20 of the Best Songs to Wake Up To (For Any Occasion)

Related: The Best Songs of 2014 (So Far)

Best used: If the day ahead involves any form of work.

You don't need to cry your eyes out, come on kid! Keep your head up and fight.

If the day ahead involves any form of work, Bradford Cox's sympathetic and motivational lyrics are perfect. Unless you lead a life of Rick Ross style perfection, chances are you're going to wake up sometimes and want to cry at the thought of going into that office. Deerhunter understand, let them console you.

Best used: On the day of your exam, interview, or boxing match.

The chorus of the DJ Premier-produced "Bring It On" could be interpreted as Jay facing up confidently to his hurdles. These days, Jay’s hurdles probably centre on questions like, “How should I spend all these millions and millions of dollars?” and, “How can I get this Solange lady off my back?” Regardless of how alien those problems are to you, if you remove the lyrics from current context and forget who wrote them, they provide an excellent mantra to kickstart a tough day.

Best used: Before a really early morning shift.

This is probably the most aggressive wake up call on the list. If you're tired enough to sleep through the horror-movie evoking intro of this hip-hop classic, followed by Pharoahe Monch literally shouting at you to "get the fuck up," then there's slim chance you'll wake up at all, and it’s probably for the best that you stay in bed.

Best used: If you've spent the last six years getting stoned.

Sitting around getting stoned can be great, but there comes a time when we all have to stub the blunt out and leave the house. For a committed stoner, there's always the temptation to stay in your bed and alternate between jerking off and watching old episodes of The Simpsons, but as this quintessential stoners alarm anthem insists: "You can't spend all your time getting high."

Best used: When abandoning a regrettable sexual partner.

Caribou's lyrics to this haunting dance track seem to be about him urging a girl to leave his house. If you've woken up next to someone who, had you been sober, you’d have never gone to bed with, chances are you're torn between running the fuck away and awkwardly hanging around out of politeness. Caribou's "Leave House," and its helpfully repetitive chorus, makes leaving the house seem like an urgent, vital necessity. Listening to it will totally undermine any inclinations to be awkwardly polite and instead force you to ignore common decency and leave the fucking house. By the time the second chorus comes around you'll be on that shameful bus ride home.

Best used: When you know it's going to be a great day.

Everyone loves those cinematic moments when a song comes on shuffle and it perfectly reflects what's going on around you, like if you’re walking past a police station and "Sound Of Da Police" happens to come on. Engineering those moments for yourself won't feel quite as amazing, but waking up to a song that mirrors your thoughts for the day ahead is still really satisfying, so next time you're about to fuck around and have a great day, use a little Madvillain for your alarm.

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Best used: When a crushingly normal day is ahead.

If you needed reminding of what you're waking up for then Joey's here to point it out for you: the daily routine. At this point, two years since the release of his breakout mixtape 1999, Joey’s daily routine will have no doubt changed a great deal, but if listening to this downtempo, melodious tribute to the daily grind doesn't conjure up jealousy of the upward trajectory that Joey’s been on, then it's a great way to start your morning. Once upon a time, even successful rappers had to deal with the same shit you do.

Best used: When trying to keep out of trouble for the day.

The lyrics here are essentially cautioning you to not get involved in crime—a positive message for the day, and if subliminally absorbed, it’s a message that could prove hugely useful when you're considering stabbing your bastard boss midway through your shift.

Best used: When hungover.

Waking up is always going to suck, but waking up hungover is an entirely different kettle of fish. The repeated call of "be strong" might sound patronizing at first, but eventually it’s sure to become supportive. Combined with Paracetamol, water, and breakfast, this chorus will hopefully make you feel less like a pig that's been covered in super glue and dragged squealing through a field of despair and broken glass.

Best used: Er, on the morning of a day spent with the homiez.

In the hyperactively competitive 21st century, days dedicated purely to hanging with friends can be rare to come by. Those awesome days need to be celebrated and treasured, and how better to do that from the get-go than by listening to this under-played Dilla tribute to chilling with your friends as you wake up.

Best used: On A Monday.

Goodbye weekend, so long darling.

On this track, Mac DeMarco doesn't really dwell on the weekend's ending. As a Monday alarm tune, it offers a gentle, guitar-led introduction to the miserable nine-to-five after a presumably hedonistic, debauched weekend.

