The 6 Best Solar Eclipse Playlists

It’s almost here. A total eclipse is set to pass over the contiguous United States on Monday, passing coast-to-coast for the first time in 99 years. The event is set to start in Oregon at 10:19 a.m. Pacific time, with South Carolina as the last state to see the eclipse at 2:44 p.m. Eastern time. In preparation for the eclipse, users have picked their favorite eclipse-themed songs

As expected, there’s a whole lot of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Welsh national treasure Bonnie Tyler will perform her 1983 hit live on Royal Caribbean’s Total Eclipse Cruise on Monday, with the ship departing from Orlando, Florida, on Sunday. Tyler has become something of a mainstay for eclipses — when an eclipse occurred in March 2015, most visible from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, Twitter rushed to quote lyrics at each other.

If you’re looking to diversify your eclipse listening, here are six of the best playlists:

Ultimate eclipse sounds

This playlist, put together by Spotify user Virgil Rhames, has some fantastic classics to see you through the event. There’s King Harvest’s “Dancing in the Moonlight,” The Beatles’ “Here Comes the Sun,” and The Animals’ “House of the Rising Sun,” a perfect list to make your house guests groan when they realize the connection.

The NASA interns’ choice

NASA let its interns pick out some of the best tunes to watch the eclipse with. The list contains some excellent choices, and Twitter fans are calling for the interns to get a promotion.

The long mix

It’s gonna be a long day. Spotify user waarecca has you covered with a six-hour playlist covering all the bases with a pun-filled number of choices. There are three songs called “Staring at the Sun” from different artists, as well as two songs called “When the Lights Go Out.” Even “Solar Eclipses” by Hollywood Principle makes the cut, a song possibly familiar to some for its appearance on the Rocket League video game soundtrack.

The curated choice

If you’re less concerned with funny eclipse puns, Pitchfork has you covered. The “Songs for the Solar Eclipse” playlist is specifically designed to perfectly match the event as it happens, a list of songs that the publication describes as “an atmospheric soundtrack to the event, one running through cosmic ambient, spiritual jazz, and rural blues from the American heartland—all of it, crucially, having some thematic connection to the sun, the moon, darkness and light, or the otherworldly forces.”

The interpretative choice

Want something a bit … weirder? The Exploratorium in San Francisco is working with local composer Wayne Grim and the Kronos Quartet. At 10.30 a.m. Pacific time, the team will produce a live sonification of the eclipse that will be live-streamed on the company’s website. Here’s an explainer on how it all works:

The visual option

If you’re hosting a house party and want to put something more visual on, Elizabeth Gonzales has you covered. The YouTube user has put together a 26-song playlist of music videos for the big day. Smash Mouth’s “Walkin’ on the Sun” joins Len’s “Steal My Sunshine” to make it an eclipse to remember.