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June 22, 2022
Daniel Paisner's Playlist for His Novel "Balloon Dog"
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.
Daniel Paisner's novel Balloon Dog is as surprising as it is deeply moving and funny.
Tobias Carroll wrote of the book:
"When you think of art heists, it's often centuries-old paintings or sculptures that come to mind. Daniel Paisner's Balloon Dog demonstrates just how thrilling it can be to put a contemporary work of art into a narrative—and a massive maximalist sculpture, at that. And that's without touching on Paisner's incisive riffs on suburban ennui throughout the book. Imagine a literary mash-up of The Hot Rock and A Serious Man and you have a sense of where this novel is coming from—but not of the surprises it has in store."
In his own words, here is Daniel Paisner's Book Notes music playlist for his novel Balloon Dog:
The idea for my latest novel, "Balloon Dog," came to me in waves. All at once. On the beach. Kinda, sorta.
I was weekending at a fabulous oceanfront home belonging to the brother of one of my lifelong friends. There was a lot of drinking and merry-making, as I recall—also, music. The house had a killer sound system, and at one point a live version of the Stones' "Satisfaction" filled the air. At around the same time, there was a knock on the front door. It was a Saturday morning, early fall. Most of us were well and truly hung over, looking ahead to our next round of drinking and merry-making. At the door was a crew of burly men, who'd just stepped from the cabs of the trucks parked in the driveway. The foreman said he was there for the sculpture on the front lawn, and we stupidly thanked him and left him and his crew to do their thing.
About an hour later, after we'd watched and photographed the bits and pieces of this iconic sculpture as it was being carefully disassembled and lifted from its seaside perch ahead of the winter season, it finally occurred to our host that we should probably check to make sure these art haulers were legit. Happily, they were. The piece was kinetic, and somewhat fragile, insofar as a massive, industrial-size sculpture could be fragile, and our pal knew in a back-of-his-mind way that his brother had it carted away and stored for the winter each year.
So that was that... but not really. You see, on the back of this odd, almost surreal encounter, I had an idea: what if a group of burly men posing as high-end art storage movers arrived at a fabulous vacation home unannounced, in the height of shoulder season, and made off with an impossibly big, unimaginably valuable work of art... in broad daylight? A brazen art heist in plain sight—it felt to me like the jumping-off point for a pretty great story.
Somehow, the idea attached itself to that Stones' song that had been playing when these guys pulled up to the house, and I got to thinking of how a weekend visit in such a spectacular setting might leave a working-stiff writer, say, looking on at the successes and accomplishments of others and considering the many ways he keeps missing out—you know, wondering how white his shirts could be if he could only grab at the same prizes as everyone else.
I hit on a snatch of lyric from the song as a title—"The Same Cigarettes as Me”—and filed the whole business away for another bolt of inspiration.
Cut to a couple years later, mid-pandemic, the world on pause. I started writing. And now, a year or so after that, the novel now known as Balloon Dog is out from Koehler Books. For the longest time, I held onto that line from "Satisfaction" as a title. A lot of writers will tell you the title is the last thing they think about when they set out to write a book, but in this case the novel was conceived, written and sold with that title in mind. Trouble was, the folks who control the Rolling Stones’ publishing were in the way. Or so I thought. For months, I chased down the appropriate rights and permissions people—in New York, in London, in Los Angeles. Finally, as cover art and supporting materials were being finalized, I heard back that approval would be another few months in coming and that I could expect to pay as much as $3,500 to secure the rights to use these five words from the middle bars of a 50-year-old song.
So that was that, on The Same Cigarettes as Me front. However, by this point, I'd written a novel that was guided and largely told through the experiences of my protagonist, who just so happened to be a working-stiff writer, stuck in a going-nowhere career, and grooved into the lifelong habit of associating all-too-familiar lines and snatches of lyrics from classic rock songs to the many moods and moments of his life and times. Each chapter in the book carried a choice phrase or line from a classic rock song as its title, and it felt to me like this connection was essential to my character's character, so I let this one part of the conceit ride.
Turns out this was a great decision, as far as this blog post is concerned, because I now have a book with twenty-one chapters, already punctuated in a meaningful way by a memorable line from a memorable song. The playlist has already written itself, but for this once-removed playlist I’ve decided to reach for a more obscure version of each song, because the originals are such touchstones. Why? Well, a lot of times, when I've heard a song into the ground, my mind tends to race over it in such a way that I can never really listen to it with a full-on focus, and so an alternate take is very often the best way for me to hear an old song as if for the first time.
Here goes...
1. There is a Mountain - Kenny Loggins
This Donovan ditty, built on an old Zen proverb, is playful and tuneful and joyful. In this version, pulled from an album of songs for children, it is all these things and more. “First There is a Mountain,” the opening chapter declares, as the reader is asked to consider what he/she knows alongside what he/she can only imagine.
2. For What It's Worth - The Staples Singers
This take, from 1967, was committed to vinyl just a couple months after the release of Buffalo Springfield’s original, and it’s a gospel-infused gem.
3. Come Together – Ike & Tina Turner
There’s no getting away from the feel of a Beatles song, but Ike & Tina light a fire underneath this one, and set it aloft. The lyric underlines the idea that things don’t always add up in predictable ways. “One and One and One is Three”… but only sometimes.
4. I Heard it Through the Grapevine – Joe Cocker
Cocker’s “With a Little Help From My Friends” is perhaps the most listened-to cover in rock history, but he rearranged/re-imagined the hell out of this one too. Bet you’re wonderin’ how it all ties in.
