'The Great Regression' Needs A Better Soundtrack

Mama been laid off
Papa been laid off
My brother's been laid off
For more than two years now
Ooh, can't get a job
Billy can't get a job
Ooh, they gotta listen to the blues

— "Feel No Pain," Sade

The songs aren't matching the moods anymore. Not that I'm looking for the saddest bops to throw bows to, but "Spend Dat" seems ambitious when most people are broke, and scamming doesn't come with a 401(k) or health insurance.

Thankfully, this isn't the first time things have sucked! So there's a great repertoire of songs that sum up how we're feeling now that everything is being pushed back to a time when Black people, women, queer people, immigrants, and most workers had little to no rights.

So I put together a little soundtrack about it.

Here are five of the songs that made my Life in the Great Regression playlist:

Sade "Feel No Pain"

I love Sade, and I respect that if my boyfriend ever leaves me, it will be for the ethereal lead singer of this iconic band. But Feel No Pain, a song about the misery of long-term unemployment, fits during a time when 25 percent of Americans are "functionally unemployed." But I take issue with this term—what on earth is "functional" about unemployment? As Sade Adu croons, "Did you ever see a man break down?" She's not singing about anything functional.

Radiohead "Karma Police"

Radiohead had me in a chokehold with this 1997 alt-rock gem rooted in the irony of working life.

Especially this verse:

Karma police, I've given all I can
It's not enough, I've given all I can
But we're still on the payroll

Where is the karma for those who harm or take advantage of us? If only the concept of a "karma police" expending justice and real-time retribution were real. This is a great jam for those of us still out here, barely employed, hugging a terrible job because, again, more than a quarter of Americans are out of work. But if hell is other people (shout out to Sartre), then purgatory is definitely a dysfunctional workplace. And what is America right now, but the world's worst job site?

Prince & The New Power Generation "Money Don't Matter 2 Night"

History is in reruns again! When Prince wrote "Money Don't Matter 2 Night," people were dying in wars in the Middle East, while scammers were taking advantage of desperate people, and money was hard to come by during the 1990-1991 U.S. recession. The only difference between what Prince is singing here and what's going on now is that Prince didn't live to see how everything he once sang about is still sadly relevant. It's hard not to think about the schoolchildren in Iran or what's happening in Gaza without recalling this lyric: "If long life is what we all live 4, then long life will come 2 pass. Anything is better than the picture of the child in a cloud of gas."

Al Green "Everybody Hurts"

When I first heard this cover by the legendary Al Green of R.E.M.'s hit 1992 song, I cried. Green took a song about finding hope after pain and made it a spiritual. When Green sings, "You're not alone," you believe it in the same way you believe a loving mother when she tells you, "Everything is going to be OK." Like, how do you know? Mom? How do you know! And yet the words are still comforting, soothing, and revitalizing to the beleaguered mind.

Little Shop of Horrors "Skid Row (Downtown)"

I love a musical, but this song from Little Shop of Horrors, a 1986 musical comedy film about ... poverty, exploitation, and domestic violence (!!!) ... got me through some of the hardest times in my life. Namely, when I worked in an office off K Street in downtown Washington. D.C.

I used to ride the bus to and from work every day and would listen to this song on my phone, as it summed up what it was like being a wage slave in a system meant to break you. My then-boss was into "performative" behavior, and she thought it was a "bad look" if I went home before 6 p.m., regardless of whether my work was done. So I would sit in my windowless office with nothing to do until 7 p.m. so I could go home and cry.

As an ambitious person, I felt stuck and just wanted out by any means necessary, just as Seymour's character (played by Rick Moranis) sang: "Someone show me a way to get outta here. 'Cause I constantly pray I'll get outta here. Please, won't somebody say I'll get outta here? Someone gimme my shot, or I'll rot here."

I eventually got out when I suddenly quit to return to freelance writing. And less than a year after I walked away with no plan, I got a job offer from The Root, setting me on a path of success that would continue for nearly a decade.

It's not lost on me that most of these songs came out in the early 90s during the recession under George H.W. Bush. And it's definitely not lost on me that Little Shop of Horrors, despite being originally written in 1960, is a Ronald Reagan-era, "Me" Generation, "greed is good" piece of art. The film reflects Reagan's policies and how they impacted everyday people, showing these woes we're going through aren't new.

There aren't many recent songs on my playlist that reflect the now. Like, I have Lola Young's "Messy" on there, which spoke to me about what it's like living with ADHD, an impediment that leaves you feeling guilty all the time for reasons you aren't quite sure of. It's not that I don't find more modern songs relatable—I love Olivia Rodrigo and Chappell Roan. And Paris Poloma's "Labour" is a soul-crushing banger about misogyny—it's more like the songs are harder to find. People are still making music relevant to our times. It's just that the system that once distributed that music is broken. If you don't hear it on TikTok, you may never hear it at all.

So feel free to shoot me a note with song suggestions that reflect what it's like when everything is going backward.

To hear the full playlist, check out 'Life in the Great Regression' on Spotify.