HERMOSA

What came first - the playlist that makes you believe next time will be different, or the delusion that got you running in the first place? I'm three miles into the Lakefront Trail with eighteen tracks of surf-soaked garage rock and psychedelic grit, and I'm thinking about how every new playlist is just another mixtape to the self, promising that this time, this run, this version of you will finally work out.

The playlist is called HERMOSA. That's Spanish for "beautiful," but it's also a beach in California where the surf is perfect and everyone looks like they have their life figured out. I've never been. I just know it from records and the idea that somewhere west of here, people wake up and don't immediately spiral into categorization as a coping mechanism.

Here's what I know: This playlist sounds like driving Pacific Coast Highway in a car that's not quite yours, windows down, salt air mixing with gasoline and optimism. Surf rock colliding with garage punk, neo-psychedelic bleeding into grunge, all of it sequenced like a narrative about becoming someone who doesn't make the same mistakes. The Murlocs, La Luz, The Orwells - bands that understand that sunshine and distortion aren't opposites, they're the same feeling from different angles.

"Sure As Spring" opens with that jangly, beachy confidence - all reverb and forward motion, the sonic equivalent of believing you've changed. Then "Buddy" and "Rolling On" keep that energy going, building momentum like those first two miles when your legs feel good and you forget that running is mostly about negotiating with your own limitations. This is the honeymoon phase of the run, when next time still feels possible.

But here's where it gets interesting - and here's where I start making lists because that's what I do when I'm trying to figure out what something means. Top 5 ways this playlist reveals its California heartbreak through sonic choices: (1) The surf rock guitars promise endless summer but the garage rock production admits it's already autumn. (2) Every time the tempo picks up, the distortion increases - hope and damage arrive simultaneously. (3) The psychedelic elements (that krautrock space, that neo-psych swirl) suggest escape, but the punk backbone keeps you grounded in your own skin. (4) La Luz's retro surf noir plays like a memory of sunshine, not the thing itself. (5) By the time you hit the grunge and post-grunge back half, California has become Chicago - cold, unforgiving, real.

"FBI" and "Warmth of the Sun" sit right in the middle, and that juxtaposition tells you everything. Paranoia next to nostalgia. The law closing in while you're remembering when things felt warm. That's miles 4-5 of any run - the part where your brain starts making metaphors out of your own cardiovascular struggle because the alternative is admitting you're just tired.

Then the playlist shifts. "Disorder," "Got No Money," "Shattered Me" - this is the section where the surf-punk optimism curdles into something rawer, more desperate. The production gets grittier, the tempos more frantic. This is realizing that next time might just be this time with different songs. Your legs are heavy. The trail feels longer than it should. The wind off the lake has opinions about your life choices.

Dick would appreciate the sequencing here - how "Green Fuzz" and "Bombshell" give you that stoner rock/ acid rock thickness right when you need to push through, then "Loopholes" and "No Werewolf" (egg punk, noise rock, whatever we're calling aggressive weirdness now) refuse to let you settle into comfortable misery. The playlist won't let you quit, but it also won't let you believe your own bullshit. That's good playlist philosophy.

"California Songs" near the end is either cruel or perfect - this remastered promise that the West Coast still exists, still shimmers, still represents some version of yourself that makes better decisions and owns a working blender. Then "Runaway" closes it out, and of course it's called that. Because next time means running from this time, and the soundtrack never acknowledges that you're taking yourself with you.

Here's what I've learned from making and listening to approximately ten thousand playlists, all of them promising transformation: The music doesn't change you. The running doesn't change you. But the combination creates this space where you can be honest about the fact that you want to change, and that wanting is itself a kind of hope, even if it's delusional.

Barry would argue this playlist is too optimistic, that real punk is about staying broken. But Barry's never understood that you can be broken and still lace up your shoes. That you can know next time will probably be the same, and still make a soundtrack for it anyway. That's not delusion - that's the only way forward.

The run ends. The playlist ends. You're still you, but you've moved through space and sound and maybe that's enough. Next time, you'll press play again, and the songs will still sound like California and heartbreak and the lie that distance equals progress. And you'll believe it just enough to run.