Look, I know what you're thinking. Breakfast of Champions—that's Vonnegut, that's existential dread wrapped in a donut wrapper, that's the American condition served with coffee and nihilism. And yeah, this playlist is named after that book, but it's not *about* that book. It's about what happens when you need to run off the previous night's bad decisions and your brain's still stuck in that Vonnegut spiral. This is the soundtrack for when you're fighting gravity with nothing but forward motion and a belief that psych-rock can save your soul.
This thing starts with "Space Train" and you're already in motion—Spiral Drive lays down that hypnotic Melbourne psych foundation, Post Animal adds Chicago's sprawling reverb, and Moses Gunn keeps you floating. It's meditative, almost drowsy, but that's the point. You're not sprinting out of bed. You're easing into the ritual, letting the music convince your legs they remember how to do this.
Then Ghost Funk Orchestra shows up with "Walk Like a Motherfucker" and suddenly the playlist has swagger. It's funky doom, if that's even a thing, and it absolutely is. King Gizzard follows with "Presumptuous" to remind you that psych-rock can still kick your ass. The tempo shifts, the energy spikes, and you're no longer jogging—you're *moving*.
But here's where it gets good: Beans slows everything down with "Slow," and then Black Sabbath drops "Sweet Leaf" like the commandment tablets of heavy psych. This is the blueprint. This is 1971 saying "here's how you build a groove that moves mountains." Every band on this playlist is chasing what Sabbath did on that track—that perfect balance of heavy and hypnotic, sludgy and soulful.
Tracks eight and nine are the heart of this thing. All The Saints stretch out with "Gold," then All Them Witches arrive with "Heavy/Like a Witch"—nine minutes of analog-warm, live-to-tape doom that doesn't push you faster, it pulls you deeper. This is where your body's negotiating terms with your brain, and the music's saying "just stay in the groove, just keep moving." It's momentum disguised as meditation. It sounds like your legs feel.
Then the playlist remembers it's young and scrappy: Evolfo and BRONCHO inject garage-psych energy, speeding things back up, reminding you there's a finish line somewhere. And the ending? Frankie and the Witch Fingers into Fomies—pure freaky, unhinged psych chaos. The playlist gets weird because you've earned weird. You showed up, you ran, you survived the spiral.
This isn't just running music. This is existential crisis management with a backbeat. Goddamn donuts? Yeah. But don't quit on the donut. Don't quit on the run. Don't quit on the groove.
