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August 11, 2021
Rémy Ngamije's Playlist for His Novel "The Eternal Audience of One by Rémy Ngamije"
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.
Rémy Ngamije's novel The Eternal Audience of One is a strong debut, a book as moving as it is humorous.
Peter Orner wrote of the book:
"A novel this compelling shouldn’t be so entertaining. As comically inventive as it is superbly written, Ngamije’s The Eternal Audience of One has a rare narrative propulsion—I have not been so swept up on a novel in years. Out of Namibia, population 2.5 million, comes an international masterwork for the 21st Century."
In his own words, here is Rémy Ngamije's Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Eternal Audience of One:
High school, early 2000s. A time of choosing: subjects (French or German, history or biology), after-school activities (math or science olympiads, drama or choir), soccer club fandom and whether we favored Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. Gamers and goths, skater boys and scouts, basketball jocks and track and field royalty—everyone, like Séraphin, the main protagonist in The Eternal Audience of One, was looking for a place to belong just as much as they yearned for their independence. Everyone had to find their tribes—the choices had dire consequences; each decision led down a status-defining path. Once a side was chosen, it was hard to cross to the other. It was, for example, untenable to be a goth and a basketball player. Similarly, the Newtonian theories of motion stated that a poor kid travelled in uniform and uncool motion until acted upon by a new pair of Timberlands or Air Force Ones, class-altering purchases that forever marked their wearers as cool kids. Such occurrences were rare. Our hormones stretched our shinbones, broke our voices, put hips on waists, and curiosities under school blouses. We found newer and newer ways to box ourselves in or out. We divided ourselves according to musical tastes: there was white music—rock, pop, country, classical, and electro—and black music—soul, R&B, and hip-hop. (Jazz, funk, and blues were for old people.) It was a confusing time to be a middle-class black kid who liked what was classified as “white boy music”. The aural apartheid did not make sense to me; my parents encouraged my siblings and I to cultivate diverse tastes in the arts—we were taught to be independent readers, thinkers, viewers, and listeners. High school, then, was this weird time in my life where hive mentalities and personalities were rewarded with community.
Music plays a huge role in The Eternal Audience of One. By making playlists, Séraphin not only provides an aural archive of the times in which he lives, but also uses his compilations to make connections with other characters in the book. In many ways, music is a secondary language, one that does what spoken or written words are not able to do. I can appreciate that; music got me through high school and university, and it continues to be a feature of my daily life. Back then, I liked all genres of music, but rock was magnetic. Also, rock did not have a dress code; hip-hop was expensive—the trends in Source or Vibe were beyond my parents’ incomes. But cargo pants and a t-shirt? Rock on, bro. So I did. Loudly, often to my parents’ ire.
From that strange time of choosing who and what I wanted to be, to this present moment where I am what I am—whatever that might be—this list of songs from my teenage years has followed me from computer to computer, iPod to streaming service, from the very first character outline of Séraphin, to the last full stop in The Eternal Audience of One.
“Song 2” by Blur
The drum intro. That guitar riff. The glorious crash of noise—“Woohoo!”. Brilliant. My parents did not like noise in the house after work. All they wanted was a quiet evening in which to rest from the day’s stress. Damon Alburn, Blur’s lead singer, and I had other plans. The imaginary mosh pit in my head still jumps itself into a mad fury whenever this song loops onto my earphones.
“Minority" by Green Day
“I wanna be in the minority
I don’t need your authority
Down with the moral majority…”
I am not the biggest Green Day fan; Blink 182 and The Offspring are more my speed. But I have to admit that “Minority” is punk rock goodness straight from the rebel gods. If there is a song that captured my rejection of authority and conformity in my teenage years, this would be it.
“Fly Away” by Lenny Kravitz
Being one of the few black men in rock music at the time, Lenny Kravitz did wonders for black children who liked this genre of music. Of course, if we were better informed we could have reached for icons like Jimi Hendrix or all the blues legends. But at the time—with poor internet access, with only the radio and limited television subscription packages to curate the white music world to us—all we had was Lenny. He represented pure freedom for us: a black man who was free to take part in an activity we were told we could not be a part of. Then, also, who did not “want to get away,…want to fly away…” from the smallness of the lives we were living in Windhoek, Namibia?
