227. Song No. 3,461: “Florida’s on Fire,” Superchunk
Here’s to Shutting Up, 2001

As a whole, Here’s to Shutting Up is one of my all-time favorite albums. Back when work travel accounted for a significant chunk of my existence, it was a staple in my pre-flight ritual (especially and obviously the Florida-bound ones), being the perfect length to get me through boarding to at least taxiing if not take-off and the perfect kind of joy-sparking that makes a work trip feel a little less like a necessary evil and a lot more like the departure from an ordinary 40-hour work week that I regarded it as.

There is so much I love about this album but “Florida’s on Fire” has reigned as its zenith for two solid decades now. Here’s to Shutting Up would be a great album without it; the inclusion of one of my all-time favorite songs is the rising tide that raises all ships and, with it, I get a desert-island song and a desert-island record that have both stood the test of time.

Like, I have the next eight stories charted out and they’re all about songs I am so excited to dive into for so many different reasons, but this is one I have been waiting at least 257 songs for. There’s just so much about this track that has made me love it so fiercely for more than 20 years but, really, what got me was the strings. God, I love a good indie-rock string section like I love a good dose of piano rock.

I also do have an unreasonable affinity for Florida, almost entirely born of my even-more-intense fondness for palm trees, pea-soup humidity and year-round warmth. The only family vacations I truly enjoyed were the annual spring-break jawns to The Sunshine State that not even essentially three days of driving could put a damper on; the only work trips that made me feel like my last magazine job was giving me something back for all the energy I resentfully funneled into it were the Floridian meetings and shows (getting up before dawn to start my 18-hour days with a sunrise walk through bathwater-warm waves and soaking up the sun on South Beach in late October remain some of the best work-related memories an otherwise brutalizing, thankless job had the decency to offer up).

Like so many other instances of selective hearing, I clung to the “Florida” part of this song and downplayed the “on fire” element, letting it evoke memories of Clearwater’s white-sand beaches, marveling at the Spanish-inspired historical architecture of St. Petersburg, Marches and Octobers and Decembers infinitely more welcoming than their bone-chilling Northeast counterparts, roaming Central Florida campgrounds on nights that never dipped below 75°F and falling in love with palm trees and symphonic nocturnal critters all over again, roaming Little Havana with a pack of work friends who made the unyielding misery of trade shows far easier to stomach, and how the slow transition down I-95 giving way to verdant foliage is just as satisfying as the just-opened jetway’s first blast of warm air four hours removed from icy winds and frozen fingers.

But it’s hard to explain just why all those things make this song one of my favorites: Ultimately, I think, “Florida’s on Fire” benefits from the auspicious pairing of this song being incredible on its own and then amplified by the things I bring to it as an eager listener ready to make my own personal connections with it, proving that the best songs aren’t really heard but rather felt and experienced. Of all the songs that I have loved with every fiber of my soul but lost over time, songs like “Florida’s on Fire” stick around for decades because they appeal to more than a fleeting feeling that the right tune at the right time gave a validating voice to. It’s remained a favorite for its own musicality and for being adaptable enough to fit into so many moments that we have accumulated a staggering volume of shared experiences, making it feel like an old friend and trusted companion in a way that only those songs that appeal to the core of a person can as they take on a veritably corporeal presence.