Music to Feel Like Flowers Bloom Where You Walk
By: Lourdes Okoro
Spring is upon us, and as someone who prides myself on having a playlist for everything, it is most important to have something for one of the most beautiful seasons. Spring is light, floral, airy, and associated with two different types of blooms—that of flowers but also of romance, thus I put together a playlist to try and capture that feeling of waking up and realizing that the trees are green, the sun’s setting at seven, and it's seventy degrees outside.
Photos I took in Paris
April/May 2023-24
The full list:
“Lovers” by Anna of the North
“A BOY IS A GUN” by Tyler, the Creator
“Basement Jack” by Steve Lacy
“Daydreamer” by Michiko
“Vivid Light” by Blood Orange
“Hang on to Your Love” by Sade
“Show Me How” by Men I Trust
“Bonnie Hill” by Jungle
“Smile” by Lilly Allen
“Black Coffee” by All Saints
“Seven Days in Sunny June” by Jamiroquai
“LUCID DREAMS” by Leon Thomas
It’s a long list, so I’ll sort them into some of the many moods of spring.
Photo I took at Jardin de Luxembourg
Feeling Romantic?
“Lovers” by Anna of the North
Cultured girlies know this was one of the songs from the first film of the To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before trilogy’s infamous bathtub kiss scene between Peter and Lara Jean. But more than that, I recall a stroll on a warm evening in May across the Brooklyn Bridge, pictured on the bottom, and there was something magical about “Lovers” playing. Not to mention the lyrics “Show a little loving /shine a little light on me” felt much like something warm enveloping me. I posted an Instagram story video from the window of a car zooming over the Manhattan Bridge, pictured on the top, with the sunset backlighting the skyline, to “Lovers.” It left a mark on me.
“Black Coffee” by All Saints
I was sort of all over the place in 2025, and a trip to London in early March was so memorable because of this song, which I heard on the radio in the back of a black cab. All Saints are a classic UK girl group popular in the 90s, and I was honored to have discovered this while in London; it felt very on-theme.
“LUCID DREAMS” by Leon Thomas
I discovered this at the Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, sitting on a stone bench at the end of May 2025, after a grueling set of International Baccalaureate final exams. I was totally spent, but this song felt like the ultimate R&B brain massage, like pouring slow, healing aloe vera over an open wound that had been bothering you for the longest time. It left such an impression on me that I carried its comfort from Paris to Tokyo. I can’t think of a better exemplification of sunshine and peace.
Photos I took in New York City
Need a pick-me-up?
“Seven Days in Sunny June” by Jamiroquai
Another one for the cultured! A staple of The Devil Wears Prada soundtrack. I’ve never been a chronically stressed and overworked fashion magazine intern running through New York with a coffee holder, but I imagine it’d sound like this if Andy Sachs decided to take a minute to sit on a bench in Central Park and breathe.
“Daydreamer” by Michiko, “Hang on to Your Love” by Sade, and “Smile” by Lilly Allen
Spring is also notorious for a crash in academic productivity, despite the comeback we all told ourselves we’d have at midnight on January 1st. So these songs, to me, feel like getting your sh*t back together, much like the upbeat song that accompanies a film character’s montage as they clean their apartment, organize their schedule, and remember who they are.
Something soft on the ears?
“Vivid Light” by Blood Orange, “Show Me How” by Men I Trust, and “Bonnie Hill” by Jungle
It is my absolute delight to show readers a Blood Orange song that isn’t the viral instrumental break from “Champagne Coast.” Other than that, these three are delicate and dreamy tracks to mirror Spring’s bipolar weather between heavy rains and sunshine, much like how one’s mood pieces itself back together after a long winter.
Spring is a season of resetting, healing, and recovering from that godawful mood of getting out of that one class that ends at five P.M. and realizing it’s pitch black out and cold. If you made it this far, I hope you enjoy this playlist!
