The best Sunday morning albums

NPR Music

NPR Music explores the perfect albums for Sunday morning, featuring a curated selection of music that sets the tone for reflection, solitude

Key takeaways

• Sunday mornings are associated with a sense of reset, unwinding from weekend chaos, and preparing for the week ahead.
• Music plays a central role in creating communal experiences during family routines like breakfast or drives.

Main topics

• Sunday morning music rituals
• Nostalgia and personal associations with music

Notable quotes

"I feel like it is I associate Sundays more so than Saturdays with a reset or it's a day for me to prepare for the week ahead."

Conclusion

The episode celebrates the emotional and cultural significance of Sund

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) Fall is right around the corner. That means the midterms. Hey, it's Myles Parks from the NPR Politics Podcast. Now is the perfect time to calibrate your news diet Speaker 4 (0:10) for the fall. Follow our show for short daily episodes that will help you stay ahead of the most important midterm storylines that you need to follow. Find the NPR Politics Podcast on the NPR app or wherever you get Speaker 8 (0:22) your Speaker 5 (0:22) podcasts. This episode of All Songs Considered comes to you from the NPR Music Podcast. Hazel Sills, Lars Gottschurch here. And this is an episode that I have wanted to do for a very long time. Speaker 3 (0:37) Why have you always wanted to do this show? Speaker 5 (0:40) Okay, well, I think Sunday mornings, right? There's no other time of the day that I think of music more than in the morning. And there's no morning I think of and music more than Sunday mornings. Speaker 4 (0:52) Why on Sunday mornings? Why not Saturday mornings? Speaker 5 (0:56) Don't judge me. Speaker 4 (0:59) What's wrong with Speaker 5 (1:00) Saturdays? Are we doing the show about Sunday mornings or are we not doing the show about? It's Speaker 4 (1:04) a Speaker 3 (1:04) different. I understand it. It is a different vibe because I was thinking about this for the episode. Why do I think of certain music as being Sunday morning music versus like Saturday morning music? And I just think that, you know, for me, Sundays. There's sort of an element of unwinding to that day. I feel like maybe I'm getting over the chaos of my Saturday night or I'm sort of preparing myself for the Sunday scaries that'll come later that day. I Speaker 6 (1:35) don't Speaker 3 (1:36) know. Basically, I feel like it is I associate Sundays more so than Saturdays with a reset or it's a day for me to prepare. for the week ahead, and I think that thinking about it that way really influences the kind of music that I'm listening to on a Sunday morning. Speaker 5 (1:52) Well, this is interesting, because we're going to get into, I think we all brought stuff to play, and I think we've got some categories, some of our own categories, and what we're listening to right now is, this is Miles Davis' kind of blue album, which is, I would call, one of my safeties. It's a Sunday standard. It's a Sunday standard, yeah. It is. And, you know, I have a whole list of sort of no-brainers that I would play on Sunday. But, Hazel, why don't you just pick something to start us off here, and we'll take it from there. Speaker 3 (2:22) Yeah, well, I want to play what I kind of feel like is a Sunday standard to me, and I feel like Lars might appreciate this pick, which is Astro Gilberto's album, The Astro Gilberto Album. Speaker 7 (2:34) Yes. Speaker 3 (2:34) For me, it is an album that was constantly playing in my house growing up on Sunday morning. So I have this kind of nostalgic association with it, but I've kind of carried it into my adult life as being just an album that I'm constantly reaching for when I wake up in the morning and I want to set the tone for my day. Speaker 7 (3:13) I cry, foolish and proud, and let you say goodbye. One day, in its sadness you Speaker 6 (3:33) came Speaker 7 (3:33) again. That no matter whatever befalls, I'll never let you go. I will hold you close. Yeah, I Speaker 5 (3:54) mean, it's hard to go wrong with this. Let me ask you, Hazel, since you brought up hearing this when you were growing up, Speaker 7 (3:59) did Speaker 5 (4:00) you grow up in a house where your parents were playing music in the morning and that imprinted on you? A Speaker 3 (4:05) hundred percent, yeah. I grew up in a very musical household. My family didn't play instruments, you know, but... There was always music playing in my house, and I feel like I've carried that over into my life now, where when I wake up in the morning or I'm at home, I do not like my house to be silent. I always want music playing in my house, and there was always a sense of, you know, we're waking up, my parents are making breakfast for us, and we're all sort of... Not just hanging out, but having this communal experience listening to music. And so, yeah, I hear this album and I think of, like, my dad making pancakes for Speaker 7 (4:48) me. That's good. I Speaker 3 (4:49) know, it sounds very, Speaker 7 (4:50) like, Speaker 3 (4:52) Rockwell-esque. But yeah, I just think... And then we went for a Speaker 5 (4:55) drive in the country. Speaker 3 (4:57) Literally not my upbringing. My parents just really like music, but yeah. Speaker 5 (5:01) Lars knows why I'm asking this, because he and I were talking... leading up to the show taping about how in my house, nobody wants me to play music at all. What? No, they hate it. They want silence in the morning. I'm not allowed to play anything in the morning. So all my listening I do before they're up or I'm on headphones. Speaker 4 (5:22) In order to wake up my child, she has a playlist of songs that she likes. So, for instance, this morning I had to wake her up with the... Do you remember this mashup somebody did on Peanut Butter, Jelly Time, and Turnstile Speaker 1 (5:35) a few years ago? Speaker 4 (5:35) No, I don't. It's incredible. And Elisa, she was refusing to get out of bed, and I played that, and she was twitching her little feet. Just a second here. Let's see if I can find this. Speaker 5 (5:50) Is this it? Speaker 5 (6:03) Well, so what are you playing in the house then in the morning for your family? They're cool with you playing music in the morning? Yeah, generally. Sunday morning, what do you put in? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Speaker 4 (6:11) Like, I think for a long time, kind of like, I think we're starting with our standards. So here's one of my standards. The reggae group The Congos, they released an album in 1977 called Heart of the Congos. It's generally considered a reggae. masterpiece. It was produced by Lee Scratch Perry, has a lot of great musicians on it, and it sounds like waking up. Oh, yes. Wait a minute, that's not the song you wanted to play. But I did want to play that because it sounds like a yawn. Speaker 5 (6:47) That does sound like a yawn. So that's Ark of the Covenant, but let's see, the cut you want to play is... Fisherman. Fisherman, all right. Speaker 4 (7:46) I'm down with this vibe. This is a good Sunday morning vibe. I kind of realized as I was kind of putting together stuff for the show that I actually listen to a lot of reggae on Sunday mornings. Speaker 8 (7:55) I think that's just Speaker 4 (7:56) kind of like where I go. It's helping me ease into the morning a bit. It's a little bleary, but it's bright at the same time. And especially like Lee Scratch Perry, he just knows how to pull a texture out of nowhere and turn it into something cosmic but grounded at the same time. I think that's... maybe where I want to be on a Sunday morning. Yeah. Speaker 5 (8:18) So if we're doing categories, this is your safety? Yeah, Speaker 4 (8:22) this is my standard. This is the one I think this record was next to my turntable for a year. And it was just kind of like, this is the thing that I put on when I don't know what I want to put on. Well, my son recently asked me Speaker 5 (8:34) why I get up so early. And he said, you know, nobody else is even up. Why would you get up so early when nobody's even up? And I said, you literally just answered your own question. That's the point. That's exactly why I'm getting up when I do because I love that alone time, you know. And there are lots of things that I love about Sunday mornings. And I do love it. And I cook for the family. And I love all that time too. But there are few things that I prize as much as time alone just because I get so little of it. So this category, I'm going to call this category Alone at Last. And this is the sound of that for me. Speaker 5 (9:46) So I'm usually up by five most days, even on the weekends. It's just my favorite time of the day, of the week. And this band, this is Madre Deuce. Do you all know Madre Deuce? No. So Madre Deuce, this is a band from Portugal. This album is called O Espirito da Paz. Speaker 5 (10:12) And this song is Trace Iluzois. This is a band that I discovered on NPR 30 years ago. Oh, wow. 30 years ago, just as a listener, listening to NPR, All Things Considered did a profile of the band. And it was just so enchanting to me. You know, sometimes their music can get a little moodier, kind of drift into some minor keys, which is okay with me. In fact, I remember in the profile, I think it was in the introduction. They said, they have haunting melodies. And I've never thought of them as haunting. Speaker 7 (10:47) It's Speaker 4 (10:47) mostly this. I have definitely found that when I was putting together stuff for the show, I was like... I guess I like voices on Sunday. I want somebody else to speak for me on a Sunday morning. Hand to God thought you were going to say, I guess I just don't like very good music. I Speaker 5 (11:04) guess I just, I'm just not there. I guess my taste is bad. Speaker 7 (11:09) I Speaker 5 (11:09) guess my taste is bad. No. Speaker 3 (11:13) That's Speaker 5 (11:13) what my kids and wife are thinking. I guess dad, despite his job. Speaker 3 (11:17) Robin, we need to go. Can we just like go back to the idea of your family meeting silence? Speaker 5 (11:24) I'm Speaker 3 (11:24) really deeply disturbed by this reality for you. So Speaker 5 (11:28) I didn't even have, I didn't even own a stereo until last year. I finally bought a turntable and a little console to put it on and got a nice set of speakers. And I got out all my old vinyl and I think maybe the kids will, you know, they'll discover this. No. Not having it. In fact, I have put, like at dinner time, I've gone and put a record on. And I'm like, can we just have a quiet, please? Speaker 3 (11:51) Wait, so even like instrumental music where it's not like there's someone singing or it's something like this. It's very beautiful. Yeah, no. No, Speaker 5 (12:00) it's Speaker 3 (12:00) a Speaker 5 (12:00) hard pass. I can't think of anything that they ever will let me play. So I only listen to stuff on speakers when everyone leaves. But alone at last. That's why my category is alone at last. I can put on a little music. This singer is Teresa Salguero. She was just 17 years old when she started singing for this band. You know, I think it works for me. This music is not sad or super happy. It's sort of just the sound of being at peace with everything to me. Speaker 7 (12:33) This Speaker 4 (12:33) season on Planet Money Summer School, Speaker 5 (12:35) we have drilled for oil in Norway, we've smuggled products into North Korea, and now we make it to