5. My Back Pages – Ramones
This hard-driving, punk-ish version of the Dylan classic, off the “Acid Eaters” album, brings a kind of relentless frenzy to one of the great rock/folk anthems.
6. You Really Got Me – Sly and the Family Stone
A little funk, a little soul, a little what-the-hell-was-that takes this Kinks’ cut in a whole other direction.
7. Maggie May – Susanna Hoffs and Matthew Sweet
A fresh take on Rod Stewart’s all-time classic, from a terrific album of covers put out by the former Bangles front-woman and the roots-rock singer-songwriter. The line I pull from the song for the book, “The morning sun when it’s in your face really shows your age,” helps to set the tone for what it means to live in the harsh light of our emerging days.
8. Can’t Find My Way Home – Bonnie Raitt
Are you kidding me? Bonnie plays Stevie Winwood like nobody’s business, beneath a lyric that asks readers to consider who holds the key to their futures.
9. Baby O’Riley – Pearl Jam
This live version captures the teenage angst of the original and lifts it to a whole new place with an audience that makes you want to stand up and shout. No, sir – you don’t need to be forgiven.
10. Truckin’ – Marijuana Deathsquads
Alas, there aren’t a whole lot of covers to choose from here, and this one, from the 2016 Grateful Dead tribute album Day of the Dead, is a little too trippy/spacey to play on repeat, but how can we pass up an opportunity to shine a light on one of the best band names on the planet?
11. Long Train Runnin’ – Richie Havens
Without Havens’s voice/vision, where would we be now?
12. All Apologies – Sinead O’Connor
This haunting, plaintive take from the incandescent Irish singer-songwriter takes your breath away… anyway, it does mine. And here it echoes the confusion many of us face as we struggle to define ourselves and build a legacy: “All in all is all we are…” Listen for the way she never quite lets the song take flight. It builds and it builds and it builds and then it just falls away. Lovely.
13. Bohemian Rhapsody – Pink
It’s tough to cover a magnum opus of a song that has been etched into the culture, but Pink sings the hell out of this one on her live album “All I Know So Far” – a version that’s shot through with theatricality and originality.
14. All Right Now - Puddle of Mudd
An elemental rock anthem given a fairly straightforward, hard-charging hearing by these Kansas City rockers.
15. Me & Bobbie McGee – Grateful Dead
I figured since I had to shoehorn-in a cover version of a Dead song a bit earlier, I should give the boys the stage before I complete the set. “Nothing left to lose” and all that. This live version from the classic Skull and Roses album gives this Kris Kristofferson masterpiece a fresh coat of paint. The cut comes from a 1971 show at The Fillmore East in NY, and I played the hell out of this back in high school.
16. Kashmir – Dixie Dregs
The line that finds its way from this Zeppelin tune into the book is “all will be revealed,” which can pretty much set the scene for the climax of any good story. Here the Dregs find a way to put their own spin on a song that has been drilled into memory.
17. Smoke on the Water – Pat Boone
The first song I ever learned on the guitar. (And, the second-to-last.) This kitsch-y version from the timeless crooner Pat Boone, from a 1997 collection called “In a Metal Mood: No More Mr. Nice Guy” has a little too much going on to rate a second listen, but oh that first listen… big fun.
18. Peaceful Easy Feeling – Kate Wolf
So great to be able to highlight the gifts of this American folksinger – gone too soon, but her voice lives on in this sweet, wistful live version of one of the Eagles’ first breakthrough hits.
19. (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – Cat Power
The source material/inspiration for this book, “the same cigarettes as me” are lit in a stripped-down version from Cat Power that’s haunting and thrilling.
20. Changes – Butterfly Boucher (with David Bowie)
This one comes from the soundtrack to Shrek 2, of all places, and it’s cheerful and jaunty in a way that belies the original. Bowie’s on hand to duet with the Australian singer-songwriter to give this take an air of authenticity. The perfect song to accompany the book’s penultimate chapter—“Turn and Face the Strange”—which asks readers to consider the surprising turns that can’t help but find us as we make our way through this world.
21. Who Knows Where the Time Goes? – Nina Simone
There’s actually some discussion in this closing chapter (“I Do Not Count the Time”) on the weight of the original Sandy Denny version of the song, which she re-recorded to modest success as a member of the British folk group The Strawbs, and the Judy Collins cover that appeared as the b-side to “Both Sides Now” the following year. Denny dusted off the song again, as part of Fairport Convention, but here we hand the mic to the great singer and activist Nina Simone, who offers a fine coda to the book, as we step back from an art heist gone all kinds of wrong, and consider a career that’s gone all kinds of nowhere, and a life that may or may not have fallen short.
That about covers it. For those of us of a certain age, it’s a playlist shot-through with some surprising takes on the soundtrack of our lives, meant to echo the themes of a book that asks us to consider the transformative power of art. For everyone else, it’s an alternate take on a bunch of songs that have spoken into the culture in an indelible, enduring way. Might as well give a listen.
Daniel Paisner is the author or co-author of more than seventy books. As a ghostwriter, he has written more than fifty books in collaboration with athletes, actors, politicians, business leaders, and ordinary individuals with extraordinary stories to tell. Seventeen of his collaborations have reached The New York Times best-seller list. The author of three previous novels-A Single Happened Thing, Mourning Wood, and Obit-he is also the host of the popular podcast As Told To: The Ghostwriting Podcast. A graduate of Tufts University, with a master's degree in journalism from Boston University, he lives on Long Island and in Park City, Utah, where he enjoys skiing, hiking, kayaking, grandparenting, and aging gracefully.
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