Arts Playlist: 5 Songs for Daylight Savings Time

We are in the wake of one of the year’s most-anticipated holidays, and we’ve got you covered with a special Arts Playlist. That’s right, this Sunday marked the beginning of another popular edition of the long-standing institution of “Daylight Savings Time” (DST). Here are five songs to help you adjust to losing an hour of sleep.

“This Time Tomorrow” by The Kinks

This classic off the 1970 album “Lola Versus Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part One” dares to ask the always-relevant question of how the whole DST system works in the first place. As lead vocalist Ray Davies sings in the chorus, “This time tomorrow where will we be / This time tomorrow what will we see,” alluding to the confusion of having to switch your clocks before your phone could do it for you. Indeed, the whole concept of wondering about “this time tomorrow” the night before DST adds a whole new layer to the song. That, combined with verses about feeling out of time on a long flight, makes “This Time Tomorrow” the perfect song to listen to before time itself changes before your very eyes. The Kinks will leave you wondering whether this time tomorrow will be an hour earlier than usual, an hour later than normal, or the same time as yesterday, dooming us to a life of repetition.

“Time” by Hans Zimmer

Ever watch “Inception” and think, “Gosh, this would be a whole lot better without the acting!” Well, composer Hans Zimmer’s “Time” is the song for you. Yes, the backing track to about 30 percent of YouTube’s motivational videos fits perfectly with the theme of losing an hour of sleep. With its emotional crescendos and deafening acoustics, “Time” encapsulates the spirit of “Inception,” that Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard are in your dreams to remind you to switch your clocks. In the end, when the realization that the clock will skip from 1:59 a.m. to 3:00 a.m. keeps you up late Saturday night, why not listen to this song on repeat for a few hours?

“Daylight Saving” by Seal

This song comes off of Seal’s ninth studio album, “7.” You may be thinking to yourself, maybe the album is seven tracks long? It’s 11. Maybe it was released on July 7? Try Nov. 6. At least it peaked at #7 in the Dutch charts, saving Seal from having to quickly explain that the album title is “7” because it’s his seventh album of original songs, and that nobody should read into it any further. With lines like “Because it’s been so dark so long / I can’t tell what’s going on” and “Daylight save me all my head like I’ve had enough,” Seal meditates on the ever-elusive logic behind trying to reclaim lost time. Sadly, it appears that Seal used the clickbaity-title “Daylight Saving” to turn a serious government action into a silly pun. Save us, Seal, from another one of your dastardly tricks.

“It’s Time” by Imagine Dragons

The first of Imagine Dragons’ hits also has the most connections to Daylight Savings Time. The deepest points to the misconceptions around the origin of switching clocks. Many readers may have learned that Benjamin Franklin proposed saving daylight in order to help farmers get the most out of their days, but farmers actually lobbied heavily against the idea in the first place. The Dragons point to this nuance in the pre-chorus, singing, “‘I don’t ever want to leaven this town / Cause after all / This city never sleeps at night.” Instead of blindly supporting the government’s ability to legislate time, the group instead argues that if the city-folk will be awake anyway, the needs of the farmers must come first. However, Imagine Dragons eventually succumbs to the perseverance of Daylight Savings Time in the chorus. “It’s time to begin, isn’t it?” Yes, Dan Reynolds, muse of the agricultural industry, it’s time.

“The Times They Are a-Changin’” by Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s classic serves as both a reminder that the times are literally changing and a call to arms to fight the clock switch. The former is made clear by the title: Time as you know it now will soon be different because the clocks will move forward by an hour. The latter, though, deserves a deeper dive. Although Dylan wrote “The Times” as a protest song, in this context, it applies solely to those fighting Daylight Savings Time. Dylan specifically aims the song toward these fanatics in the first verse, writing, “If your time to you is worth saving / Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone / For the times they are a-changin’.” From there, the rest of the song delves into the inter-generational dynamics at play within the Daylight Savings/Standard Time dispute. Speaking to the “mother and fathers throughout the land,” Dylan proposes they not “criticize what you can’t understand” because “Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command,” and will not simply stand by while humanity attempts to play God with time. The ideological camps have gathered, “The line it is drawn,” and “the order is rapidly fading,” all because “the times they are a-changin’.” While the country was able to avoid conflict in the 1960s, in today’s fractured political climate, Dylan’s diatribe against Daylight Savings Time is still worth listening to.

Listen to the playlist here.

— Staff writer Jack M. Schroeder can be reached at jack.schroeder@thecrimson.com.