A College Roadtrip Playlist
Now that it’s summer, it’s prime season for road trips! Whether it’s the summer before your first year of college or the summer you’ll be touring many colleges (or you just have a serious case of wanderlust), an absolute necessity before any road trip is a great playlist to sing along to in the car. Especially for you rising high school seniors, I’ve included some songs which bring back some serious nostalgia for me, which I can’t listen to without thinking of the summer in which I visited about a dozen colleges in the Northeast.
I won’t talk about each one at length, but I figured I would point out some highlights:
Songs from my college roadtrip: “Diamonds”, “Scars To Your Beautiful,” “Ride,” “Confident,” “Final Song,” “Hurricane”
I basically can’t listen to ANY of these songs without also thinking about the summer before my senior year of high school because they were either the songs I was listening to or the ones which were constantly on the radio. Without exaggeration, I think I heard “Ride” at least twice for every college visit my dad and I went on in the summer of 2016. Now, every time I hear these songs, I’m reminded of vanilla sweet cream cold brew (my summer drink of choice), Northeast humidity, sour gummy worms (my dad’s road trip snack of choice), and the sense of excited anticipation which filled every college roadtrip I went on that summer.
Songs for summer: “Orange Trees”
This song is just pure sunshine and joy and I can practically picture myself lying on a beach with the sun on my skin. Maybe you won’t be going to bright and sunny Los Angeles or Miami on your college road trips (I hope you make the trek to New York to look at Barnard!), but you can dream of palm trees, ocean breeze, and orange trees.
Songs your parents will also appreciate: “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, “Walking on Sunshine”
The 80’s were really a time. I have no qualms about saying the 80’s are maybe my single favorite decade of music (aside from the 2010’s, of course). Lest I reveal too much and totally embarrass myself, I’ve included some classics from the 80’s your parents can also sing along to, since they are probably going to be accompanying you on this road trip.
Songs celebrating you: “Independent Women, Pt. 1,” “Confident,” “successful”
Before there was “7 rings,” there was “Independent Women, Pt. 1,” which is really a song that will never go out of style. Plus...it’s Destiny’s Child. In case Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and Michelle Williams weren’t convincing enough, I also included Demi Lovato and Ariana Grande among others. Speaking of Ariana, I liked sweetener more than thank u, next, who wants to fight? this song is about, and I quote, “girls feeling good ab their own individual success / celebrating each otha” and I think that’s something we can all get behind. Cheers to you!
Songs to take a lesson from: “Enjoy Your Life”
Surprise, surprise, I had to close this list out with a song by Marina, one of my favorite artists. In any case, I feel like the message of this song is really something to keep in mind throughout this whole process and throughout all of life, really: enjoy it. Like Marina says, “Sit back and enjoy your problems, you don’t always have to solve ‘em.” You only get to live Summer 2019 once--enjoy it!