Best used: On your birthday.

If God hates you and you do have to wake up at an early hour on your birthday, then this Fatlip joint really ought to soundtrack it. If you ignore the crack references, the song could be taken as an instructional manual for any good birthday:

What I'm gon' do? You know get me a six and fresh kicks, pickin’ up chicks.

Those three things are excellent activities to do on one’s birthday but if you're lucky enough to be sitting on piles of cash, then Fatlip has different advice:

Sip booze on a seven-day cruise in Louis Vuitton shoes.

Best used: When you need to hear someone who gets what you're going through.

James Murphy quite rightly points out the obvious fact that for anyone who's not lame enough to settle down in bed sober at 8 p.m., the point at which you wake up is when you're most tired. Getting through difficult times is almost always easier if you've got a friend going through the same sort of difficulties simultaneously. Let James murphy be that friend to you.

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Best used: Before a day that’s starting with work and ending with heavenly partying - otherwise known as Friday.

The Dolly Parton original could, for obvious reasons, work as a decent alarm track. It focuses on the daily grind as its subject and as already noted, when a song plays that reflects what's actually going on, you feel like you’re in your very own film, which is awesome. What makes this 2 many DJs remix superior though, is its artful (and seamless) mixing of Dolly’s tribute to working into Royksopp’s dreamy, smile inducing "Eple." In doing that they’ve miraculously jammed the feeling of an entire Friday into two and a half minutes—both the crushing day, and the cathartic night of dancing and booze.

Best used: During summer.

Waking up in winter is the worst. The alarm rings and you look through the window. The scene's pretty grey and about as appealing to enter into as a George Romero movie. Using "Sunrise" as an alarm during the sunny season is an excellent reminder that your wake-up could be a hell of a lot worse. It puts the wake-up in perspective, and you'll find that getting out of bed is at least a little easier.

Best used: On a morning after having done something you deeply regret.

Be it sex with your ex, ordering tequila shots for everyone at the bar, spending forty-five minutes arguing with a stranger about politics, or deciding that yes, a $60 cab was a better idea than just putting up with the night bus, this song is a perfect reintroduction to the world after a night of regret and/or shame. First of all, it echoes your feelings; Rivers Cuomo screams, "Say it ain't so," so that you don't have to. Secondly, that gentle, carefree guitar line of the verse will assist in keeping you calm about however you embarrassed yourself. And finally, early Weezer is underplayed in 2014.

Best used: When the day ahead is supposed to be a productive one.

"Race For The Prize" kicks off The Flaming Lips’ best album, The Soft Bulletin, and it's a prime choice of track to kick off any day that requires that you be productive. It'll make the daily rat race ahead of you feel less like a series of torturous humiliations that transpire in an effort to one-up your colleagues in that cut throat office, and more like a mindlessly, gleeful day spent in a psychedelic wonderland. If you need help with remaining in denial about how awful productive days at the office are, this is your ideal alarm track.

Best used: When you want to feel like Tony Soprano.

Tony Soprano is arguably the coolest man to have ever graced our TV sets, and he’s at his coolest during the intro to The Sopranos while he drives through New Jersey smoking a cigar. If, like pretty much everyone, you ever wake up and immediately think, “Damn, I wish I was Tony Soprano,” then this song might help towards you tricking yourself into believing that the dream is a reality, if only for a couple of glorious minutes.

Best used: When fighting a comedown.

The Unseen was famously written, entirely, over the course of a week-long shroom binge. Certain drugs have long been identified as having the ability to enhance one’s creativity. The problem, of course, is that they aren't always great for productivity, not to mention health and sanity. So what's so impressive about The Unseen story is that Madlib managed to drag himself out of bed and actually record the inspired lyrics and wildly original beats that he was thinking up during his trips.

Best used: ON EVERY FUCKING MORNING OF THE WEEK.

This seminal Pete Rock-produced classic is quite possibly the most encouraging song in the world to wake up to. Given the repeatedly rapped Scarface reference, it's probably worth noting that the song shouldn't be taken as encouraging a world-is-yours mentality in an exploitative Tony Montana drug baron sense, but rather a world-is yours-mentality that'll have you thinking that yes, you can get out of that bed, and if you're really bold, yes, you can go to work or school, and yes, you can succeed.