5 songs to Listen to While Using NYC Transit (Or Walking Away From An Explosion.)

By Hannah Harkness

NYC Public transit can be more stressful than the job you are using it to get to. But there are mental exercises you can do to help you through it.

Yeah, okay, you’re not living in an action movie. But if you want to daydream that you are on way to deliver a briefcase full of money or “the disc”, or you just rigged a government building with explosives and are now walking away and putting sunglasses on, here are 5 songs that should be your soundtrack.

Clubbed To Death: Rob Dougan

Classic! Featured prominently in the Matrix and several commercials for cool cars, this is also a dope track for weight lifting and heavy bag training. Don a black trench coat that flaps in the wind and FORGET EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW.

Shrunk: Aesop Rock

This one is a little more recent from Aesop’s 2016 album The Impossible Kid. It’s also about therapy, so if you are an angry introvert that has a tendency to go on long walks and think about your mental health issues, this is the song for you! Bass lines for days.

Diesel Power: The Prodigy

This comes at you from the 90’s electronic classic album The Fat Of The Land, which is a staple if you’re into that kind of music. Most of their songs are pretty hyperactive and end up in a lot of fight scenes in movies, but Diesel Power is slower and badass. Score the slow mo-walk in your head or just use it to calm down from previous tracks on that album before eventually jumping into Firestarter, which makes you want to do parkour and punch out car windows.

Wu-Tang Clan: Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthin’ Ta Fuck Wit

If I need to explain this to you, you are either a square or ignorant of basic hip hop history. Just acknowledge that I’m right or get educated immediately. 36 CHAMBERS WHAT *airhorn*.

Battle Without Honor Or Humanity-Tomoyasu Hotei

This song was actually used for a famous slow motion walking in a hallway scene in a movie. If you haven’t seen Kill Bill, this is what was playing when the fictional Yakuza gang the crazy 88’s enters a building prior to a completely insane climactic fight scene where Uma Thurman fucks everyone’s world up. As an aside, feminists do not give Kill Bill enough credit. This is a movie where virtually all of the main characters are women wherein the central plot is a woman getting revenge against her employer who took issue with her maternity leave. I’ve personally been watching both volume I and II back to back since 2013.

Now, walk that subway tunnel like you’re on a secret mission to save the world, destroy the IRS, and live your best bad-ass life.