Musty cardboard boxes and dusty plastic bins stare at you from the floor, their emptiness a chasm you must fill: it’s moving day. The next 24 hours will see your home suddenly, viciously carved and scooped out like a pumpkin on Halloween.
Bittersweet can’t quite describe it. A call from your mom can’t subdue the feeling. A prolonged scroll through your photo gallery will only worsen the nostalgia. The only thing that can capture the atmosphere of the momentous day is music.
So, here’s a playlist to set the mood. If anything has comforted me during my biannual pack-ups and move-outs in the past four years — from on-campus to the North side of Bloomington, then the East side, Galway, Ireland for a semester and back to the West side — it’s an artist who gets it.
We must start upbeat, and, even better, “Movin’ Out” is a classic. This song is best for when you’re spinning around the kitchen, bubble-wrapping gifted mugs and thrifted glasses and placing them in old Kroger bags.
Released in 1977, this opening track to Billy Joel’s piano rock album “The Stranger” describes the trials and tribulations of trying to make it in New York City. There’s despair in the repeated line “it seems such a waste of time,” yet the outro, complete with an evocative engine roar overlapping the final line “I’m moving out,” inspires hope for what might come next.
As packing up drags on, you might start to feel overwhelmed by all the memories you’re leaving behind and feel penned in by your version of the yellow wallpaper. This short 1 minute, 44 second interlude encapsulates that claustrophobia.
The penultimate track on Mitski’s 2018 “Be the Cowboy,” “Blue Light” is the soundtrack for clearing out that closet where the overhead light won’t turn on and, out of the corner of your eye, you see yourself reflected in nearby mirrors: it’s surreal, lonely, uneasy, hypnotic. As the instrumentals and the album unravel, you’ll find an ideal opportunity to lean into the pinpricks in your eyes.
From Galway-born, London-based band NewDad’s September 2025 album “Altar,” this song serves as an ode to hometowns, homesickness and resignation. “Pretty” is a song of contrasts, interweaving seemingly desolate imagery with words of admiration.
Lead singer Julie Dawson croons “the sky is black, the clouds are gray” while attesting that the members “haven't found a better place.” In this, the band has simultaneously and beautifully represented the sonic mood of leaving a home you love in search of something new. That atmosphere feels fitting while you take down sticky-tacked Polaroids and collages from the wall and stow away sentimental trinkets.
Sandwiched in the middle of the album “Mic City Sons” — released in 1996, before lead singer Elliott Smith left the band to pursue a solo career — the song “You Gotta Move” reflects the shifting sands of Smith’s life. It’s a guitar-heavy, grungy ballad about the imperative to keep moving forward.
Heatmiser recognizes leaving the past behind is a big ask of yourself, following the line “with your planet packed in your car” with the simple, repeated refrain “you just move.” It’s a sentiment like a sunset: your present is coming to a close and, aimless as you might feel, life goes on. The only way out is through, Smith seems to sing, and letting yourself feel that truth might be beneficial as you move through the finalities of the day: double-checking each room and taping up, labeling and heaving boxes.
Blast this anthem from the classic underground feminist punk album “Le Tigre” for an energized look into the future you’re entering. Even though the MetroCards of New York City are now obsolete, “My My MetroCard” celebrates the freedom and independence of being young in a new place.
This song represents a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed approach to uncertainty, asserting “situation: it’s all possible,” simply by believing in the opportunities before you. For Le Tigre, the MetroCard is a talisman of belief, like Dumbo’s feather. Sing in stereo with bandleader Kathleen Hanna thinking you’ll go a little, but really believe you’re gonna go far as you load up the car and drive away.
This story was originally published in the Indiana Daily Student’s spring 2026 Housing and Living Guide.
