May 29, 2020
Sidura Ludwig's Playlist for Her Story Collection "You Are Not What We Expected"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Sidura Ludwig's linked story collection You Are Not What We Expected builds a lyrical and moving world, and comes together like a novel.
Jami Attenberg wrote of the book:
"A gorgeous, highly visceral, deeply felt collection of linked stories about how families work — and don’t work — together. The Levine family is unforgettable."
In her own words, here is Sidura Ludwig's Book Notes music playlist for her memoir You Are Not What We Expected:
This is an interesting challenge for me, because I wrote You Are Not What We Expected in complete silence (with only the fan from my register booster under my desk as background noise). I decided to think of songs that would go with some of the stories in the collection, be them songs my characters might have been listening to, or that would have resonated with the characters during this period in their lives.
“The Only Living Boy in New York” (Simon and Garfunkel) for “The Flag”
There’s a longing in this song, a sense of standing alone and not being seen. In “The Flag” Isaac desperately wants to be heard, and instead feels ignored. He cannot understand why no one else is upset by the international transgression he spots. And why no one will jump to action when he points it out. He feels like he exists in a different world to the rest of his neighbourhood. So, he is The Only Living Man in Thornhill.
“Gangnam Style” (PSY) for “Pufferman”
This story takes place in the summer, with two pivotal scenes in Puffer’s backyard pool. I imagine “Gangnam Style” on repeat as Puffer cannonballs himself into the water, as he annoys his nanny, as he plays on his own with no one to share his antics with. This song screams exhibitionism. I see Puffer knowing all the dance moves, practicing them in the water and laughing at himself, but really wishing he had an audience.
“YeHye Tov” (David Broza) “You Are Not What We Expected”
The chorus of this song means, “It will get better.” The main character in this story, Rina, finds herself at a crossroads in her life, panicked that things will never improve. One of her constants is her older sister who lives in Israel, texting her advice and support. This is a song she might have sent over to give Rina hope and the strength to step out.
“Jar of Hearts” (Christina Perri) for “Escape Routes”
Whenever I hear this song, I feel the space Perri is exploring of wanting and not wanting the person who has broken your heart. Ava and Adam spend their life existing in this space wanting and not wanting their mother to return. In this story, Ava’s best friend ends up moving away and so she’s once again faced with losing someone she’s trusts. “Jar of Hearts” is the kind of song that would be played in the background were this story a short film as we watch Ava cycling around the neighbourhood.
“Fly Me To The Moon” (Frank Sinatra) for “Like Landing the Gimli Glider”
If you were to ask Isaac to name the greatest singer of all time, he would say Frank Sinatra. He would tell you that no one from today comes close to delivering a song the way Frank Sinatra did. Certainly not Lady Gaga nor Katy Perry. Nor somebody named Pink. Isaac would be absolute in his devotion to Sinatra, who he might even refer to as his musical hero. When Isaac helps Ava rescue Cookie, the dog, he is channeling Sinatra’s confidence and the hope that he could be the one to make Ava feel like she could fly to the moon.
“Marry You” (Bruno Mars) for “Greatest Love Story Never Told”
There is a scene in this story where the Jessie and Ava are sitting on the floor, mapping out their version of Jessie’s grandparents’ story. The more they imagine the details, the more romantic it seems to them. “Marry You” represents the giddiness of love, the in-the-moment, nothing-else-matters feeling of grabbing that one person and never letting go. For different reasons, this is how both girls need to romanticize that story, even if they are blowing it out of proportion.
“God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” (Barenaked Ladies ft Sarah McLachlan) for “Keeping Ghosts Warm”
This is possibly the only story in the book to reference a song. In the first scene, Shula is waiting for her father at a downtown Chinese restaurant. This song is playing over the radio. I have always loved this Christmas carol for the harmonies, and I particularly love this version. Later in the story, Shula is in her car and singing along to Christmas carols, leaving out the words “Jesus Christ”. Shula would only listen to Christmas carols when she is alone in her car, and I imagine this is the song for which she waits to sing along.
“Home” (Philip Philips) for “The Last Man Standing”
When Philips sings, “Know you’re not alone/I’m gonna make this place your home,” it’s more than a promise. He is both offering devotion but also challenging himself to commitment. Adam would have been that person for his grandmother, for his sister, but he couldn’t get past his anger. He is also a young man for whom “home” was an insecure concept. In Adam’s ideal life, he both makes a place home for the people he loves, and is offered the same security in return.
“You Can Call Me Al” (Paul Simon) for “The Happiest Man on Sunset Strip”
In this last story, Isaac is trapped by his aging body, but not by his mind. In his mind, he is still the man walking down the street, wondering at the strange world. This verse represents how I picture Isaac’s character throughout the book:
A man walks down the street
It's a street in a strange world
Maybe it's the third world
Maybe it's his first time around
Doesn't speak the language
He holds no currency
He is a foreign man
Isaac will always be a foreign man, wherever he is. He speaks his own language and exists in the world on his own terms. Even after suffering a stroke, he still finds ways with Ava to break the rules and share a moment in which, once again, he is in complete control.
Sidura Ludwig is the author of the widely successful novel Holding My Breath. Her short fiction has been published in numerous literary journals and anthologies. She works as a communications specialist and creative writing teacher, and her creative nonfiction has appeared in several newspapers and on CBC Radio. She is currently working on her M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults through the Vermont College of Fine Arts. Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, she now lives in Thornhill, Ontario, with her husband and three children.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Support the Largehearted Boy website
Book Notes (2018 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2015 - 2017) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
weekly music release lists
May 29, 2020
Shorties (Summer's Essential Books by Black Authors, Greg Saunier on the New Deerhoof Album, and more)
Essence recommended summer's best books by black authors, including Akwaeke Emezi's brilliant new novel The Death of Vivek Oji.
American Songwriter interviewed Greg Saunier about the new Deerhoof album.
eBook on sale for $1.99 today:
eBook on sale for $2.99 today:
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa
Gary Green discussed his book of early NYC punk photography, When Midnight Comes Around, with the Guardian.
SheKnows recommended summer's best new books.
Jeff Tweedy covered Talking Heads' "Heaven."
Vogue and The A.V. Club listed June's best books.
The Sun profiled singer-songwriter Jason Isbell.
Bustle recommended books to give you "that beach read feeling."
Stream a new song by Georgia Anne Muldrow.
Mia Mercado talked about her debut essay collection, Weird But Normal with Bitch Media.
