Conor Cusack is the guitarist in Dublin band Spies, who will play the Therapy Sessions in the Workman’s Club on 8 January.

Here he picks the four songs that lift him when he’s feeling down and tells us the overall reason for picking those four tracks.

Bobby Vinton – Blue  on Blue

Real Estate – Green Aisles

The Walkmen – Canadian Girl

The Beach Boys – Don’t Talk (Put your Head on my Shoulder)

I do most of my worrying in acute bursts while I’m out walking. Most of the time when I feel very anxious I leave the house and pace around outside for a couple of hours to try and calm myself down. I think this trend first started when I was doing my Leaving Certificate and has continued throughout my adult life. Often when I listen to music during these periods, it’s nothing more than a backing track as I’m too distracted to notice it properly. However, a couple of tracks have at various times, really helped me to get out of my mind, and calm myself down. What it is about these songs I’m not sure. I couldn’t really talk about the particular elements of each of them which made me feel better. It’s more of a general tone of sadness which I related to and made me feel better at various times.  

Our unique event – Co-Motion, a musical walking experience – takes place on Sunday, January 3 in the National Botanic Gardens in Glassnevin  at 2pm and on January 10 at the same time in St Stephen’s Green.

We’re asking people to come armed with their four-song playlist of “songs that get them through”, a set of earphones and a listening device (phone, ipod, etc). They’ll then be paired up with another randomly selected participant.

While the idea of putting a playlist together is pretty straight forward, the idea of bringing that playlist along to a specific location, pairing up with a like-minded stranger and walking around a park with them as you play your playlist for them while they then play theirs for you, is probably something many of us have never done before.

View more playlists and book FREE tickets to attend Co-Motion in the Botanic Gardens on January 3rd or St Stephen’s Green on January 10th here