Recommended Music/Activity Pairings

1. The Hold Steady, “Boys and Girls in America” / playing nickel slots at the Las Vegas airport
2. The Mountain Goats, “Tallahassee” / putting together IKEA furniture with your significant other*
3. Laurie Anderson, “Strange Angels” / shopping at Yankee Candle for your grandmother
4. Liz Phair, “Exile in Guyville” / chain-smoking before heading into your high school reunion
5. Lucinda Williams, “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road” / learning to drive stick really badly on an elderly Chevy Tracker in a parking lot
6. Joni Mitchell, “Court and Spark” / anything you goddamn want, ever, all the time
7. Bonnie “Prince” Billy, “The Letting Go” / fishing on Vicodin and beer
8. Emmylou Harris, “Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town” / re-alphabetizing your books after moving out
9. Rush, “The Spirit of Radio” / being Canadian while simultaneously walking and air-drumming
10. Sondheim, “Company” / cleaning up after a bad party
11. Sondheim, “Sunday in the Park With George” / alienating your live-in boyfriend during long car trips
12. The Exploding Hearts, “Guitar Romantic” / that thing where you buy all the magazines about running twice a year and then do an agonizing and pointless three miles a day until your IT band starts acting up
13. The Mountain Goats, “We Shall All Be Healed” / tweaking LIKE A BOSS

*YMMV

Photo via Flickr