🎵 November 2025

Practicing gratitude.

🍂 Being intentional as the season turns.
2026 looms. 🦃

Upper and Lower Yosemite Falls, California November 29, 2025

📸 flannery lundgren

It’s almost a cliche now.

In every corner of the world, someone somewhere is discussing the benefits of showing gratitude. What about calling out the injustices and naming the culprits? Is that helpful? Is counting the what-if’s, the failures, and all the ways people have let us down ever helpful? I’d love to present some good reasons for doing this….but I really don’t think there are any.

In our movie PHOENIX, OREGON — Bobby’s grudges are so deep rooted, that they are actually influencing his genetics. Over the years he’s ingested so much of this poison, that it’s taken over his thoughts and central nervous system. The grudges merely amplify his pain. There is no other purpose for them.

What do we do with our fear? Our fight or flight impulses? How do we re-train that pesky amygdala? Can we learn to disarm it and let grudges go? I think we can, as I’ve seen the evidence first-hand in my creative life. When I spend time being grateful, I can actually feel new pathways forming that help me cultivate a spirit of gratitude and belief. My thoughts begin choosing these pathways on their own volition, instead of the roads that spiral me into a paralyzing state of fear or regret.

When we’re feeling beat up by modern living, it’s difficult to show gratitude, because it’s counter intuitive. When everything inside us wants to blame someone or complain about a situation, can we learn how to pivot and recognize things we’re thankful for instead?

Even when I begrudgingly take just five minutes to say out loud specific things I’m thankful for, my heart will usually catch up to my brain and I’ll find myself feeling hopeful and operating on a new trajectory. Sometimes I actually feel the negativity disappearing like a fading headache or a fog bank lifting.

Music has a powerful way of helping me. Some songs create the space for me to vent real frustrations and work through them. And then there are songs that help create the space to feel thankful and show gratitude. I’m drawn to emotional music that is unique and honest, and songs that never feel too cloying. My favorite songs seem to fall somewhere on the yin and yang spectrum. A happy song for me somehow still knows the other side exists. Songs that are sad and melancholy often feel as inspiring as the upbeat and cheerful ones, because they’re part of the same circle.

Alll of the songs on my playlists seem to recognize both the yin and yang, and November’s curation is a good one. It begins with the stunning title track of the wonderful Netflix film TRAIN DREAMS. This Nick Cave collaboration with Bryce Dessner of The National is a barreled up home run…like Cal Raleigh sitting on a change-up. Somehow Nick Cave captures the magic and loss of Robert Grainier’s long life, in just four minutes.

Other tracks to highlight: a new single from the one and only Bill Callahan, a new Advance Base first person duet — a story-song about the growing desperation of a two-screen movie theater manager, and two stirring tracks from the great new Westerman LP.

One thing worth noting…more and more artists are reluctant to put their music on Spotify because of low streaming pay outs. If you love supporting the artists you love, you should be aware of this. Apple pays more, and there are no ads and the streaming quality is much better. So, the new Advance Base track only appears on the Apple version. For the Spotify version, I’ve swapped it out with an old Advance Base favorite called Dolores & Kimberly.

Also on November are new tracks from runo plum, Joshua Burnside, Sun Kil Moon, Juliana Hatfield and a terrific Pretenders cover of 2000 Miles by Sharon Van Etten to help us tee up the holiday season.

This playlist feels extra special, because two new remixes came out in November from two of my favorite artists. The underrated Beatles track Real Love gets a new 2025 Giles Martin mix. This posthumous Lennon song made from a scratch demo was already one of my favorites, and now it’s just fuller and better. It sounds more organic and less like a demo.

Adrian Borland’s Last Train Out of Shatterville is another remix that was long overdue. Adrian died way too young and HARMONY & DESTRUCTION was his sprawling, posthumous record made from scratch vocals. Adrian knew the yin and yang all too well and his records have been coming through for me since I was fourteen.

Thanks for listening. Here is November on Apple Music and Spotify. I hope you find some new tracks you love and some new recording artists to enjoy and support. On deck is December, my final playlist of 2025. Look for it as you celebrate the new year.

Gary