I wish I had a really fun, smart, deep answer for why I write about myself, but I don’t know. I am both obsessed with and deeply hate myself. My writing is definitely self-serving [and offers a space] to try and unpack that.
Stream PJ Harvey's demo for "Sheela Na-Gig."
André Naffis-Sahely discussed his anthology The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile with Bookworm.
Ben Gibbard covered Bjork's "All Is Full of Love."
David Moloney recommended books about confinement at Electric Literature.
Stream a new song by Owen.
ELLE shared an anti-racist reading list.
Stream a new Protomartyr song.
Author's recommended books they "found most transporting" at the Washington Post.
Stream a new Gang of Four song.
The New York Times listed the week's best new books.
All Songs Considered remembered Washington, DC's 9:30 Club.
Electric Literature recommended books written by Asian American authors.
Grimes is selling a piece of her soul.
The New Yorker recommended pre-apocalyptic novels.
Stream a new song by Harry the Nightgown.
Ilze Hugo discussed his novel The Down Days with Electric Literature.
A society under chronic stress is more susceptible to mass hysteria. And I feel like South Africa is a society under chronic stress. We haven’t recovered from the inequalities and the injustices of apartheid. Plus, there’s something really ominous about laughter, like how a lot of people are afraid of clowns. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense as a fantastic metaphor for society in collapse.
The Red & Black interviewed Luke Fields of the band We Versus the Shark.
The Chicago Review of Books interviewed author Lydia Millet.
The Quietus recapped May's best music releases.
A Largehearted Boy t-shirt is now available:
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
weekly music release lists
May 28, 2020
Margo Orlando Littell's Playlist for Her Novel "The Distance From Four Points"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Margo Orlando Littell's The Distance From Four Points is a novel
Foreword Reviews wrote of the book:
"A quiet, compelling novel ... Robin carries the novel with her melancholy confusion, grit, and wry perception. ... The novel is rich with details about the southwest corner of Pennsylvania: its haunting natural beauty and economic blight, the colloquial use of yinz instead of you, Sheetz convenience stores, gun racks on trucks, and an underlying sense of community."
In her own words, here is Margo Orlando Littell's Book Notes music playlist for her novel The Distance From Four Points:
When I was a teenager, living in the Appalachian region of southwestern Pennsylvania, I listened to country music without qualm or irony. Not today’s hybrid, hip, Taylor Swift version of country—but the real deal, the best of the nineties and early aughts, songs about hometown girls and open roads and tearing off your rearview mirror as you make your getaway. This was pre-9/11, pre-Trump. The patriotic songs were sung with full-throated American gusto, but not necessarily malice. You could change the station casually; you didn’t have to be filled with overwhelming rage. What I’m saying is that it was okay to listen to country music back then, even for a liberal person. It wasn’t a political statement, at least not as much as it is today.
I’ve always set my work in fictionalized versions of my hometown, which means country music often rears its heavily symbolic head in my stories, and it’s what I find myself listening to when I need to sink into my imagined worlds. It’s not always easy to find that access point since I haven’t lived in Appalachia for twenty years, and the familiar songs are a way back in.
The weird juxtaposition of listening to nineties country, the same songs I loved in high school, when I explored back roads with friends in broken-down cars, as I drive around my New York City suburb in a luxury SUV isn’t lost on me. In fact, I rely on this disjunct when I’m working through plot lines and character development. Songs about homecomings and country-fried foods and life paths determined by the flip of a coin paint a picture of a simple, good, easy existence, which is total baloney. It’s American pablum. Things are so much more complicated. That hometown being yearned for? The local economy imploded decades ago. The buddies at the bar are out of work or working minimum wage, and despite what the songs suggest, there’s no romance in that. Most small towns—the kind of towns these songs glorify—are the polar opposite of the snowy, twinkle-light-wrapped small towns where Hallmark holiday heroines find their life’s purpose in bakeries and bookstores.
Go home, the country songs say. Find a good partner; don’t wander far; live in your mama’s old house and spend your weekends with a beer and a fishing rod. In my novel, The Distance From Four Points, my protagonist does go home, against her will, and all manner of too-familiar hellscapes are waiting for her. The songs on this playlist reflect her choices and highlight her struggles.
“Fancy” by Reba McIntyre
Oh, how I wish Robin’s unfortunate teenage years could be represented by the strangely triumphant “Fancy,” where the eighteen-year-old in the song is directed to “Just be nice to the gentlemen, Fancy / And they’ll be nice to you”—a life lesson Fancy follows to great success. Robin’s own teenage sex work, though it pays the rent, doesn’t exactly lead her “uptown,” but it’s a means to an end just as Fancy’s is. I wish Robin could feel a little less shame about the desperate measures she had little choice but to embrace.
“That Summer” by Garth Brooks
Robin, my landlord protagonist, listens to this song after one of her tenants trashes an apartment, while she struggles to pry up some ruined linoleum. She doesn’t remark on it, but it hints at pieces of her story—a love affair that no one understands, a connection that lasts across the years, questionable judgments that lead to permanent, private transformation instead of regret. Four Points isn’t a love story, but there is a relationship that shades all the relationships and experiences that come after it, for better or worse. That’s the gist of “That Summer.”
“The House that Built Me” by Miranda Lambert
A woman returns to her hometown and finds the house where she grew up. She knocks on the door and is invited in to look around, prompting her to remember living in the much-changed rooms. This song really speaks to my book. The entire novel is centered around a particular house in Four Points, the town where Robin grew up, and, like the singer, Robin will both return to her hometown and find reason to enter and engage with a house that meant a lot to her. A house that built her, to use the song’s lyrics, and a house that Robin herself will ultimately contribute to re-building.
“Home” by Sheryl Crow
There’s a danger, in creating this playlist, that it will be made up entirely of songs from Sheryl Crow’s Tuesday Night Music Club. But I’ll select this song as representative, since The Distance From Four Points is essentially a search for, and a re-definition of, home. Robin doesn’t lack for love or stability, but her conquests are hollow. Only when she returns to her hometown can she admit this to herself.
“Heads Carolina, Tails California” by Jo Dee Messina
Open roads! Freedom! Throwing cares to the wind! There’s none of this energy in The Distance from Four Points, but I like the disjunct between this song’s exuberance and Robin’s exhausted submission. Heads, tails, it doesn’t matter for my poor protagonist. She’s got troubles on all sides of every coin, and definitely not enough coins to go around.
