4/20 Special: 60s and 70s Music for Sleep

Last year’s 4/20 special was a political one, but this year I want to change it up and make it more light-hearted and positive, and maybe something useful for those of us who have trouble sleeping. If you liked my previous post on classic rock songs about weed then you’ll love this one! This year’s Met Gala theme is Sleeping Beauties, so it’s only fitting that I make this year’s 4/20 special about sleep.

What did I get for Christmas last year? A medical cannabis prescription. No really! My first prescription arrived right before Christmas and I was over the moon. Finally having access to a regular supply of cannabis was a game changer for me and made it easier for me to fall asleep. I knew that this worked because every time I smoked weed or had an edible before bedtime, I was calmer and able to go to bed quickly. I’ve had anxiety for over ¾ of my life and bedtime was always a time that my anxiety really acted up and I’d spend hours trying to get to sleep. At least once I fall asleep, I’m really asleep, but getting there was difficult. Even when I’m really anxious, I’m at least still able to get to sleep if I have my medication. If don’t have my medication, I am unable to sleep and I will stay up all night. When you don’t have a good night’s sleep, that really throws off the rest of your day. If you look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, sleep is right there at the bottom of the pyramid under physiological needs like breathing, food, water, shelter, and clothing.

I don’t just use my medical cannabis for sleep though, I also used it for back pain I get when I walk or stand too much. I don’t know why I have back pain because there actually isn’t anything wrong with me, but from what doctors have gathered, it seems that my anxiety and depression has spread from my brain to my body and everything hurts. Not enough people talk about the impact that mental illness has on the body and how you can feel it there too. Just because there isn’t something physically wrong with your body doesn’t mean that there isn’t anything wrong at all and just because it’s technically all in your mind doesn’t mean that your pain is fake. Mental health is just as real as physical health.

Before I got my medical cannabis, I’d try to drown out my anxiety with music and it helped a little, but these two things in conjunction really help me calm down at night. Without further ado, here are 10 musicians from the 60s and 70s I listen to at bedtime to relax and help me fall asleep and at the end I’ll share my own little sleep playlist for you guys with five songs from each of the musicians plus some bonus ones at the end. This music isn’t just classic rock, but I think you’ll like it. A lot of the music I’ll be talking about here is instrumental since that’s what I find the most relaxing, but not all of it is. I really tried to include a variety of genres here so I think there’s something for everyone.

Wes Montgomery

For the uninitiated, Wes Montgomery was one of the best jazz guitarists of all time and he had this interesting technique of plucking the strings with his thumb. When he was learning guitar, he didn’t want to disturb his neighbours so that’s how he developed his technique. He was from a musical family, his brothers Buddy and Monk were also jazz musicians. His idol was Charlie Christian.

In general his music is so calming and it’s my go-to when I need to relax. Every Wes Montgomery song is good, and I don’t say that about a lot of musicians.

You really can’t go wrong with anything Wes Montgomery, but if I had to make an edit and share five tracks I love, I’m going with:

1. His cover of The Association’s “Windy” from his 1967 album A Day In The Life
2. His cover of The Beatles’ “A Day In The Life” from A Day In The Life
3. His cover of The Champs’ “Tequila” from his 1966 album Tequila
4. His cover of The Mamas and The Papas’ “California Dreaming from his 1966 album California Dreaming
5. “Bumpin On Sunset” from Tequila

With this being a classic rock blog, of course I was gonna share a lot of his great covers, but of course that’s just a starter, listen to more of his music, it’s amazing!

Brian Eno

This visionary musician has really done it all throughout his 50+ year long career. Can’t believe he went from glam rock with Roxy Music to being one of the most famous ambient musicians and composing the Windows 95 startup sound. Not every Brian Eno song is relaxing and chill, you have rockers like “Needles in the Camel’s Eye”, “Baby’s On Fire”, and “Third Uncle” – all great songs, but not what I’m looking for when I’m trying to go to bed. One of my go-to playlists for sleep is the Brian Eno Sleepy Time playlist on Spotify. Brian Eno’s music is far from homogenous and not all of it is relaxing, but in general I love his albums Music For Airports and Apollo, the latter is from 1983 so I won’t include tracks from it on the playlist but it’s really good. Yeah, you might be laughing at “Music For Airports”, I know my husband makes way too many jokes about that, but it’s a really relaxing album and it makes me feel like I’m on a cloud.

