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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.
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