Songs for Utopia
by JL Williams
March 2025
by JL Williams
March 2025
I’ve been thinking a lot about utopia lately, a space we can’t get to but that helps us imagine a better world.
Poetry is like that too – a lifting up and out of this world into the imagination. A connection between unrelated things, people – one that sparks.
What is it that makes it possible to write a poem? Sometimes it’s a jolt, a feeling – something noticed, something, in certain views or interactions, artworks or songs – a kind of great beauty that opens one up, in a way that is almost – or is – painful. The sound of that which is lost, or just out of reach.
Is learning like that too? A kind of opening, allowing something to enter in or flow out. We are in this world for such a small space of time, and time has us so in its rushing grip. Yet, there are moments of great beauty, pain, joy, anguish – when time let’s go a little of its hold on us.
Here are some of the songs that cut me open, fill me with light, slow me down, allow me to dream, make me want to write. I have taken so many songs out of this list and added new ones. I suspect I will continue to do so. Real utopias are never fixed, and like utopias, songs are personal – what gives me these feelings might not do the same for you. Utopia is a reaching toward, and I believe it is valuable as a personal vision if the energy that is activated helps us move in ways that are, even for a time, revelatory. I do hope you will enjoy this music, and - if it would please you - have a go at creating your own utopian playlist, your own soundtrack for a beautiful world. I’d love to hear it.
JL Williams is a poet (www.jlwilliamspoetry.co.uk), Creative Projects Manager at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (https://efi.ed.ac.uk/people/jennifer-williams/) and the creator of Utopia Lab (https://efi.ed.ac.uk/utopia-lab/).
Poetry is like that too – a lifting up and out of this world into the imagination. A connection between unrelated things, people – one that sparks.
What is it that makes it possible to write a poem? Sometimes it’s a jolt, a feeling – something noticed, something, in certain views or interactions, artworks or songs – a kind of great beauty that opens one up, in a way that is almost – or is – painful. The sound of that which is lost, or just out of reach.
Is learning like that too? A kind of opening, allowing something to enter in or flow out. We are in this world for such a small space of time, and time has us so in its rushing grip. Yet, there are moments of great beauty, pain, joy, anguish – when time let’s go a little of its hold on us.
Here are some of the songs that cut me open, fill me with light, slow me down, allow me to dream, make me want to write. I have taken so many songs out of this list and added new ones. I suspect I will continue to do so. Real utopias are never fixed, and like utopias, songs are personal – what gives me these feelings might not do the same for you. Utopia is a reaching toward, and I believe it is valuable as a personal vision if the energy that is activated helps us move in ways that are, even for a time, revelatory. I do hope you will enjoy this music, and - if it would please you - have a go at creating your own utopian playlist, your own soundtrack for a beautiful world. I’d love to hear it.
JL Williams is a poet (www.jlwilliamspoetry.co.uk), Creative Projects Manager at the Edinburgh Futures Institute (https://efi.ed.ac.uk/people/jennifer-williams/) and the creator of Utopia Lab (https://efi.ed.ac.uk/utopia-lab/).
