I Am Gonna Make It Through Next Year: Six (or Seven) Songs for New Year's 2015

I've always enjoyed New Year's, not just because it's an excuse to put on a nice tie and get drunk on champagne, which I do quite like. New Year's is an opportunity to give your life a context. You can look back at the past 12 months, remember the good times, inspect how you could have handled the bad times better. And at the end of the night you get to toast to your friends, hopefully kiss somebody you like and start the next day with a bloody mary, some fresh perspective and a little hope for the coming year.

So in the spirit of New Year's, I put together a list of my favorite New Year's tunes (none of them are Auld Lang Syne, although I do quite like that song) feel free to add your own in the comments:

Charles Brown - Bringing in a Brand New Year

Charles Brown is, in my opinion, one of the greatest blues pianists andsingers. His version of "Trouble Blues" is maybe one of my favorite cool blues tunes of all time. He also put out a really killer album of Christmas tunes that is worth checking out next holiday season. At the end of that record he recorded this song, a jumpy, happy tune about partyin' and gettin' a little sugar from his baby on New Year's Eve. Nothin' wrong with that!

Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Auld Lang Syne

For whatever reason, 70s cheesester Dan Fogelberg's dramatic paean to New Year's Eve nostalgia and the lonely life of a musician hits me somewhere that feels so good. The song is basically about how he is in his home town and he runs into his old flame at a grocery store on New Year's Eve and they go drink a six pack in her car and catch up. It's worth listening to the end of this one for the extremely corny Yacht Rock sax version of Auld Lang Syne.

Jeff Buckley - New Year's Prayer

New Year's Prayer is off of Buckley's tragically unfinished second album, Sketches (for My Sweetheart the Drunk). This tune walks the wire between beautiful and dissonant in true Buckley fashion, layering his ethereal vocals over an almost funky guitar line. The whole thing was produced by Tom Verlaine who you might know from the band Television and who is one of my favorite musicians of all time. 

The Mountain Goats - This Year

While I don't know that this song is explicitly about New Year's Eve, I think this is a good one to listen to every year around the turn of the year. The chorus of, "I am gonna make it through this year if it kills me," alone is worth keeping in mind when you're sending the previous year packing.

Lawrence Arms - 100 Resolutions

Perhaps my all-time favorite song about New Year's. There has not been a New Year's that has gone by in the past 10+ years where I have not listened to this song at least five times on New Year's Eve/Day. A great tune about regret and hope from one of the best punk bands to ever come out of Chicago.

Peggy Lee - Is That All There Is? 

Forgive that horrible screenshot. Peggy Lee's tongue-in-cheek ode to disappointment seems like the perfect way to cap off 2014. I can't think of a better way to go forward into 2015 than to say: If that's all there is, my friends, then lets keep dancing. Let's break out the booze and have a ball. 

I hope you and yours have a fantastic New Year's Eve and an even better 2015.

edit: Can't believe I forgot one of my all-time favorite New Year's Eve tunes. D-Plan and Travis Morrison with a crystal clear image of loneliness on NYE.