“Bye, Bye” by Jo Dee Messina
There are a few themes in nineties and early-aughts country that strike an emotional chord, and this song is a crystalline example of one of them: defiant escape. I mean, the woman in this song is so hell-bent on getting gone that she’s torn off her rearview mirror. Never looking back, get it? Though Robin’s escape from her hometown wasn’t celebratory, it was triumphant in its own way, which means her eventual return is even more defeating. She left, but it didn’t stick.
“Wide Open Spaces” by the Dixie Chicks
Wide open spaces, room to make a big mistake. This song about heading West in a reckless, youthful, headlong fashion is another excellent escape anthem, and it underscores the chance Robin never had to truly make a new beginning. She left home, but only went ninety miles further into Pennsylvania, already burdened with enough regrets to last a lifetime. It’s unfair, really, but Robin is a protagonist who was never meant to be truly free.
“He Thinks He’ll Keep Her” by Mary Chapin Carpenter
This song could be Robin’s theme. It’s about a woman who’s done every single thing she could to build a respectable life: she got married in her mother’s wedding gown, popped out three kids, makes her husband’s coffee every day and does all the laundry and errands. She does it well, too, because as the refrain keeps affirming, “He thinks he’ll keep her.” What an awesome wife. Indeed: “Everything is so benign / Safest place you’ll ever find / God forbid you change your mind.” Robin consciously builds herself into a top-notch wife, too, and spends her entire adult life squashing any inkling of dissatisfaction. Unfortunately, the universe had other plans for her. “Safest place you’ll ever find / At least until you change your mind.” Losing her painstakingly wrought safety net is what launches Robin’s journey back to Four Points, and what sets my novel in motion.
Margo Orlando Littell grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania and received an MFA from Columbia. After spending many years in New York City, Barcelona, and Northern California, she now lives in New Jersey with her family.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Support the Largehearted Boy website
Book Notes (2018 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2015 - 2017) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
weekly music release lists
Shorties (Recommended Baseball Books, Phoebe Bridgers on Her New Album, and more)
MLB.com staff listed their favorite baseball books.
Phoebe Bridgers discussed her new album Punisher with Rolling Stone.
“I think there’s more humor in my music than people hear,” she says. “I have never wanted to be a character, and I have never wanted to hide stuff about myself. I want to normalize personhood. Songs are like therapy to me: I’m just like a normal person, going to therapy.”
eBooks on sale for $1.99 today:
Father of the Rain by Lily King
Man and His Symbols by Carl Gustav Jung
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem
Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison
eBook on sale for $3.99 today:
Noisey examined coronavirus's effects on record labels.
The New Criterion shared a 1983 Walker Percy essay on Herman Melville and loneliness in American literature.
SPIN reconsidered Bad Brains' God of Love album at 25.
The Christian Science Monitor recommended May's best books.
Yo La Tengo shared a remastered version of its "Tom Courtenay" video.
Bitch Media interviewed Meredith Talusa about her memoir Fairest.
Paste listed the best punk albums of 2020 (so far).
The Rupture shared a new Matthew Vollmer essay.
The Pacific Northwest Inlander interviewed Mike Hadreas of Perfume Genius.
Apartment Therapy and People recommended summer's best books.
Real Estate covered Goo Goo Dolls' "Name."
The 2020 James Beard Media Awards have been announced.
Stream a new Shirley Collins song.
Johny Pitts has won the Jhalak prize for his debut book Afropean.
Read an excerpt from the book.
Stream a new Widowspeak song.
Tor.com shared the third chapter of Charlie Anders' serialized book, Never Say You Can't Survive.
Autostraddle recommended summer's best queer and feminist books.
The Millions interviewed author Samanta Schweblin.
Elizabeth Acevedo discussed her new novel Clap When You Land with Shondaland.
Literary Hub interviewed Noam Chomsky.
Author and activist Larry Kramer has passed away.
The New York Times called Robert Caro's biography of Robert Moses The Power Broker a "must-have prop for numerous politicians and reporters appearing on camera from home."
The New York Times recommended June's best new books.
Cartoonist Jules Feiffer talked books and reading with the New York Times.
Jessica Anthony discussed her novel Enter the Aardvark with Electric Literature.
A Largehearted Boy t-shirt is now available:
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
weekly music release lists
May 27, 2020
Elliot Ackerman's Playlist for His Novel "Red Dress in Black and White"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Elliot Ackerman's Red Dress in Black and White is an unforgettable novel of both politics and love.
In his own words, here is Elliot Ackerman's Book Notes music playlist for his novel Red Dress in Black and White:
Every family’s core is its collection of secrets. My latest novel, Red Dress in Black and White, explores the hidden emotions and alliances sustaining the lives of a businessman, a mother, their son, her lover and, ultimately, a society in crisis. The novel unfolds against the backdrop of the Gezi Park protests, a period of political upheaval in Turkey which occurred in tandem with the Arab Spring. I lived in Istanbul during this time, arriving as an expatriate in 2013 and struggling to understand a country which, much like our own in recent years, was threatening to tear itself apart. I was also struggling to understand my own family, how we had ended up in our new home and, ultimately, what our future would look like when we left.
This playlist isn’t so much tied to the characters in the novel but is the music I was listening to as I wrote it. So its mood is very much the mood of the book.
Dead Flowers, Townes Van Zandt
This is a cover of the Rolling Stones classic. Its most iconic use was in the credits sequence of The Big Lebowski. Songs about heroin addiction could almost form their own sub-genre of music and that’s what this song is about. But it’s really about heartbreak and if you listen I think you’ll hear that, particularly in Van Zandt’s voice.
All Along the Watchtower, Bob Dylan
I love the Hendrix version, too. But the original Dylan, with its folk undertones, is a more political song. Red Dress in Black and White is a political novel (it’s also a romance and a bit of a thriller) so maybe some of the Dylan got in there while I was writing. One can only hope.
Baby It’s You, Smith
This is one of those great L.A. bands from the late 1960s and, like Watchtower, this song is also a cover. Gayle McCormick has an amazing, sexy voice on lead vocals. The simplicity of the lyrics is great. “Baby it’s you,” is what so many other songs are trying to say in a more roundabout way.
Bye Bye Blackbird, Joe Cocker
This is just one of the greatest songs ever.
End of the Night, The Doors:
I’ve always felt like this was their Clair d’ Lune. The song is dreamy, its lyrics are a circular refrain, you can zone out to this one, as I often did. Like the song’s title suggests, it’s a great one to listen to when the parties over, everyone’s gone home, and it’s the end of the night.
