A Playlist for Surviving Georgetown's Losing Streak

When this humble GLOBAL PHENOMENON hasn't been focusing its efforts on lunch documentation and the occasional basketball game, it's dabbled in the realm of music. Bruce Springsteen? Check. Blog DJ for winning streaks? Check. Too much Cranberries? Yep. More Boss? Sure, why not.

Our fearless blog leader has foreseen that Georgetown will improbably reverse its losing ways, beginning with Senior Day against Butler. Some of us remain unconvinced. But there's great music for every mood, including the twin pillars of our fandom, cynicism and delusion. Without further ado, here's a playlist for surviving Georgetown's losing streak, and another for winning the whole damn thing. Choose your own adventure, and sound off in the comments below on whatever I left out!

CYNICISM

1. Radiohead - How to Disappear Completely. "I'm not here. This isn't happening." You know, basically our thoughts for the past three-plus months.

2. The Clash - Lost in the Supermarket. "I wasn't born, so much as a I fell out." The Clash are normally good for some angry rant about the evils of capitalism, police brutality, or other leftist political issue. By contrast, this is a very personal song that Joe Strummer wrote either about lead singer Mick Jones's miserable upbringing or about the Hoyas' season-opening loss to Radford. You decide.

3. The National - Bloodbuzz Ohio. Tie a blindfold, throw a dart, and you'll hit a depressing song by The National. But this is the only song that includes the name of a Georgetown-manufactured March Cinderella in it.

4. Bruce Springsteen - Factory. The clean-up spot goes to the Boss. For a description of this particular choice, we turn to our resident Springsteen experts, CasualHoya and ManvilleHoya: "Factory" is the prototypical Springsteen song about regret and pain filling the space where there was once hope and possibility. The haunting arrangement only darkens the mood further. You want to turn away from the pain, but the song makes you turn into it and feel it more deeply. And there's the unspoken guilt from the narrator about how his father's path paved the way for him to never live that hard life. You can feel the "death in their eyes." "It's the working, the working, just the working life."

5. The Walkmen - The Rat. "When I used to go out, I knew everyone I saw. Now I go out alone, if I go out at all." The Walkmen wrote great songs about problems that aren't really problems in the sense that poverty or public health or terrorism or climate change are problems. Here, they're describing declining attendance at the Verizon Center. If your primary problem is the under-performance of your favorite college basketball team, the Walkmen are for you.

6. A Tribe Called Quest - 8 Million Stories. A song that is explicitly about problems. Money got stolen out of Phife's car. He doesn't have anything to wear on a date. And to top it off, Starks got ejected.

7. Ghostface Killah f/Mary J. Blige - All That I Got Is You. "Sometimes I look up at the stars and analyze the sky/and ask myself was I meant to be here. Why?" More existential wondering about Georgetown's sad season. The top two YouTube comments for this video are, "Makes me cry every time, I don't give a f---" and "I cry every time I don't give a [expletives], the struggle is real and Ghostface is just that nice to really hit us all that hard." This is the UNC-Asheville of this playlist.

8. Wu-Tang Clan - Can It Be All So Simple. "'Back in '79, '79.' 'Nah nah nah, '87. That was my favorite [expletive], everything was lovely.'" The intro to this Wu-Tang classic is an audio recording of Hoya fans discussing the program's halcyon days.

9. Earl Sweatshirt - Chum. Georgetown's decline, in two lines: "From honor roll to to cracking locks up off them bicycle racks/I'm indecisive, I'm scatterbrained and I'm frightened it's evident."

10. Otis Redding - A Change is Gonna Come. "It's been too hard living/but I'm afraid to die/'Cause I don't know what's up there/beyond the sky." Preach. This song wouldn't exist without Sam Cooke's genius, but Otis's cover is all of the feels.

11.Stevie Wonder - I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer. A song about losing someone just when you thought you were going to have them, sorta like how we thought the Hoyas were going to be freaking dope this year.

12. Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes - I Miss You. Everyone knows "If You Don't Know Me By Now," but this is the masterpiece. It's a typical 3 1/2 minute soul ballad of love and regret at the end of a relationship with 4 minutes of glorious spoken word tagged onto the end. The immortal "Ever since you went away/I ain't been doing nothing but thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking/You been away from so long/And I just don't think I can carry on/so I start drinking, drinking, drinking, drinking" may or may not hit close to home for the Hoya fanbase. RIP Teddy Pendergrass.

13.  Elliott Smith - Between the Bars. More self-medication! Anatomy of a post-game for a Hoya fan, "Drink up with me now, forget all about/The pressure of days, do what I say/ And I'll make you okay, drive them away." There's sad, and then there's Elliott Smith Sad.

14. The Replacements - Unsatisfied. "Look me in the eye and tell me that I'm satisfied." Paul Westerberg's lyrics capture teenage angst and the feelings of a Georgetown fan whose expectations for this season haven't been met.

15. Jeff Buckley - Hallelujah/I Know It's Over. Jeff Buckley is depressing. Leonard Cohen is depressing. The Smiths are super depressing. Jeff Buckley covering Leonard Cohen and the Smiths in a nine-plus minute medley probably is as low as we can get.

DELUSION

Let's get it! LET'S GET IT!! HOYA SAXA!!!!!

