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February 3, 2022
Jen Winston's Playlist for Her Memoir "Greedy"
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.
Jen Winston's Greedy is both memoir and treatise on bisexuality, a book incisive in its intelligence and abundant in its humor.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"Winston viscerally describes the sense of being unmoored without language to describe herself and the difficult path to finding it, all with a breezy irreverence that will enamor her to fans of millennial essayists like Samantha Irby and Jia Tolentino. One of her greatest strengths is in pivoting from acerbic wit to earnest reflection . . . In playfully queering the coming-of-age story, Winston has written something wholly original, and entirely delightful."
In her own words, here is Jen Winston's Book Notes music playlist for her memoir Greedy:
When I was in college at lunch with my 90-year-old grandma, I found myself trying to explain my obsession with Hot Chip. She said, “Ah, yes—your mother used to like music too. You’ll grow out of it.”
I picked at my Applebee’s house sirloin (tell me you’re from Indiana without telling me you’re from Indiana) and scoffed. My mom used to like music? That implied that music was something one could eventually grow out of. The thought alone seemed absurd—like saying, “Your mother used to enjoy food”—but I took my grandma’s words as a challenge. I wanted to prove to her (and, of course, to myself) that I wasn’t like my mom or any other fairweather music fans—for me, this was a lifelong passion.
But then I started writing, and that fucked everything up. Because I write in silence. My creative process has always been at odds with my own self-care—the words appear on the page only when I deprive myself of songs (also: showers, exercise, sleep). While working on Greedy over the last year (because I somehow wrote it in less than a year), my house has been mostly quiet, save for trace Harry Styles vocals leaking out from my partner’s AirPods.
I lead with this to show you, Largehearted Boy readers, that I put enormous pressure on myself to make this playlist a good one. Because now that my first book is out in the world, I finally have a break from writing—thus the ability to actually listen to music again, and another chance to prove to my grandma (and, of course, myself) that I haven’t lost my zeal. I’m here to prove that I’ve held onto at least a sliver of taste (despite dedicating a solid few pages of my memoir to unpacking the queer-coding of The Killers’ Hot Fuzz).
“Woman is a Word” - Empress Of
While writing, I was shocked by how many of my essays found their way back to the subject of womanhood—I naively thought that I’d graduated from discussing that topic, but compiling my personal history meant confronting how much gender and its respective roles had shaped the person I’d become.
I’ve been obsessed with this song for years, especially the lyric, “I’m only a woman if woman is a word.” That line sums up so many of my book's themes: The connection between language and identity, the hope that womanhood might exist as something greater than Adam’s rib, the idea that femininity itself belongs to no one—it’s a tool for everyone to play with and use. If you’re strapped for time to read a whole book, I guess you could just listen to this song instead? (You can still give me a five star GoodReads review—I won’t tell.)
“I Am The Body Beautiful” - Salt-N-Pepa
Recently I was lucky enough to join Sloane Steel and Zach Mellen on their podcast Mummy Dearest, where guests talk about the movies that made them queer! I picked To Wong Foo, Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar because I have a visceral memory of feeling alive in middle school after seeing its first scene (which is set to this song). As Wesley Snipes and Patrick Swayze powdered their noses and pulled on their pantyhose, something inside me registered that a reality beyond binary gender was possible. Hearing this song takes me back to that inner child, who was clearly queer af.
“Something More (Soulwax Remix)” - Róisín Murphy
Even before I claimed my bisexuality out loud, I wanted to transcend the banality of my heterosexuality—by that point, the majority of my life had been spent browsing dating apps or having mediocre sex with men. Not only does this song hit my need for escapism on the nose, but I can picture it blasting out of the speakers at various warehouse parties—aka the only places that have ever made me feel like myself.
“Moon in Water” - Underworld
In 2019, I encountered the work of bi theorist Shiri Eisner who writes that bisexuality challenges binary systems at their core, and that bisexual confusion “can be thought of as a destabilizing act of social change.” Reading that line was one of the first times I ever felt proud to be bi—it made me realize that my “confusion,” or inability to decide between the binary ideas of straight and gay, was itself a gift. I didn’t have to overcome that stereotype because confusion was the very force that made me who I was—an absolute mess, constantly questioning everything and checking in with myself.
I love how this song reminds us that binary ideas often inform our identities, but to be truly ourselves, we need to ignore them and live according to what feels right—to exist in a state of flux and stay confused.
“Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl” - Broken Social Scene
There’s a chapter in Greedy called “Girl Crush: Clinical Observations”—it’s a medical-style report about how difficult it can be to assess whether one’s feelings toward someone of the same gender qualify as romantic (vs. being a socially acceptable “friend crush”). That chapter also references a nameless Broken Social Scene song, and this is that song. I almost didn’t include it on this playlist because it’s recently been making a broad comeback in meme form, but the track still conjures a scene for me: My high-school self staring at my best friend, wondering if “friends” is all we are. I believe that everyone has a special and semi-forbidden someone they think about when they hear this song. (And if you haven’t heard this song before, then you’re probably that someone for someone else.)