If I had to edit it down to five tracks, I’d pick:

1. “1/1” from Ambient 1: Music For Airports
2. “Becalmed” from Another Green World
3. “Wind on Water” from Evening Star (Fripp & Eno)
4. “Evening Star” from Evening Star (Fripp & Eno)
5. “Discreet Music” from Discreet Music

The Ventures

America’s best known instrumental rock band and probably the best known one in the world (sorry Shadows!). If you just want great background music for focus or study, The Ventures are the band for you! To be honest, I can’t think of a Ventures song I don’t like, I’m just a sucker for instrumental rock and surf rock, especially if they cover 60s songs I like. They were incredibly prolific so you’ll have plenty of music to relax to if you press shuffle.

1. Their cover of Johnny Smith’s “Walk, Don’t Run” from Walk, Don’t Run
2. Their cover of Alberto Dominguez’s “Perfidia” from The Ventures
3. Their cover of The Chantays’ “Pipeline” from “Surfing”
4. Their cover of Richard Rodgers’ “Slaughter On Tenth Avenue” from Knock Me Out!
5. Their cover of The Lovin’ Spoonful’s “Summer in the City” from Wild Things!

The Shadows

One of Britain’s greatest kept secrets, they were the country’s answer to The Ventures. American readers won’t know them, but they’ll know “Apache” as soon as they hear it because it was one of the most famous early hip hop samples – The Incredible Bongo Band covered it in 1973 and in 1981 The Sugarhill Gang released “Apache (Jump On It)”. There’s so much more to them than those songs and personally, I like “Wonderful Land” better than “Apache”, it’s easily one of the most beautiful instrumentals I’ve heard. As a bonus, I highly recommend Jet Harris and Tony Meehan’s instrumentals “Diamonds” and “Scarlett O’Hara”. I know a lot of rock fans prefer songs with vocals and appreciate the lyrics, but I think there’s an art in recognising when a song doesn’t need lyrics or vocals.

1. “Apache”
2. “Man of Mystery”
3. “F.B.I”
4. “The Frightened City”
5. “Wonderful Land”

Miles Davis

This legendary jazz trumpeter, bandleader, and composer needs no introduction. He started his career in the 40s working with Charlie Parker before moving onto recording the Birth of the Cool sessions in 1949 and 1950. His most famous albums are Kind of Blue and Bitches Brew, the latter being an incredibly influential double album that shaped the jazz fusion genre. He recorded so many albums that listening to all of them is like marathoning the anime One Piece. I think his earlier music is more relaxing, but since this article is focused on the 60s and 70s, here are some tracks I like from that era:

1. “Concierto de Aranjuez” from Sketches of Spain
2. “Eighty-One” from E.S.P.
3. “Iris” from E.S.P.
4. “Shh/Peaceful” from In A Silent Way
5. “In a Silent Way” from In A Silent Way

Nick Drake

For the most part, I’ll be talking about instrumentals here because I find those are the most relaxing, but one of the few musicians with vocals I can relax to easily at nighttime is Nick Drake. He only released three albums but they made such an impact on me and I’ve been listening to them a lot lately, works very well for that depressive mood. I find him so relatable. I think every song he recorded can qualify for this, but if I had to edit it down for this playlist I’d pick:

1. “Hazey Jane II” from Bryter Layter
2. “Northern Sky” from Bryter Layter
3. “Pink Moon” from Pink Moon
4. “Place To Be” from Pink Moon
5. “Road” from Pink Moon

Casiopea

Some more jazz fusion, but this time from Japan! I love how cheerful their sound is and it reminds me a lot of the music from Mario Kart. Fun fact, Randy and Michael Brecker of the Brecker Brothers played on their first album! Because on Spotify a lot of the song titles on their albums are in Japanese, I’ll just be saying track numbers and albums with the English translation of the title, according to Wikipedia. Don’t let the language barrier stop you from listening to this amazing music. Music is universal! You really can’t go wrong with anything from Casiopea. Mint Jams is one of my favourite live albums of all time. Here are some picks from their first two albums from 1979:

1. “Time Limit”, track 1 of Casiopea
2. “Midnight Rendezvous”, track 4 of Casiopea
3. “Flying”, track 2 of Super Flight
4. “Dune”, track 3 of Super Flight
5. “Asayake (Sunrise)”, track 4 of Super Flight

Mike Oldfield

Incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist and composer. I don’t think I need to say any more. Tubular Bells and Ommadawn are masterpieces. Honourable mention for his cover of The Shadows’ “Wonderful Land” from his 1980 album QE2. One of my go-to sleep playlists is the Instrumental Mike Oldfield one. If I had to pick which songs I’d add to this playlist:

1. “Tubular Bells Parts 1 & 2” from Tubular Bells of course!
2. “Hergest Ridge Parts 1 & 2” from Hergest Ridge
3. “Ommadawn Parts 1 & 2” from Ommadawn (did you know that the album title is the phonetic spelling of the Irish word for fool, amadán?)

