We have arrived at one of my favorite 12 Days of Girly Juice instalments: the one where I tell you about some of the sexiest songs I grooved on this year! I will admit that while this list was originally meant to be literal sex songs, i.e. songs you would want to listen to while having sex, it has transformed over the years and become moreso a list of songs that feel sexual or sensual in some way, but aren’t necessarily sexy, if that makes sense. You’ll see what I mean…
As ever, here’s a Spotify playlist that contains all of this year’s picks + those from every previous year I’ve done this. Enjoy!
Her’s – Low Beam
I know what you’re thinking / You can take me for a ride / Baby, hit me harder / ‘Cause I’m never gonna hide / You can keep on running, but you’re running out of track / I’m-a keep it coming, as a matter of fact
I wrote a bit about this band last year; they’re a duo who were tragically killed in a car crash in 2019, so listening to them is very bittersweet. I’m absolutely enamored with their sound – the peppy guitar parts, the sensuous harmonies, the singer’s deep and morose voice.
I don’t really know what “Low Beam” is about – this band’s lyrics can be charmingly opaque at times – but I do know that it was a central component of my first shrooms trip in February. For some reason, the line “You can keep on running, but you’re running out of track” got lodged in my head and became a mantra, an affirmation, a tether, an anchor. I begged my trip-sitter Brent to put this song on the stereo several times throughout that day, and danced my ass off every time. This song just… feels good in my body and brain, like laughing at a party with friends, or strutting down the street on a sunny day, or – yes – excellent sex.
Brotherkenzie – Poems on My Phone
I’ve got the thought of you inside my bed / That thought’s the only thought inside my head / Mezcal left over from my birthday week / Still here, but without you it’s hard to drink
Brotherkenzie’s Big What was hands-down one of my favorite new albums this year. It’s contemplative, groovy, worried, and weird. “Poems on My Phone” stands out as a particularly poppy, hooky tune, and is also probably the sexiest track on the record.
It’s a “relatable mood,” as the kids are saying, because it’s about that feeling when someone you’re crushing on goes away for a while and you just can’t get them out of your head. The beat of this tune has the same plodding inevitability as intrusive infatuated thoughts: they just keep coming, uncontrollably, while you’re trying to focus on other things, and all you can really do about it is write poems on your phone.
Marika Hackman – Send My Love
Are you coming home to feel alone? / Did you love me tonight, or any night of our lives? / It’s never gonna be like it was before / The writing’s on the floor
I discovered this song while trying to scope out some lesbian drama online. The ever-fantastic Amber Bain, of the Japanese House (a band that’s appeared on this list more than once), dated fellow singer/songwriter Marika Hackman for years (so I gather), and indeed, several songs on her quintessential breakup album Good at Falling are about Marika. One day I was creeping through Amber’s social media posts and saw she had given her now-ex’s new album a resounding recommendation – and her favorite track, she said, was “Send My Love.” Obviously I had to give it a listen.
Marika’s sweet, lilting voice was so interesting to hear for the first time after listening to her ex warbling about her in a comparatively sad, gravelly voice for years. This song feels to me like Imogen Heap and Phoebe Bridgers’ lovechild – a driving rhythm, a pretty melody, a thoughtful vibe, and gay undertones out the wazoo.
Sarah Harmer – Late Bloomer
Never thought I’d be the marrying kind / It was nothing to be always left behind / From the ship that would sail with everyone on it / I said, “Give me the land – I know what I want and where I’m wanted” / But you came in whistling, “I’ll go if you’ll go” / And I was waiting around to play like an old piano
Okay, I know not everyone will think this song is sexy, but something about Sarah Harmer’s voice makes me into a crushy queer mess – and this song overflows with romantic tension moreso than sexual tension, the former being, paradoxically, sometimes the sexiest kind of tension. (To me, anyway.)
Sarah sings in this song about (so far as I can tell) falling hard for someone at a time when you felt sure you’d never fall that hard again. She sings about two people who thought they’d never get married, realizing that maybe they want to marry each other. It’s a last-ditch romance, a late-arriving passion, lost opportunities fading away to make room for new love. Sarah’s voice is clear and high one moment, and sexy and throaty the next. To me, this song feels like having a crush – but maybe I just have a crush on Sarah Harmer.
Alina Baraz – Take it Home
You say that you want someone to hold / I just wanna get you all alone / You just gotta say it / Don’t you keep me waiting
Alina’s been on this list every year it’s existed and the reason is clear: everything she makes is sexy. She’s in fine form here – breathy and sweet, full of yearning, singing over deep beats and smooth guitars that feel like being laid out on a big bed in a dim room by someone you’re excited to fuck.
