The ultimate TIME TRAVEL music playlist

Curated by Phillip Carter

Mar 23, 2023

This one might be a bit heavy for email, so if the links don’t load, check it out on the Substack app, or your browser.

I’m writing a lot of Earthloop at the moment. Though, because I am still structuring it, I don’t know how much will stay in. What I know for certain is that in the second book there will be a scene where three incarnations of Lax Morales argue at a diner, the very same diner Nori and Brigid visited in the 1950s. That’s not a spoiler, I plan to include the fact that each book in the trilogy focuses on another incarnation of Lax in the marketing.

Last night (22/03/2023) I did my first Time Travel standup gig for #brightclub too, which was a lot of fun. I managed to sneak in some concepts from the very serious scenes in Earthloop, and make them funny. Always a fun challenge.

I listen to a lot of music when I’m writing, and I tend to group songs not by genre, but by theme. This is so when Earthloop is adapted into a TV series, I already have songs to pitch.

With that in mind, here are some time travel songs.

#1

Madeline Goldstein - Time Takes

One of the best new synthpop songs out there, you can imagine two time travellers saying farewell as this plays.

#2

Matt Jaffe - Time Traveller

Matt found me on twitter because of my name there (Phillip the Time Traveller). I had named my twitter such because I wanted to find other aspiring Temporis Vagi.*

*I have been playing around with Latin for Earthloop. I wanted some phrases that translated to ‘Time Traveller’. Temporis and Saeculi both seem to mean time in the conceptual sense, rather than in the incremental sense. Viator means traveller, Vagus means wanderer.

I wanted TemporisViator for my twitter handle, but someone else already has it. I’m sure I’ll find another, but hologrammatical is nice too. If you have twitter, come say hi.

#3

David Bowie - Time

Anyone who knows me well knows that David Bowie is my primary artistic inspiration. Discovering him through Labyrinth, and then discovering that Jareth was the same guy from the ‘best of Bowie’ CD my parents got from ASDA in the late 1990s, was mindbending. I remember thinking ‘this guy is weird and successful, that means I can be weird too’ (still working on the success part).

You’ll see some more Bowie in this playlist.

#4

Hiroki Tamaki - Time Paradox

I found this one accidentally whilst writing a time travel scene, and it’s quickly became one of my favourite albums. This link is just the time paradox song, but if you have time, check out the whole album.

#5

Naxatras - Ride with Time

An epic song. Not my usual style, but when it starts playing during a fight scene, I don’t complain.

#6

Hello Meteor - Seven Thousand Years

Coming from the aptly titlled ‘Causality Violations’ album, this chilled out track reminds me of video games in the early 2000s.

#7

David Bowie - Seven

“I got seven days to live my life, or seven ways to die.”

Even the album cover feels like a time traveller consoling his future self. It’s Bowie, so you already know my thoughts. I love this song. The ordering of this track in this list is not intentional, and was a fun coincidence to discover when writing this post.

#8

Liquify - Trapped in the Time Loop

The central riff on this one is brilliant. Do you call it a riff? I don’t know. Always wanted to do music, only starting recently, don’t know the lingo.

#9

Shrines - Infinite Spring

A very pleasant, well-constructed song. Reminds me of Bat for Lashes in a way, but obviously has its own identity.

#10

Jim Croce - Time in a Bottle

A melancholy piece, made heavier by Croce’s sudden death (as detailed in the top youtube comment)

“3 days after Jim Croce died in a plane crash, his wife received a letter from him, saying he was quitting concert touring so he could retire and spend the next 30+ years with his wife and 1-year-old son.”

#11

Colyn - The Future Is The Past (Original Mix)

I love this one.

#12

Knower - Time Traveller

I love this one too. It’s a lot of fun. You can tell from the video how much fun was had making it.

#13

Pulp - Do You Remember The First Time?

One of my favourite songs, coupled with one of my favourite music videos. This one is brilliant. Anyone who could sing it with you as a teenager at a house party was an instant friend. And that’s what music’s for, isn’t it?

#14

Deftones - Rosemary

I’m really into deftones at the moment, so could not help but include this.

#15

Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer

Not strictly a song about time travel, but about an endless summer. I could do with one of those right now.

#16

David Bowie - Time Will Crawl

One of my favourite songs about time, and its endless procession.

#17

Zanias - Endling

The lyrics to this are brilliant, detailing the end of time itself. There is not one song by Zanias which I don’t like, and many of them carry this same existential edge. Alongside Bowie and Numan, she is one of my top 5 artists.

And with that, we reach the end. I did want to get it up to 23, to match the chapter count in each Earthloop book (as well as today’s date, and time as I write this 20:23 on the 23/03/2023), but I could not find other time songs I thought were suitable, and I thought it might be fun to leave some slots open.

Can you recommend any time travel songs?