Back in 2021, I started writing a regular column called Musings. The idea was to focus on music, movies, books and art. “I’ll be rambling around in the back alleys of my brain, sharing my thoughts on the sounds, sights and words that are exciting me at the moment,” I said at the time.

Somewhere in the middle of 2022, I fell off the wagon and the regular column disappeared into the abyss of work and family commitments, Covid concerns and all the things we all juggle every day.

I remember during lockdown thinking that perhaps this pandemic might see a shift in the way we operated. Perhaps we’d see a kinder, less frantic world. Clearly I was dreaming.

Despite all the difficulties it presented, one thing I did enjoy during Covid was the way life slowed down and my focus narrowed – pretty much to the walls of my house.

Of course, that didn’t last, and this year as the world got back to normal (whatever that is), the pace has quickened and now, staring down the barrel of another Christmas, things feel as hectic as they ever were.

I still haven’t got the balance right. But when I feel overwhelmed, it’s always music that keeps me tethered.

I’m not a fan of institutional religion, but there are times when you want to believe in something greater than you, when you need something that takes you beyond yourself.

And one night earlier this month, under cloudy skies at Hanging Rock, that’s exactly what Nick Cave and Warren Ellis did. It felt like 11,000 people were breathing as one. It felt spiritual, uplifting, unifying and I found myself looking up at the stars and crying. I wasn’t alone. It was a shared catharsis, washing away all the bitterness of a tumultuous year. It was a private moment, alone in a huge crowd, weeping for the one I’ll never get to hold again.

Despite the tears, the cold, the rain, the mud, it truly made my heart sing.

While it was a standout, the Hanging Rock show was just one of many performances that touched me this year – from the big stage to heart wrenchingly intimate at a friend’s funeral, or country tunes at Out on the Weekend on the Williamstown docks, music was my saviour.

To end the year, here’s a few of the songs and sounds that helped me navigate the year (in no particular order).

• Big Scary – Devotion (from the Me and You album)
• Father John Misty – Goodbye Mr Blue (from Chloe and the Next 20th Century)
• The Delines – Kid Codeine
• Marlon Williams – My Boy and Thinking of Nina
• Wilco – Cruel Country album
• Waxahatchee’s Plains album with Jess Williamson
• Phosphorescent – the New Moon project (especially the cover of To Love Somebody)
• Angel Olsen – Big Time album
• Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – Carnage

Have a great Christmas. Catch you in 2023.