Knockin’ On Heavens Door, Bob Dylan
“Mama, put my guns in the ground
I can't shoot them anymore
That long black cloud is comin' down
I feel I'm knockin' on heaven's door”
Originally, this song was commissioned for the soundtrack of the 1973 film Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. The film was a flop, but it birthed one of the greatest songs on Dylan’s list. Clapton, Guns N’ Roses, they’ve all covered it. No one does it as well as Dylan. It’s a song about reaching the end of your rope.
I’ll Be Your Lover, Too, Van Morrison
No one does a ballad like Van Morrison. This one doesn’t get as much play as Brown Eyed Girl and some of his others, but it’s a gem. Unlike those, it’s a bit more mournful. The tone is unrequited. It’s my favorite of all his songs.
Love Vigilantes, New Order
The song tells the story of a soldier who returns from Vietnam to discover that his wife has received an erroneous telegram informing her of his death and has committed suicide. As the song progresses, you come to wonder whether the soldier is alive or is recounting this story as a ghost.
Try a Little Tenderness, Otis Redding
I could’ve picked a dozen other Otis Redding songs to place on this list. This one never gets old to me, that organ, the metronymic beat that keeps building up to the bridge; it’s perfect. I also love the films it’s been used in, from Bull Durham to The Commitments, and every time I hear it, the song reminds me of those films too, as well as moments in my own life, when I’ve had to try a little tenderness.
Elliot Ackerman is a National Book Award finalist, author of the novels Waiting for Eden, Dark at the Crossing, and Green on Blue, and of the nonfiction book Places and Names. His work has appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and The Best American Short Stories, among other publications. He is both a former White House Fellow and a Marine, and he served five tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, where he received the Silver Star, the Bronze Star for Valor, and the Purple Heart. He divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Support the Largehearted Boy website
Book Notes (2018 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2015 - 2017) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
weekly music release lists
Shorties (An Excerpt from Brit Bennett's New Novel, Mood-Busting Albums for Quarantine Listening, and more)
Vogue shared an excerpt from Brit Bennett's novel The Vanishing Half.
The New York Times reviewed the book.
Paste recommended mood-busting albums for quarantine.
eBooks on sale for $1.99 today:
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
Crazy Horse and Custer by Stephen E. Ambrose
The Idiot by Elif Batuman
Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks
eBooks on sale for $3.99 today:
Help, Thanks, Wow by Anne Lamott
eBooks on sale for $3.99 today:
How to Bake Everything by Mark Bittman
Stream a new Bright Eyes song.
The Cut shared an excerpt from Meredith Talusan's memoir Fairest.
Electric Literature interviewed Talusan about the book.
Wire played a Tiny Desk Concert.
The New York Observer recommended graphic novels that unearth the histories of great cities.
Composer Steve Reich discussed his pandemic routine with NPR Music.
Electric Literature shared an excerpt from Marie-Helene Bertino's novel Parakeet.
Stream a song from Japandroids' forthcoming live album.
The OTHERPPL podcast interviewed author Kristen Millares Young.
Stream a song from Joyce Manor's forthcoming rarities album.
John Domini explored the writings of John Barth at Literary Hub.
Aquarium Drunkard interviewed older musicians about life in quarantine.
Julian K. Jarboe discussed their short story collection Everyone on the Moon Is Essential Personnel with The Rumpus.
Stream a new song by Too Much (Ian Svenonius and Rich Morel).
Read new short fiction by Diane Williams.
Aquarium Drunkard shared a mixtape of live indie songs.
Literary Hub recommended the week's best new books.
io9 recommended nerdcore, nerd-core, and other geeky musical artists.
The Rumpus Poetry Book Club interviewed author Ariel Francisco.
The Los Angeles Review of Books interviewed musician Kim Gordon.
The White Review features new fiction by Sally Rooney.
The Guardian recommended entry points into Sonic Youth's discography.
Tea Obreht talked books and reading with Book Marks.
A Largehearted Boy t-shirt is now available:
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
weekly music release lists
May 26, 2020
Madeline Stevens' Playlist for Her Novel "Devotion"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Madeline Stevens' novel Devotion is an engaging and thought-provoking debut.
Willamette Week wrote of the book:
"Sexual and class tensions merge into riveting drama, as a nannying gig for a broke, 20-something college dropout turns into something more intimate--and perhaps more sinister.... As debut novels go, Devotion is about as promising as they come."
In her own words, here is Madeline Stevens' Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Devotion:
When I think about trying to capture the tone of my life from ages 26 to 31, the years during which I wrote Devotion, what comes to mind first is a few lines from a James Wright poem:
“…somebody is weeping in a darkness I cannot see
through
I want.”
I lived those years inside a dark, lush, and certainly self-pitying state of perpetual desire.
Devotion took six years to write. Like my protagonist, I was working as a nanny for those six years, for various families across New York City, and underneath the daily grind of long subway commutes and longer hours, the grind of struggling to make ends meet, I was nurturing a deep sense of unrest. I held my unhappiness close, letting it grow in my mind and my notebooks. This wasn’t anything sexy. My desire during those years reminds me more of picking at a wound. I couldn’t just leave it alone.
Devotion—for me—is a case study in wanting. This playlist is a selection of what I was listening to as I wrote, usually late at night in my old Crown Heights apartment, nursing whatever beer had been cheap at the bodega. It’s no coincidence that these songs of longing also mirror the tone of the novel. I have them to thank for transporting me into a place where all my unhappiness could be translated into art.
I’m not going to say something about everyone selection I’ve included here, but a few deserve special mention:
“The Harder They Come”—Jimmy Cliff
I would be remiss to open a novel in Crown Heights and not include a bit of reggae. This one was written for the ‘73 film by the same name, which was a piece of cinema I was actually thinking about a lot as I wrote: the down-and-out protagonist whose optimism—whose wanting—gets beaten out of him harder and harder.
“Lacewings” –The Clientele
I feel something like obsession for this band. Not everyone understands it, but some do. I saw them live once, at a one-off show with the original line-up in Brooklyn. Behind me, two men were yelling, “Mexico City, man!” the whole show. They’d driven from Mexico City to New York just to see them. Everyone was swooning so hard (because that’s what one does while listening to The Clientele; one swoons) and Alasdair, overwhelmed, just leaned into the mic, staring out at us all while we screamed, and said, “Wow. You guys are nostalgic tonight.” I still swoon when I think of it.
