax Museum
- “Hurt a Little” – Ana Egge
- “Hvað viltu gera?” – Hjálmar
- “I Love You Too” – Gill Landry
- “I Would Die 4 U” – Rose Cousins, with Bear’s Den and Christof van der Ven
- “If She Ever Leaves Me” – The Highwomen
- “Kanougnon” – Bassekou Kouyaté & Ngoni Ba
- “Kungsliften” – Fricky & Cherrie
- “La Canción” – J Balvin & Bad Bunny
- “Laurel Wreath” – Bear’s Den
- “Let Love Reign” – Robbie Robertson
- “Like People from Another World” – Jim Lauderdale
- “Little Wing” – Valerie June
- “Losing My Religion” – Dan Mangan
- “Losst and Founnd” – Harry Nilsson
- “Marigolds” – Kishi Bashi
- “The Match” – Eddie Berman
- “Mint Condition” – Caroline Spence
- “No One Changes” – Conor Oberst*
- “Oil in the Water” – John Joseph Brill*
- “On the Rebound” – JP Harris & Elizabeth Cook
- “Our Town” – Trampled by Turtles
- “Overexcited” – Guster, featuring Kishi Bashi
- “The Place” – Sunny War & Edith Crash
- “The Randall Knife” – Steve Earle
- “Road to Nowhere (Live)” – David Byrne
- “Saying Goodbye” – J.S. Ondara
- “Sit Here and Love Me” – Caroline Spence
- “These Boots Are Made for Walkin'” – Corb Lund
- “This Land” – Gary Clark, Jr.
- “Time Changes Everything” – T’Monde
- “To Receive” – Hawksley Workman
- “Torch Song” – J.S. Ondara
- “Twilight” – Karl Blau
- “Undress” – The Felice Brothers
- “Vanity Trip” – The Ballroom Thieves
- “Vi er uendelig” – Efterklang
- “What’s Love Got to Do with It” – Lera Lynn
- “The Windhover” – Paul Kelly with James Ledger, Alice Keath, and the Seraphim Trio
- “You Got It Wrong” – Jeb Loy Nichols and the Westwood All-Stars
*These are songs that I, erm, probably could’ve heard late in 2018 if only I hadn’t been so busy compiling last year’s lists of the best songs and albums.