On Warmer Music's Spring 2014 Mix

via Chicago Colors

By this point in the year, most of my friends are pretty sick of me but this year, I'm starting to fear for my safety. As you might remember, I'm one of the few Chicagoans who is an unapologetic fan of winter. Far from a popular position in an average year, this year it was the kind of thing that had visions of torches and pitchforks dancing in Chiberians frostbitten heads.

But even after a winter as historically bleak as this one I will still defend my love of true winter because it makes the spring all that much sweeter. This morning I smiled because it was raining. Rather than snowing. In late March. Only someone whose dealt with freezer burn on their lungs could find happiness in a drippy, 40 degree day.

Indeed spring in the midwest is a brief and flighty thing that exists for, at most, six non-consecutive weeks between March and early June but it's no less glorious because of it. A long-time spring fever sufferer, I still dream every year of the utterly giddy feeling I got in college when the season's first day over 50 when I could get away with skipping an afternoon class, throwing together a mixtape and go tooling down country roads to find a place to walk amidst woods and birds.

Don't get me wrong, as a whole, spring 'round these parts is perhaps the least satisfying season. But like that girl/boy/other you always had a crush on growing up, the brief moments when the light shines on you are unbelievably heady in a ways a solid. steady relationship/season (OK, this metaphor is getting out of hand) never quite could.

Download Complete Mix As A .ZIP
1. Winter Blues - Red Kross  Buy Researching The Blues
2. Moonless March - Aloha  Buy Home Acres
3. March 9th (feat. Stage Soul Music) - DJ Premier  Buy
4. Winterlong [Neil Young] - Pixies  Buy Complete B-Sides
5. Return To Spring - Calexico  Buy Live Session [EP]
6. Late March, Death March - Frightened Rabbit  Buy Pedestrian Verse
7. April Come She Will - Simon & Garfunkel  Buy Sounds Of Silence
8. Snow Is Gone - Josh Ritter  Buy Hello Starling
9. Walking On Sunshine [Crooked Fingers Version] - Fucked Up  Buy The Chemistry Of Common Life
10. Open The Door - The Men  Buy New Moon
11. April Skies - The Jesus & Mary Chain  Buy 21 Singles
12. Spring 2008 - Architecture In Helsinki  Buy Fingers Crossed
13. Springtime In New York - Jonathan Richman  Buy Her Mystery Is Not Of High Heels and Eye Shadow
14. Sure As Spring - La Luz  Buy Damp Face [EP]
15. Springtime Is The Season - Of Montreal  Buy Cherry Peel
16. Month Of May - Arcade Fire  Buy The Suburbs
17. American Music - Violent Femmes  Buy Why Do Birds Sing?
18. Itchycoo Park - The Small Faces  Buy The Autumn Stone
19. The Boys Are Back In Town/Ignition Remix [Thin Lizzy/R. Kelly] - Mountain Goats  Buy The Sunset Tree
20. Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks  Buy Something Else