“Journey in Satchidananda” –Alice Coltrane and Pharaoh Sanders + “Each Time You Fall in Love” –Cigarettes After Sex
These are two songs that are strange to place next to each other, yes. The only reason they go together in my mind is this: I separated from my ex-husband right before embarking on my last round of edits. For a long while, Cigarettes After Sex and Alice Coltrane were all I could listen to. I’m not sure I could explain why exactly. I just found them both very comforting.
“Rose Blood” –Mazzy Star
The first time I heard Mazzy Star I was thirteen and I downloaded So Tonight that I Might See on Napster. It took all night thanks to a dial-up internet connection, but that was okay. That just let me savor each of the songs longer. Listening to Mazzy Star was the first time I’d ever heard a girl sing about her fascination with another girl so directly. It was both scary and absolutely alluring.
“Kicks” –Lou Reed
I bought this album on vinyl, horribly scratched, at Goodwill when I was fifteen. Back then, artists didn’t fit into specific spaces in my mind. I didn’t know about the cultural moment Lou Reed had been a part of. When I discovered a musician at that age it felt like they could belong to any time at all. I didn’t yet know about Studio 54, Andy Warhol, or even The Velvet Underground. All that came later. All I knew then was I could listen to this weird record I’d found over and over—waiting by the record player to gently nudge the needle along each time it was caught.
“Angel in the Snow”–Elliot Smith
You can always count on Elliott to explore the blurriness between love and addiction. How we can use and use and use what we love until everything’s all used up.
Get Out Get Out Get Out –Jason Molina
This one has been in my mind as the “exit music” for Devotion ever since I started writing. I actually wrote the very last lines very early on in the process, and then spent years trying to catch up to that point. I picture credits rolling here. I picture Ella walking away.
Madeline Stevens is a writer from Boring, Oregon, currently based in Los Angeles. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and her work has been published in a variety of literary magazines. She spent seven years working as a nanny in New York City. Devotion is her first novel.
also at Largehearted Boy:
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Book Notes (2018 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2015 - 2017) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
weekly music release lists
Shorties (Lionel Shriver Profiled, Recommended Music Documentaries, and more)
The New Yorker profiled author Lionel Shriver.
Paste recommended music documentaries.
eBooks on sale for $1.99 today:
Chaos by James Gleick
Thick by Tressie McMillan Cottom
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
MC Taylor of Hiss Golden Messenger discussed his favorite album at Under the Radar.
Electric Literature interviewed poet Victoria Chang.
BuzzFeed listed movies that are better than the books they are based on.
Stream a new Cigarettes After Sex song.
Literary Hub and Marie Claire recommended summer's best books.
All Songs Considered shared a playlist of cover songs.
KHON recommended books to read during Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month .
Treble reconsidered Peter Gabriel's Melt album on its 40th anniversary.
The Quietus recommended notable books on art.
Aquarium Drunkard shared photos from Paul Drummond’s new book 13th Floor Elevators: A Visual History .
Electric Literature interviewed author Mary South.
The Millions interviewed author Akwaeke Emezi .
Christina Chiu recommended books about the burden of female beauty standards at Electric Literature.
Granta shared an excerpt from Natalia Borges Polesso’s story collection Amora.
Boston indie booksellers recommended summer's must-read books.
Kristen Arnett recommended books at Book Marks.
The Millions recommended the week's best new books.
The Rumpus interviewed author Cathy Park Hong.
Literary Hub shared an excerpt from J. M. Coetzee's new novel, The Death of Jesus.
The New York Review of Books shared a new essay by Marilynne Robinson.
A Largehearted Boy t-shirt is now available:
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
weekly music release lists
May 25, 2020
Shorties (Rivka Galchen on P.G. Wodehouse, Grateful Dead Tennis Shoes, and more)
Rivka Galchen wrote about P.G, Wodehouse and his internment during World War II at the New Yorker.
eBooks on sale for $1.99 today:
Playing for Keeps: Michael Jordan and the World He Made by David Halberstam
Stoner by John Williams
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Quartet by Joseph J. Ellis
NPR Music and BrooklynVegan are sharing calendars of live online virtual concerts.
The Rumpus, the Washington Post, School Library Journal, and Literary Hub offer calendars of online virtual literary events,
Cult MTL profiled the band the Dears.
The Atlantic shared an excerpt from Barton Gellman's book Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State.
Clem Snide's Eef Barzelay played a Tiny Desk Concert.
Graphic Medicine is collecting comics about Covid-19.
Woods' Jeremy Young discussed the band's new album with Weekend Edition.
BuzzFeed shared an excerpt from Meredith Talusan's memoir Fairest.
I came to understand that what I wanted was to be seen as my complete self — my gender, my race, my history — without being judged because of it.
The New Yorker interviewed the Beastie Boys' Ad-Rock.
Bustle recommended escapist novels.
The A.V. Club recommended the week's best new albums.
TIME, The Daily Beast, Vulture, and Refinery29 recommended summer's best books.
The Los Angeles Times recommended novels set around the world.
Katie Von Schleicher discussed her latest album with Bandcamp Daily.
Anna Dorn recommended memoirs and novels about the dark side of fame at Electric Literature.
Rolling Stone listed the best Bob Dylan songs.
The New York Times recommended art books to read this summer.
Stream a new song by White Fence's Tim Presley.
Book Riot recommended books about racism.
Stream a new Sondre Lerche song.
Chris Bohjalian pondered post-pandemic fiction at the Washington Post.
Stream a new song by Dean & Britta.
Authors recommended their favorite soothing audiobooks at the Strategist.
Jimmy Cobb, the drummer on Miles Davis's album Kind of Blue, has passed away.
Barton Gellman discussed his book Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State with the Guardian.
SPIN listed the year's best songs (so far).
The Guardian listed writers shaping the UK's literary future.
Sparks’ Ron Mael discussed the band's new album with Forbes.
3:AM shared new nonfiction by Monique Roffey.
Rolling Stone listed the 100 greatest Bob Dylan songs.
Bookforum shard a new essay by Joshua Cohen.
Porochista Khakpour talked to Columbia Journal about her essay collection Brown Album.
The Jewish Book Council shared new nonfiction by Ilana Masad.
Word Bookstores have announced Word Association, where book purchases by selected authors will support worthy causes.
Consequence of Sound ranked Joy Division songs.
The A.V. Club examined Instagram as a platform for comics.
Lydia Millet recommended books about appreciating animals at The Week.
Bookforum interviewed Millet about her new novel.