Pink Floyd

This band sound wise have a mix of sounds, but you can indeed find relaxing music in their discography. Another go-to playlist for me is a Pink Floyd relax and sleep playlist. Here are some of my recommendations, but really it’s so hard to narrow it down to just five so don’t get mad at me in the comments if I didn’t pick your favourite song:

1. “Unknown Song” – Outtake from Zabriskie Point
2. “Love Scene” – Outtake from Zabriskie Point
3. “Cymbaline” from More
4. “Echoes” from Meddle
5. “Shine On Your Crazy Diamond” from Wish You Were Here

Bert Jansch

Legendary folk rock guitarist who played with British folk band Pentangle. He was born in Scotland to a family of German descent. His early influences were Big Bill Broonzy, Pete Seeger, Brownie McGhee, and Woody Guthrie. Led Zeppelin were famous fans of his. Another go-to sleep playlist for me is Bert Jansch instrumentals. You really can’t go wrong with any of them, but my favourites are:

1. His cover of Davey Graham’s “Angie” from Bert Jansch
2. “Needle of Death” from Bert Jansch
3. “The Waggoner’s Lad” from Jack Orion
4. “Lucky Thirteen” from It Don’t Bother Me
5. “East Wind” from Bert & John

Honourable mentions:

Can’t complain about a “but wait there’s more”, right? A bit more classic rock themed, I want to share some other songs I find relaxing:

1. “Blend” by Sandy Bull – I love how long this instrumental is, an early psychedelic song.
2. “Albatross” by Fleetwood Mac – Inspired by Santo & Johnny’s 1959 instrumental “Sleep Walk”. One of my favourite Fleetwood Mac songs ever.
3. “Out and In” by The Moody Blues – Such a beautiful song and I love the space theme. I love how poetic their songs are and I love how the songs segue into each other – masterpiece! Same reason why I love Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On.
4. “Over The Hill” by John Martyn – All of Solid Air is amazing. Gonna include this one because of the reference to Mary Jane!
5. “The Sky Children” by Kaleidoscope – One of the most beautiful, poetic classic rock songs. I love listening to this one while stoned and I can visualise the story told in the lyrics. Who said classic rock isn’t English class material?
6. “Candy Says” by The Velvet Underground – Their 1969 self-titled album has a lot of beautiful songs on it. Including this one for my trans comrades! Love you! 🏳️‍⚧️
7. “Taurus” by Spirit – A gorgeous instrumental that many say Led Zeppelin plagiarised for “Stairway to Heaven”.
8. “My Man On Love” by Judee Sill – Her voice is so beautiful! Her self-titled album is definitely worth a listen.
9. “Waterloo Sunset” by The Kinks – Another strong contender for most beautiful classic rock song. Ray Davies is a true poet and I think he deserves a Nobel Prize just like Bob Dylan.
10. “I Am A Rock” by Simon & Garfunkel – I often find myself listening to Simon & Garfunkel at night and it’s a great choice!
11. “Fingerbuster” by Davey Graham – Short but sweet instrumental that demonstrated Graham’s talent.
12. “Hejira” by Joni Mitchell – There are so many beautiful Joni Mitchell songs and I’m so glad she’s back on Spotify so I can include it in my playlist!
13. “Oh! Tengo Suerte” by Masayoshi Takanaka – Excellent jazz fusion guitarist. I’ve been listening to his music a lot in the evenings to relax.
14. “Mirage” by Jean-Luc Ponty – French jazz fusion violinist. Found out about his music because of Jon Anderson of Yes.
15. “Sky High” by Donald Byrd – Really need to get more into his music, it’s amazing!

So here’s my sleep playlist with all the songs on there. Fittingly enough, it’s about 8.5 hours long so about the time you should be sleeping! It’s a playlist that you can fall asleep and wake up to!

Do you like falling asleep to music? What songs would you put on your sleep/relax playlist? Have your say in the comments section below!

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