I’d wager the average American considers December the busiest, most stressful month of the year. Holiday shopping, family gatherings, crunch time at work before end-of-year final tallies are taken, mid-season finales, what have you — if we don’t pack the days from dawn to dusk, they’ll pack themselves. For our family May is far harsher when it comes to divvying up the minutes spent outside work or sleep.

The yard outside demands my intervention once the harsh temperatures are officially behind us and the April showers have turned our lawn into an unsightly synthesis of overfed grass thatches, obnoxious dandelion hordes, and pitiable desert patches symptomatic of a previous year’s drought damage. Something inside the house also inevitably fails and requires assistance. Family emergencies pop up at the worst times, presumably because it’s better to have those when it’s warmer. Local entertainment options rise up a-plenty as the populace emerges from hibernation and seeks social quality-time options. Mother’s Day and Memorial Day exercise their own respective attention-seeking guidelines. The summer action blockbuster extravaganza season kicks off at local theaters. TV lines up its season finales, where our favorite fictional characters ask to spend a few final weekly evenings in our home before summer vacation (theirs and ours). We’ve no less than eight birthdays in our family that merit various levels of commemoration ranging from token greeting card to in-person party appearance. Somewhere nearer to the latter than to the former is my own birthday, which I insist on celebrating for as long as the aging process continues not to perturb me. So far, so good.

This May has had its own special occasions to add to the top of the dog pile, including my son’s pending graduation and the burden of mandatory overtime at ungodly thresholds. Months like this require more effort than usual to clear my head, manage my temper, and stave off thoughts of collapsing just for the fun of it.

For me, such restoration requires a soundtrack. Songs that provide me a mixture of focus, energy, and release of tension include as of tonight:

They Might Be Giants, “Man, It’s So Loud in Here”
Talking Heads, “(Nothing But) Flowers”
Sugar, “If I Can’t Change Your Mind”
Snow Patrol, “Signal Fire”
The Postal Service, “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight”
Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, “Grey Cell Green”
Daryl Hall and John Oates, “I Can’t Go for That (No Can Do)”
Fountains of Wayne, “Valley Winter Song”
The Cure, “Plainsong”
Bloc Party, “I Still Remember”

They’re not all quiet lullabies, though a few come close. Mostly I seek a certain serenity through power-pop, but I’m aiming to pacify myself, not swallow a virtual handful of knockout drops. For nights when sleep becomes an issue, our cable provider carries a nighttime baby-music channel that does the trick in fifteen minutes flat, as long as they don’t play “The Rainbow Connection”. That’s happened twice — caught my ear and had me lip-synching along each time. It’s one of the loveliest movie songs of all time, certainly the most magnificent performance by a puppet, but it’s more of a pick-me-up than a tuck-me-in.

If you recognize the entire list without Googling, consider me duly surprised. My reasons for rarely discussing music are plentiful. Sharing almost zero audio touchstones with people in my immediate circles is one of them.

Rising to the top of the pops of peace tonight: that Talking Heads track, from their final studio album, 1988’s Naked. Between the AP scandal, the IRS scandal, and a sudden yearning to get away from staring at monitors for eighteen hours a day, “(Nothing But) Flowers” offers an idyllic retreat to a simpler, primitive Eden that sounds mightily attractive for a moment. (…he said, well aware they’ll someday have to pry his worn-down keyboard from his cold, dead, arthritic hands.)