Like the good little elf that I am, I’ve been hard at work on my Favorite Songs of the Year list since we returned from Hawaii. My goal is to publish it the middle of next week.

As has become tradition, I will offer this prelude: my favorite songs for each year since 2004. These are in chronological order, so Modest Mouse represents 2004, Waxahatchee represents 2020. Songs 14 and 15 in this list were co-songs of the year for 2017. There is an outside chance that could happen again this year (spoiler alert!).