I still find it amazing that you can hit “shuffle” on Alina Baraz’s whole discography and it’ll make the ideal sonic backdrop for sex, no matter what ends up playing. I mean. Could Alina be any more perfect?!
John Mayer – Do You Know Me?
It’s just the strangest thing / I’ve seen your face somewhere / An early evening dream / A past-life love affair / Do you know me at all?
This song came out in 2009 so I’m not sure how it’s never made its way onto this list before… It’s one of the most beautiful things John Mayer has ever written – which probably doesn’t sound like a high honor unless you’ve been a JM superfan at some point in your life like I have, because his hit songs are never the prettiest/smartest/best ones. But he’s masterful with pretty jazz chords and delicate guitar riffs, and this song is a prime example.
The lyrics are simple and spare, so it’s not totally clear what the song’s about, but I think it’s about that feeling when you see someone across the room at a party or a bar and you get the immediate sense that they’re going to be meaningful to you. Sometimes this instant resonance feels like love at first sight; sometimes it feels more like déja vu. Either way, it can be so impactful that it knocks you off your feet.
Missy Bauman – Why Do We Fight?
Is loving me too much for you? / You say that that’s unfair to you / The way that I just stared at you / I love you, I love you
I’m a little biased because my brother played drums on this track, but it really is stunning. “Dreamy drug folk” singer Missy‘s voice is clear as a bell here, sad, sensuous, sparkly. This song kinda sounds like what would result if My Brightest Diamond covered a Weeknd song: haunting, tragic, yet oddly sexy.
You know that period of time near the end of a relationship when you’re still having sex, but you know with near-certainty that you’re going to break up sometime soon? This song feels like that. Like the last gasps of something that used to feel good, and still does, a little.
Broken Social Scene – All to All
Call of forgiveness / I’m like the beat of the hurt / I’m not the only one you tried to save / When you fell out
I stumbled across this song because I was fervently Googling the beautiful Lisa Lobsinger, big-haired and soft-voiced lead singer of the long-defunct band Reverie Sound Revue (who I’ve mentioned on this list previously). She occasionally sings for Broken Social Scene, a “super-band” known for its huge rotating cast of players from the Canadian music world, like Feist and Emily Haines.
One of the magical things about Lisa Lobsinger is that she can make you feel things even if you can’t understand what she’s actually saying (and you often can’t). She can also take lyrics that don’t really make sense, and make them feel like a coherent emotional statement. All this to say: I have no clue what this song is about, but I know that it feels like it’s about regret, remorse, missed opportunities, “right place, wrong time,” and the way we ruminate when a relationship ends but we desperately wish it had not.
Chet Atkins – Take Five
This guitar arrangement of the Dave Brubeck Quartet classic is searching and chaotic and weird. “Take Five” is known among jazz nerds for its unusual quintuple time signature; most songs count to 3 or 4 in every bar, but this one counts to 5. To me, this makes “Take Five” feel more like the way bodies actually move in the dark. Fucking isn’t always steady or predictable; sometimes there’s sudden pauses to readjust, or brief interludes of still whispers, or hard thrusts thrown in like a wrench in the works. Our bodies and their rhythms are deeply erratic and that’s part of why they’re also erotic.
I heard this guitar version of the song while I was out somewhere, and Shazam’ed it immediately, because I was stunned by the skill involved. The original is a sax playing an iconic melody over top of some supportive piano chords, but Chet Atkins has somehow managed to cram all that complexity into a guitar arrangement he apparently played all at once, all by himself. If the Brubeck version feels like off-kilter sex, this version feels like off-kilter masturbation – equally charming, but in its own way.
Andy Shauf – Changer
I heard you’re back in town / Working at the drugstore / Did you get the city blues? / That, I can relate to / Change on, changer
Andy Shauf’s The Neon Skyline is probably my favorite new album of 2020. What can I say – I just love the guy. A quiet Canadian indie legend who pens thoughtful songs about made-up characters in made-up situations, he’s the type of brilliant songwriter who can make me cry through a computer screen. (And indeed he did, this year, when he played the sad gay unrequited love song “To You” on a fundraiser concert stream. I literally could not stop the tears from flowing and flowing. I think I got a bit dehydrated. Dammit, Andy.)
“Changer” is the closing track of Skyline; the protagonist has just spent the entire album yearning for his recent ex, Judy, and awkwardly trying to get her back, and “Changer” is a moment of sad reflection at the end of a drunken night. Judy has changed, while her mopey ex has not. He still wants her; she just wants to move on. I can picture this song playing on the jukebox at the Skyline bar where the album takes place, as our hero slow-dances with someone whose name he doesn’t know, trying to forget the love he doesn’t get to have anymore.
What sexy (or sexy-adjacent) songs did you love this year?