Electric Literature shared a short story by Aimee Herman.
David Means talked to the New Yorker about his story in this week's issue.
A Largehearted Boy t-shirt is now available:
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
weekly music release lists
May 22, 2020
Tracy O'Neill's Playlist for Her Novel "Quotients"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Brilliant and inventive, Tracy O'Neill's second novel Quotients is one of the year's most timely books.
Ploughshares wrote of the book:
"Beyond conspiratorial thrills, this is a book about intimacy and loyalties yearned for and lost . . . [We] are often unable to see through our faulty human screens of fears, illusions, and hopes, especially burdened by an increasingly fractional and artificial society. In Quotients, O’Neill tackles this blindness, and the result is a distinct, unconventional narrative with no easy conclusions."
In her own words, here is Tracy O'Neill's Book Notes music playlist for her novel Quotients:
It’s been so difficult for me to summarize Quotients. The couple at the center, Alexandra Chen and Jeremy Jordan, long to create a home together, even as they often are complicit in the divisions that threaten it. On the one hand, it’s a novel about people seeking safety, truth, and love. On the other, it’s about the way in which big data, state surveillance, and fractured online media contribute to a society in which danger, uncertainty, and polarization are ubiquitous. The songs in this playlist, however, touch on the unquantifiable moods and colors of the novel.
“La Vie en Rose” Louis Armstrong
Alexandra Chen is fundamentally someone who decides to see in pink, then is baffled when told she’s wearing tinted glasses. In one scene of Quotients, this song is playing at a restaurant. I imagined that she’s still have an attraction to romantic cliché even by the end of the novel.
“Enjoy the Silence” Depeche Mode
When Jeremy meets Alexandra, he wants to steal away from the world of intel. Depeche Mode sings, “Words like violence/Break the silence/Come crashing in/Into my little world/Painful to me/Pierce right through me.” This is not so far off from where he stands.
“At Home He’s a Tourist” Gang of Four
In one early draft, I had Jeremy listening to Gang of Four as a young man. Later, the scene was cut, but this sense of being not at home at home is central to the narrative.
“We Almost Lost Detroit” Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron captures the way one might both mourn for and warn a society in this song about a near loss of Detroit through shortsightedness. I wanted this novel to be imbued with some of this feeling.
“Sinnerman” Nina Simone
The restless energy of this song drawn out over length is beautiful and unsettling, capturing the simultaneous exhaustion and anxiety of running from the past. This phenomenon is what runs beneath the surface of Jeremy’s mostly collected demeanor.
“Closer” NIN
Throughout this book I’ve included epigraphs. At one point, I thought about using “You let me violate you/You let me desecrate you,” which I think captures the complicity of some of the characters in cycles of state surveillance and violence.
“Et si tu n’existais pas” Iggy Pop
This captures the combination of melancholy and love Jeremy feels for his family. He’s unable to experience love without an accompanying presentiment of loss.
“Tessellate” alt-J
I really love the creepy, nerdy vibe of this song, and when I first saw the cover for the book with the triangles, I thought of this song first.
“Different Pulses” Asaf Avidan
Both Alexandra and Jeremy believe that love can transform, though they aren’t always sure how to do it. They’re both a little lost, though neither would admit it, and hoping that love will click their lives into place. That is what this song is about too.
Tracy O'Neill is the author of The Hopeful, one of Electric Literature's Best Novels of 2015, and Quotients. In 2015, she was named a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree, long-listed for the Flaherty-Dunnan Prize, and was a Narrative Under 30 finalist. In 2012, she was awarded the Center for Fiction's Emerging Writers Fellowship. Her writing has appeared in Granta, Rolling Stone, The Atlantic, the New Yorker, LitHub, BOMB, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, The Literarian, New World Writing, Narrative, Scoundrel Time, Guernica, Bookforum, Electric Literature, Grantland, Vice, The Guardian, VQR, and the San Francisco Chronicle. Her column Body Language appeared in Catapult. She attended the MFA program at the City College of New York and the PhD program in communications at Columbia University.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Support the Largehearted Boy website
Book Notes (2018 - ) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2015 - 2017) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2012 - 2014) (authors create music playlists for their book)
Book Notes (2005 - 2011) (authors create music playlists for their book)
my 11 favorite Book Notes playlist essays
Antiheroines (interviews with up and coming female comics artists)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (weekly comics highlights)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
guest book reviews
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
Shorties (daily music, literature, and pop culture links)
Soundtracked (composers and directors discuss their film's soundtracks)
weekly music release lists
Shorties (Summer Book Previews, Owen Pallet on His Surprise New Album, and more)
Vulture and BuzzFeed recommended summer's best books.
Owen Pallett shared albums that influenced his surprise album Island at Brooklyn Vegan.
eBooks on sale for $1.99 today:
Maurice by E.M. Forster
The Tiger's Wife by Teah Obreht
eBooks on sale for $2.99 today:
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Napoleon by Andrew Roberts
eBook on sale for $4.99 today:
Martha Stewart's Organizing by Martha Stewart
NPR Music and BrooklynVegan are sharing calendars of live online virtual concerts.
The Rumpus, the Washington Post, and Literary Hub offer calendars of online virtual literary events,
Yo-Yo Ma talked books and reading with the New York Times.
Stream a previously unreleased live song by Elliott Smith.
Curtis Sittenfeld discussed her new novel Rodham with People and the Washingtonian.
The A.V. Club interviewed the Beastie Boys' Adam Horovitz and Mike Diamond.
Sigrid Nunez considered the books of Garth Greenwell at the New York Review of Books.
Rolling Stone interviewed Black Francis.
Megan Stielstra talked about teaching writing with Electric Literature.
Cover Me shared a selection of cover songs performed by Grant Lee Buffalo.
Megan Abbott wrote about missing bars at the New York Times.
SPIN listed the best albums of 2020 (so far).
BuzzFeed recommended books to read during quarantine to make you feel like you are traveling.
Bandcamp Daily recapped the platform's best experimental music in May.
Bitch Media interviewed Lindsay Sproul about her novel We Were Promised Spotlights .
Guitar World profiled Kim Gordon.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel recommended books for summer reading.
Morning Edition interviewed singer-songwriter Damien Jurado.
SheKnows recommended dystopian books to get through quarantine.
Califone covered Elliott Smith's "Needle in the Hay."
The New York Times recommended the week's best new books.
Read John Darnielle's essay on the Grateful Dead.