“What’s My Age Again?” by Blink-182
This song, a staple on the Namibian airwaves back in the day, narrates a romantic encounter between a couple that goes south in an awkward way. To this day I love it because of the extended story it tells across each of its verses. It also possesses an ear-worm quality that never seems to age, no matter how old I get. Blink-182 has an impressive catalogue of music that explores a wide range of themes. Their darker material—“I Miss You” and “Adam’s Song”—is quite excellent. While “All The Small Things” might be their most popular song, “What’s My Age Again?” was my first encounter with the band; that guitar intro still holds a special place in my cochlea.
“Last Resort” by Papa Roach
When you live in a small town like Windhoek you are indirectly ruled by faraway events. After the 1999 high school shootings in Columbine, Colorado the media marked video games like Quake and Doom, black clothing like trench coats, and Marilyn Manson and loud, aggressive rock as sure signs of troubled teenage minds. When I brought Papa Roach’s Infest home my parents were quite concerned.
“Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve
What is not to love about Richard Ashcroft’s stroll down that street, bumping into pedestrians, forcing a pram out of his way, hopping onto the bonnet of a car, and just being the general disaffected bad ass that he is? My parents liked this song’s start because of the violin intro; they thought I liked classical music (I did). And then the guitars and drums kicked in. So did the angry thumping on my bedroom door.
“Sweetness” and “The Middle” by Jimmy Eat World
Teenage experiences are relative. My parents will tell you that I was hard to tolerate. But if you compare me to my peers, my parents had it easy. All I wanted to do was to play basketball and blast “Sweetness" and “The Middle” until the world ended. I was allowed to do the former within academic limits, but the latter ended at six o’clock—no questions asked, no leniencies given.
“Jumper” by Third Eye Blind
I gravitated towards rock music because of its ability to carry and portray a wide range of emotions. “Jumper” is a negotiation process between two friends with one asking the other to “step back from that ledge…”. While the song’s composition remained within my allotted decibel range at home, its thematic content tackled two loud but unaddressed private school secrets: depression and suicide. When I think back to my high school years I marvel at the numerous social traumas that were ignored by parents, teachers, and the larger student population. We were a generation of kids in mysterious and secret pains. But somehow, Third Eye Blind was broadcasting our hurt frequencies. Too often, the world tuned in too late.
“It’s Been Awhile” by Staind
I wish I could go back to my youth to ask myself why Staind was my emotional range for such a long time. “Outside” is Staind’s most popular song but, for me, “It’s Been A While” is where the band’s dark aural magic is found. Honestly, my teenage years were not hard. Sure, boring and constrictive, but all my parents wanted from me was to be respectful and responsible, to help around the house, and to be kinder to my siblings. We had food, shelter, and security. Which is why I do not understand why Staind’s search for redemption was played late into many nights.
“Drive" by Incubus
For many of us, drivers’ licenses represented a coming-of-age freedom we saw from all the American films we consumed. We dreamed of the road being open to us forever. When we finally could drive, there were not many places to go—we were sent to fetch younger siblings from school and do the grocery shopping. Nonetheless, the mere thrill of having the freedom to drive was a step closer to getting the heck out of Windhoek. Incubus understood our feelings well, and to this day no one can tell me this song was not composed for Namibian teenagers.
“(Hey Leonardo) She Likes Me For Me” by Blessed Union Of Souls
Between all the American high school romantic comedies of the 2000s and the shows on MTV, there was an acute pressure to be some sort of jock. I mean, there is a reason why “Teenage Dirtbag” from Wheatus was such a popular song—so many of us felt like losers in some way. “(Hey Leonardo)” went against that. To be loved for who you were, and not shunned for who you were not, had its obvious appeal: we could not be the fictional teenagers of our dreams. Although the song dropped in 1999 (back when Cindy Crawford was being referenced in songs) I played this song throughout the 2000s. Then, also, Blessed Union of Souls had two Black members in the band—that was a high threshold for representation in those days.
“This Is Your Life” by Switchfoot
“This is your life, are you who you want to be?