“Okay, I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don’t” - Brand New
I wasn’t gonna include any early 2000s emo, but not doing so feels dishonest to my youth (smh). An essay in Part One (“Hot and Cool”) talks about smoking weed as a middle schooler, and also dissects formative moments with gender / how those initial interactions shape our lives. That chapter mentions “Soco Amaretto Lime,” but “Okay, I Believe You” was the Brand New song my friends and I sang far more often—it’s hard to listen to it now (not that I often do) without hearing a chorus of high school girl voices in my head.
Also, I don’t wanna go full soapbox here, but Deja Entendu has some deep gender-related themes—in its own way, it questions what it means to “be a man.”
“Just” - Radiohead
This song could really apply to any personal demon: “You do it to yourself, and that’s what really hurts.” I doubt Thom Yorke intended to comment on internalized biphobia, but hey . . . if the shoe fits! (Can you tell I just wanted to get some Radiohead on this playlist?)
“Gun Has No Trigger” - The Dirty Projectors
“Gun Has No Trigger” feels like your subconscious confronting you about that twisted nightmare that you’ve never mentioned to anyone. The self-awareness makes you shiver with disgust, but at the same time, the song sounds fucking incredible. How are you supposed to reconcile those beautiful harmonies with your most repulsive secret? Being bisexual means getting comfortable sitting with two seemingly contradictory truths at once, and recognizing that who you are might be at odds with who society wants you to be.
Also: A gun having no trigger means you can’t change or escape your circumstances unless you do something drastic, likely something you’ve never even considered before. It means it might be time to seek the third option—and if you don’t know what that is yet, it might be time to invent it.
“Over” - Maya Jane Coles
In tarot, the death card is often interpreted as a positive thing, symbolizing new beginnings. I’ve always felt this Maya Jane Coles song has a similar vibe—an excited energy around finality and ability to start again from scratch—and that aligns with one of my favorite essays in the book, “The Men Who Ghost Me.” For so many years, dating was a GRIND and I couldn’t seem to make a relationship stick. But there was a certain freedom in that, and I know a large part of me enjoyed the cycle of lust>pain>repeat.
“Sick Bitch” - LSDXOXO
I’m thrilled that in 2021, queer people have gotten much more comfortable reclaiming everything the world throws at us, especially with regards to sex. LSDXOXO has such a rad sound, but also gloriously shameless lyrics: “I'm a sick bitch and I like freak sex / If you wanna test the limits / Of my gag reflex.” Sick Bitch can be a rallying cry if given the right context, and for bisexuals learning to reclaim our greed, I hope this book can be the same.
“A Coin in Nine Hands” - Nicolas Jaar
A big personal revelation came when I realized that queerness as a concept could be broader than my own sexual history—it could refer to perception of the world, inspiring us to pursue collective liberation. (I discuss this and José Esteban Muñoz’s idea of queer utopia in the essay “Out of the Woods.”)
When this song first came out, it sort of shocked me into confronting my privilege—I felt hypnotized by the lyrics and became desperate to find out what they meant. I learned that the words spoke about a Palestinian prisoner’s hunger strike, and referred to other challenges faced by activists fighting colonialism. When we view queerness as a collective ideal, we see the connection between all humanity, and we too can strive for a better world.
“Mary Magdalene” - FKA Twigs
FKA Twigs’ work always contains such powerful insight into the experience of being a woman—even her album covers explore the idea of “image” within a gendered context. One of the book’s essays (called “True Life: I Masturbate Wrong”) talks about technology, beauty standards, and, well, masturbation—mostly about how frustrating it is to have to think about your physical appearance while trying to get yourself off. “Mary Magdalene” speaks to the many contradictions women are expected to walk within, especially the ones related to sex.
“Jason” - Perfume Genius
Bisexuality in men is such a unique and specific topic, and I feel like it needs to be addressed on its own—that’s why my book has an essay that focuses on that subject specifically. Bi people have to overcome our own internalized biphobia, but also our internalized homophobia, and that strikes in such a unique way for men. I see “Jason” less as a song, and more as a beautifully poetic vignette about internalized homophobia and the havoc it can wreak on all in its path.
“Bassically” - Tei Shi
For most of my life, I contorted my personality into a shape that I thought men would like. My book talks about this in pretty much every chapter, but addresses it most directly in “Boundaries: A Fairy Tale”—an essay written in fairy tale form about stifling myself in hopes of achieving a fairy tale romance to call my own.
Tei Shi’s lyrics make me feel like I’m looking in a mirror at my past self: “Baby I’ll behave/If you let me stay”—thus were my pleas to my hookups. It wasn’t until one put his foot down that I realized I could put my foot down too.
“Beating” - Tirzah
The final section of Greedy opens with a chapter called “A Queer Love Story,” which explores the difference between Queer Love and True Love (the latter being a false ideal that women are often spoon-fed by Disney movies, the former being a love that has to actively self-define and fight for its own existence). This whole Tirzah album feels so intimate, like it’s figuring itself out as it goes along. This song also gets bonus points because my partner and I both like it, which is rare enough to make it a perfect note to end on.
Jen Winston (she/they) is a writer, creative director, and bisexual based in Brooklyn. Their work bridges the intersection of sex, politics, and technology, and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, CNN, and more. Jen is passionate about unlearning and creating work that helps others do the same. Her newsletter, The Bi Monthly, is dedicated to exploring bi issues and experiences--it comes out every month, much like Jen herself. Follow Jen on Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok (please, she's begging you): @Jenerous.
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