Kate Zambreno discussed her new novel Drifts with the New York Observer.
“Conversations about genre often feel projected onto my work from the outside—from writing institutions, whether it be bigger publishing or academia—and in a way that isn’t exciting to me. I’m more interested in having a conversation about form or mood than genre.”
Brooklyn Vegan recommended the week's best new albums.
Ivy Pochoda took Interview magazine on a tour of the West Adams Los Angeles neighborhood of her novel These Women.
Sunny War shared four cover songs at Aquarium Drunkard.
Electric Literature interviewed author Genevieve Hudson.
Stream a collection of covers of John Wesley Harding songs.
The European Astrobiology Institute shared a free science fiction anthology, Strangest of All.
Stream Soccer Mommy and Jay Som covering each other's songs.
The 2020 Orwell Prize shortlists have been announced.
Kathy Valentine of the Go-Go's discussed her memoir All I Ever Wanted with American Songwriter.
GQ recommended May's best books.
The Rumpus interviewed author Rufi Thorpe.
Red Bull Australia recommended surfing books.
Celeste Ng talked books and reading with the Guardian.
Wisconsin Public Radio recommended books about nature.
Electric Literature interviewed author Samantha Irby.
Vol. 1 Brooklyn interviewed Michael J. Seidlinger about his new novel Dreams of Being.
NYC indie bookstores recommended books to read this holiday weekend at Time Out New York.
The Los Angeles Times recommended novels to read.
Granta shared an excerpt from Catherine Lacey's novel Pew.
The Guardian reviewed the book.
The Guardian reviewed Porochista Khakpour's essay collection Brown Album.
Two Largehearted Boy t-shirts are now available:
Round LHB logo shirt
"Books + Music = Largehearted Boy" shirt
also at Largehearted Boy:
previous Shorties posts (daily news and links from the worlds of music, books, and pop culture)
Atomic Books Comics Preview (the week's best new comics and graphic novels)
Book Notes (authors create playlists for their book)
Flash Dancers (authors pair original flash fiction with a song
Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Books of the Week (recommended new books, magazines, and comics)
musician/author interviews
Note Books (musicians discuss literature)
Short Cuts (writers pair a song with their short story or essay)
weekly music release lists
May 21, 2020
Nina Renata Aron's Playlist for Her Memoir "Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Nina Renata Aron's memoir Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls is an affecting look at addiction through the lens of love and family.
Booklist wrote of the book:
"In Aron’s candid and heart-wrenching memoir, the gnarled knots of love and addiction are untied and tangled and tied again. . . . Her compassion for victims of addiction never wavers, and her presentation of the addicted people in her life is dynamic and fair. A beautiful, nuanced portrait of living alongside addiction."
In her own words, here is Nina Renata Aron's Book Notes music playlist for her memoir Good Morning, Destroyer of Men's Souls:
This book is about family, addiction, codependency, history, romance, and obsessive love. It’s about how my idea of love was constructed—all the songs, poems, movies, and family stories that informed it. While writing it, I made one very long playlist called “Make it Feel Like This.” Each song had its mood and I wanted each of those moods to be reflected in the book. I made many others, too, and often entered into the day’s writing by pairing a playlist with a section of the book, as one might pair wine and food.
At the center of the book is my relationship with the man I call K, who was briefly my boyfriend when I was young and impressionable and then became my boyfriend again many years later when I was a young mother. He struggled with heroin addiction and I struggled trying to control him. We met in the late 1990s when I was eighteen and working at Tower Records in San Francisco. Many of these songs were important to me then, in my teens and twenties, and to this day they make me feel the kinds of big feelings I’m still learning how to manage.
Over by Alice Boman
I picture a dilapidated seaside motel in very grey weather when I listen to this song. It’s about the balance between light and darkness and I like to think it’s about a difficult love relationship, though I don’t know for sure. There is a wave-like quality to the music, and it captures the mournful mood of knowing that you will likely be pulled back into the darkness of that dyad. The refrain that it’s not over until it’s over is chased here by the repeated, almost resigned confirmation that “it’s not over.” In that line, the way it’s delivered, I hear the simultaneous hope and heartbreak of knowing this isn’t actually the end, that you’re not getting out yet—you’re going to go another round with that person.
You Are the Sunshine of My Life—Chokebore Cover by Exsonvaldes
I’ve listened to this song hundreds of times while writing this book. It’s a cover of a song by Chokebore, one of the very best bands of my 90s. It’s a heavy, driving, slightly frantic but ultimately miserable song about cheating and lying and continually fucking up your own life by messing with love. Maybe it’s about a certain emptiness at the heart of love. This song works like a drug on me: when I hear it, I can feel viscerally the relentless anxiety of keeping my own lies straight in my mind, the substance-addled recklessness of hurting someone’s feelings and not quite caring. It somehow captures the sick thrill and disappointment of discovering just how selfish a person you are. To me, this song is so sexy that it’s also a little bit evil: it’s about the mundane tragedy of infidelity, but you get the sense that the guy likes it a little bit.
Get Well by Nothing
The first minute of this song may be what made me write this book in the first place. It reminds me of the shoegaze music I listened to as a teenager. I listened to this loud in my car when it first came out and although I don’t know what the song is actually about, I heard the line “can’t find it” and imagined it to be about a vein and the name of the song to be about getting well in the drug sense. The song makes me think about rain and heroin and San Francisco, about feeling trapped in my own life, wanting to drive out of it and into another reality, especially on days when the clouds hung low in the sky. Once, I went to see this band live and I stood right in front of the stage as they played this song, wrapped in the deafening fuzz of distortion pedals. The bassist wasn’t wearing any shoes and jumped around in athletic socks like he was at a sleepover.
A Night in The Nursery by Jonathan Fire*Eater
Jonathan Fire*Eater played a big part in my life in the late '90s in New York City. I saw them play a few times. I loved any band using a vintage organ. I ended up playing a '60s Farfisa in a band a few years later. I thought the sound of the late singer Stewart Lupton’s voice was the sexiest thing I’d ever heard. Drunk, I closed my eyes and imagined him speaking that first “come hither” into my ear. Two of the members of the band were in my college Russian history class and once they asked to borrow my notes. I think they’d missed lecture to play a show. I remember that I was proud of how thorough and neurotic my notes were and how neat my handwriting was. They went on to form other bands I also liked but I’ve always been loyal to Jonathan Fire*Eater. The sound of this song, which sort of twinkles itself on, then ushers in the unruliness of a circus, anchored by bass and a mad catalogue of everyday details, still moves me. And though I’m considerably less depressed or goth than I once was, I will always love the line “I eat my breakfast like the food at a wake.”