This is your life, is it everything you dreamed that it would be?
When the world was younger and you had everything to lose”
As long as one lived in Windhoek, the answer to all of these questions was a resounding and sad no. The confrontation of unfulfilled dreams and mortality in the face of time’s passage is Switchfoot’s forte in this song. “This is your life, are you who you want to be?” What kind of question is that to ask a teenager? I can barely formulate a proper answer even now in my early thirties. The guitars, though, and the drums and release of that questioning chorus—I love it.
“Rollin (Air Raid Vehicle)” by Limp Bizkit
If there is a song that was designed to bring black parents and their teenage sons into conflict, this would be it. First of all: Fred Durst. Second and third: Fred Durst. Fourth and final: the explicit content in this song (and the whole album) made my parents think I was sent by Satan to test them. Chocolate Starfish And The Hot Dog Flavored Water, Limp Bizkit’s third album, cemented the band as the whitest boy band to ever white boy band, but I will forever stand up to defend them because I saved up for a long time to purchase this album.
“Papercut”, “One Step Closer,” “Points Of Authority”, “Crawling”, and “In The End”, “Somewhere I Belong”, “From The Inside”, “Breaking The Habit”, and “Numb” by Linkin Park
In many ways, rock and rap were always going to fuse together—rock had the range, but rap had the rover. Together, this strange all-purpose hybrid vehicle that could explore almost any emotional terrain was created. Linkin Park took it—through Hybrid Theory and Meteora, their debut and sophomore albums respectively—to the angriest and loneliest places the 2000s had to offer: isolation, loneliness, regret, vengeance, sadness, nihilism, and death. I was in the seventh grade when Hybrid Theory was released. And when I arrived on high school’s confrontational shores I was primed to be receptive to Linkin Park’s aural programming. And then there was this conundrum: was Linkin Park’s music rap or rock? For those who needed to choose sides the question was confusing. For me, the answer was simple: it was just good music.
“Clint Eastwood” by The Gorillaz
I need a separate essay to dive into the residual influences of this song and this band on The Eternal Audience of One. Suffice it to say this: the idea of incorporeal personality projection was inspired, in part, by The Gorillaz, a virtual band comprising of 2-D, Noodle, Murdoc, and Russel. In “Clint Eastwood” 2-D’s hollow voice provides the fatalistic chorus of the song as Russel, the drummer, has his inner rap demon stirred from slumber as he plays. Voiced by Del the Funky Homosapien, Russel’s demon muses on timelessness and existentialism. The song’s animated music video is entertaining: Murdoc having his crotch grabbed by zombified gorillas, Noodle’s somersault kicks, and the “Thriller” choreography a la gorillas—all of this while the hypnotic baseline thrums throughout the song. Again, blurring the margin between rap and rock, “Clint Eastwood” mapped its own musical terrain, choosing neither left nor right, steering, instead, in the direction of its own artistic spirit. In some way I think I, too, faced this choice when writing The Eternal Audience of One. Was it a coming-of-age story? Or was it about migration? Was it pop culture soup? I do not know. Ultimately, I did not make a choice. I did what felt right at the time. It seems fitting to end this list with the words of the man who started it—Damon Alburn, Blur’s vocalist and leader singer of The Gorillaz:
I ain't happy, I'm feeling glad
I got sunshine in a bag
I'm useless, but not for long
The future is coming on
Rémy Ngamije is a Rwandan-born Namibian writer and photographer. He is the cofounder and editor-in-chief of Doek! Literary Magazine, Namibia's first literary magazine. His work has appeared in Litro Magazine, AFREADA, The Johannesburg Review of Books, Brainwavez, The Amistad, The Kalahari Review, American Chordata, Azure, Sultan's Seal, Santa Ana River Review, Columbia Journal, New Contrast, Necessary Fiction, Silver Pinion, and Lolwe. He was shortlisted for the AKO Caine Prize for African Writing in 2020. He was also longlisted for the 2020 Afritondo Short Story Prize. In 2019, he was shortlisted for Best Original Fiction by Stack Magazines. More of his writing can be read on his website RemytheQuill.com.
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