1. The Killers - All These Things That I've Done. This song is totally ridiculous and completely irresistible. It also seems to be about having made mistakes in the past but then picking yourself back up and crafting a adrenaline-boosting chorus that ends up in a Nike ad. So, Hoyas, the past is past. Let it go. We've got some hoops to play. (NB: Either I've been misinterpreting this song for a decade or this video makes no sense.)

2. Fugazi - Waiting Room. The Hoyas have been flat more than a few times this season. That won't fly on Senior Day. This classic from some hometown D.C. heroes Fugazi is energy, triple distilled, in musical form. If the Hoyas play this song before Saturday's game, they'll run through the wall of the locker room and then run Butler off the floor and all the way back to Indianapolis.

3. The Black Keys - 10 A.M. Automatic. Good Midwestern rock to get fired up for a good Midwestern road trip to kick Marquette's butt.  My favorite YouTube comment: "good while eating cake." Only coulda been better if it said: "GOOD WHILE EATING CAKE AND A BRATWURST AND ALSO WOJO'S STILL-BEATING HEART."

4.Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Runnin' Down a Dream. Georgetown is starting to find its footing after two straight wins, but has to hit the road again to face #1 Villanova. Time to fire up an all-time road trip classic that I'm sure remains totally relevant to college basketball players in 2016. (Note: This video is probably best understood after ingesting some 1985 vintage Cocaina de Villanova.)

5. Bruce Springsteen - Badlands. After an unexpectedly strong finish to the regular season, Georgetown now faces a trip to New York, through the Garden State. That makes this the perfect time to check in again with our resident Boss experts, CasualHoya and That Dude You Should be Following, ManvilleHoya: "One of Springsteen's most familiar tropes is introducing his show like a religious revival. Without the risk of sounding sacrilegious, "Badlands" is the prayerful response to the minister of rock and roll.  Knowing fans start the chant when the first note plays, "Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh...." Suddenly a 20,000 seat arena is united as one. And from there the lyrics unfold like so many of Springsteen's greatest songs. Life is hard, often terrible. But together we can rise above it and escape the muck and despair. In fact, you've got to "keep pushing til it's understood, and these badlands start treating us good."And if that wasn't enough- perhaps Bruce's greatest sociopolitical message is embedded: "Poor man wanna be rich/Rich man wanna be king/And a king ain't satisfied/Til he rules everything." The song is part ritual response, part primal scream, and all jubilation."

6. Jay Z/DJ Danger Mouse - Encore. The Big East Tournament is a test of many things, including endurance. The 24 turnaround times are no joke. Georgetown will need to flip from its first-round win to play its semifinal game in almost no time. "Encore" is perfect, what its references to hoops, Madison Square Garden, and a comeback. And no disrespect to the original, but this version will get you foaming at the mouth.

7. Nas - N.Y. State of Mind. Georgetown has arrived in the BET final. An NCAA Tournament is within reach but by no means assured, given the Hoyas' 14 losses. There are a bajillion songs about New York but this one fits best. "Time to start the revolution, catch a body head for Houston." OMG THE FINAL FOUR IS IN HOUSTON BOOK YOUR TICKETS.

8. Kanye West - Stronger. Listen, the Big East Tournament was fun and all, but Georgetown wants to win NCAA Tournament games. And to do that they'll need to be harder, better, faster, stronger. You could debate whether this song or Daft Punk's original is better. But Kanye's take could get you from deep sleep to a 5-minute-mile like flipping a switch.

9. Mobb Deep - Shook Ones Pt. II. The Hoyas win again! The Round of 32 has been tortuous territory for Georgetown since its 2007 Final Four Run. Three second-round appearances, all losses. The Hoyas need these lyrics to describe their opponents, not them: "Scared to death, scared to look, they shook/Cause ain't no such things as halfway crooks."

10. Lil Wayne f/Jay Z - Mr. Carter. "Hey Mr. Carter/Tell me where have you been?/They been asking, they been searching, they been wondering why" sums up the Hoyas' 9-year absence from the Sweet Sixteen. The Hoyas have been getting a lot of hate this season. Here, Weezy devotes a whole verse to that very topic.

11. Drake f/ Future, "Jumpman". This jam references hoops in every verse. It's named after the Jordan logo, WHICH JUST SO HAPPENS TO BE ON GEORGETOWN'S UNIFORM. Its chorus is "Jumpman, Jumpman, Jumpman, them boys up to something." That is exactly what people will be saying when the Hoyas roll into the Elite 8.

12. Destiny's Child - Survivor. At this point, Georgetown will be in Houston for the Final Four. It just so happens that Beyonce is from Houston. I called on resident Bey expert Mrs. OTH, who chose this song based on the following logic:  "If they were to win after all this, and particularly after the exodus of fans, people dissing on the team and especially on JTIII, I would vote 'Survivor.' The lyrics are all about killing it despite someone turning their back on you or ditching you."

13. David Bowie - Heroes. Sure, the odds of making the national championship game are long. But, barely a generation ago, you know what had really long odds? Tearing down the Berlin freaking Wall. That's exactly what this song is credited with doing, by some Wikipedia entry. "WE CAN BE HEROES, JUST FOR ONE DAY!"

14.Queen - We Are the Champions. There are only two choices here and "One Shining Moment" sucks. The hilariously dated video only underscores that this is the greatest song of all time. Ladies and Gentlemen, Your 2016 National Champion Georgetown Hoyas!