The blissful innocence of childhood seems pretty appealing these days.

For many, November was a very tough month to come to terms with. Personally, it left me longing for what now seem like simpler times (the past always seems to be “simpler” in retrospect; this time, however, it seems more true than ever). Nothing brings me back to earlier times like music, of course, and one of the songs I put on a few times this month that made me particularly wistful was “The Great Pumpkin Waltz,” Vince Guaraldi’s beautiful, melancholy theme from the 1966 Peanuts Halloween TV special, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Guaraldi was a master of deceptively easy, yet gorgeous, melodies, and this is one of my favorite. Made me sad, a bit, but it’s uplifting too; it makes me feel like as long as there’s music like this, goodness and kindness has to win out in the end.