Half-Lit by Single Mothers
Nights out careening around the city on drugs have the quality of falling down a well. I don’t drink or take drugs anymore, but I still sometimes miss that feeling.
People joke about “beer goggles” or a sense of lust or romance for another person that’s created by being fucked up but I still sometimes pine for the lusty romance of just getting fucked up—abandoning responsibility, tumbling down, feeling at once enclosed, concealed, protected and liberated by the darkness of nighttime. That terrifying, exhilarating sense that you might be heading toward some disaster. It’s never a certainty (until it is), just a possibility, shimmering just out of sight. This song is kind of obnoxious, which makes it even better. This is a middle of the night song, a showing up on someone’s doorstep when you really shouldn’t be there song.
Let Me Come Back by Girls Against Boys
I remember listening to this during the first phase of my relationship with K when I was 18. I don’t know if it was on a mixtape he made me or was just a song that was around at that time. I looked it up—it came out in 1993. It’s a guy enumerating the things he’ll do just to “come back,” and the refrain “let me come back” is deep and rumbling and menacing. He’s admitting he was wrong, but he leans on the word “back” to convince you and it’s almost desperate. I’ve heard a lot of apologies and I like a song where a man is begging, but here you get the slightly scary sense that he’s coming back whether you want him to or not. It sounds like his foot is already wedged in the door.
They Live by Night by The Makeup
This is a different kind of night out song, a big, wild song to shimmy to or put your makeup on to. It makes me feel cool and like I’m going to a party. This record came out when I was finishing high school and when I heard it I thought I wanted my whole life to feel like this. They Live by Night makes it sound like it’s about monsters or some kind of creatures, but it’s also the name of a 1940s film about a bank robber and his lover who go on the run. It was considered a forerunner of Bonnie and Clyde, and I like that this song is named after it. The backup vocals on this one have a trashy glamour and the whole thing makes me want to wear sequins and make unhealthy choices.
What She Said by The Smiths
Morrissey has been rightly canceled but Johnny Marr’s still great and I’m stubbornly hanging on to this 1985 track. This song, about a misanthrope who smokes because she’s “hoping for an early death,” was one that defined my relationship with K. At the time, I was somehow fond of the idea that a certain kind of bad boy partner could show a bookish person like me something about “real” life. The song goes, “What she read, all heavy books she’d sit and prophesize; it took a tattooed boy from Birkenhead to really, really open her eyes.” The “Live in Boston” version of the song is arguably superior, but on this one you can better hear just how delightfully the jaunty guitars are at odds with the overwrought, suicidal lyrics.
Axemen by Heavens to Betsy
It’s always wild to hear this song. I feel like a teenager again. This is an anti-high school song about alienation, rage, white privilege, feeling crazy, and wanting to burn your school down and get the fuck out of town. The summer before senior year, I worked in a weird café run by two handsy brothers. I saved up my tips and bought a dying 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit with no stereo, so I brought my boom box on longer drives and lay it face up in the driver’s seat. It was unwieldy and could suck the juice out of a couple D batteries in the two hours it took to get to Philly. But I listened to this Heavens to Betsy tape and rewound this song over and over. It’s a riot grrrl anthem that made me feel like it was okay to be really angry. In the book, I write about leaving home after senior year to drive across the country with my two best friends. This is one of the songs that powered my departure from New Jersey.
Twisting the Knife by Sorcha Richardson
Writing a memoir made me feel at times like I was turning my life into a movie. I read old journals, old descriptions of my life and played certain scenes back over and over in my mind, summoning greater clarity, figuring out how to describe them. I found myself drawn to music that felt cinematic during this time. Some of it was grand, but some was quieter like Sorcha Richardson, an Irish singer-songwriter whose songs are about small moments of aching and connection. “Would it feel the same, your mouth around my name,” she sings. This one felt readymade for a party scene or for the moment when my old lover reappeared and upended the life I’d made.
Parallels by Big Thief
We make the same mistakes over and over again, but it’s not always because we can’t see that we’re making them. Sometimes we have self-awareness but it’s uneven or grasping or gets diverted or diluted by other needs, desires, compulsions. We just can’t do anything different until we can. I don’t know quite what this song is about, but the questions at the beginning are crushing: “Don’t I make you feel alive? Don’t I give you a good home?” I used to shout questions like those; I wanted my love to fix the person I loved. This song makes me think about wanting to transform out of the reality you’re in but being stuck, and second guessing yourself, thinking maybe the love you have is enough. The plaintive repetition of the line “I see all the parallels” makes me think of the times when we can see the damage we’re doing. We see all the ways we’re messing up but for a long time we can’t stop. It also feels like it could be in a movie.
Tonight by Sybille Baier
When I first discovered German folk singer Sybille Baier, I became a bit obsessed with her. She made reel-to-reel recordings of her quiet, Nico-style songs in the early 1970s but they weren’t released until 2006. I remember reading that she made the recordings after her husband and kids went to bed, a detail I loved, maybe because I know the feeling (and I know many women artists who do too) of stealing away to remind yourself of yourself late at night while the family sleeps. I relate to this song, even though I don’t know its backstory. But I can keenly recall the feeling of returning home from work to find K, this man who, for all his faults, I felt really understood me. Just the banality of a woman coming home from work and finding a man sitting in the kitchen buttering a piece of bread with the cat on his knee—I find it lovely. He can understand the woman’s sorrow. The song is about the quiet pleasure of being legible and known in a way that’s all the more special for going unacknowledged by the world outside your own small home at night.
Anteroom by EMA
For a while, I found this song almost too sad to listen to. A friend put it on a mix for me and it destroyed me. It sounds like Elliott Smith but it’s not. “You know me, I’ll be fine” is a great people-pleaser’s refrain, but the song is mostly stunning for the harmonies at the end, and the line, “If this time through we don’t get it right, I’ll come back to you in another life.” It has always made me think of the deep loves in my life, the aching wish that you could have another chance, and the heavy, bottom-of-the-ocean sadness of the knowledge that you won’t. You might have to wait for another life. That offers a sliver of levity, and yet it’s also hopeless. Beyond hopeless and into absurd—or is it? The idea of the spectral return of an old lover or a reunion, a chance, in some future life is exciting.
Nina Renata Aron is a writer and editor living in Oakland, California. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and elsewhere.
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