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July 13, 2022
Natalka Burian's Playlist for Her Novel "The Night Shift"
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.
Natalka Burian's novel The Night Shift is an impressive debut that brings the early 2000s NYC to life.
Booklist wrote of the book:
"Burian explores the gritty underground of New York City in this ambitious novel… fans of classic alternate-history novels like Blake Crouch’s Dark Matter and Stephen King’s 11/22/63 will devour this one."
In her own words, here is Natalka Burian's Book Notes music playlist for her novel The Night Shift:
Music has never been more relevant in my life than during this pandemic, particularly in the time we were all trapped inside. I wrote the majority of The Night Shift in this particularly claustrophobic era, and I think it’s pretty obvious that the music bled through the air in my home and into the pages of this book.
I’ve always listened to a lot of music, but during the pandemic, it was constant in a different way. Music was on all of the time—in my headphones and in our apartment—and it absolutely kept me from drowning in dread. I have two kids (a sixth grader and third grader) and a husband, so we made a lot of compromises and negotiations in building these eternal household playlists. I listened to and grew to love music I normally would never consider and so did my kids and husband.
Undoubtedly, the best thing was introducing my family to the music that hit me in the heart department as a young person. It was so soothing to submerge myself in albums from the Cure and Nirvana and a thrill to see my kids responding to it in a similar way. During a stagnant and scary time, music was one of the things we could change. If the mood in our apartment was shifting the wrong way, it felt like a miracle to put on a different song and make a meaningful turn toward a better feeling. Being around so much music all of the time definitely helped me to write a better book.
In The Night Shift, I set out with the intention to use music to build the atmosphere, but also—because this book is about time travel--to blur time. I listened to every song on this playlist hundreds of times while writing The Night Shift. I listened to all of these songs as a young person living in NYC in the early 2000s, too. The collision of these two listening experiences has made me appreciate the songs in a new way. It kind of felt like time travel: being the same person, but twenty years apart. I am always grateful to open a door onto a new perspective and to uncover one of the many secret frontiers of the human mind. Hopefully the next time I am honored to have this kind of revelation, it won’t be because of a global pandemic!
The Slits “I Heard it Through the Grapevine”
I’ll never forget the first time I heard this song. The Slits’ Cut was in a juke box at an East Village dive bar and when someone played this, my jaw was on the (filthy, sticky, cigarette butt-littered) floor. I knew the song, of course, but Ari-Up’s dynamic voice and the effervescent drums turned the song inside out into something urgent and buoyant. I love this song because it’s about gossip and secrets, and in the Night Shift, the shortcuts the characters use are revealed only because of gossip and secrets.
The Clash “Police on My Back”
Jean, my protagonist, takes a job behind the bar in the East Village. Joe Strummer has been a patron saint of the East Village for a long time; that mural of him on the exterior wall of the bar Niagara is like some Byzantine icon. It seemed wrong not to include some of his work in this lineup. This song is all about the chase—something each of the characters in this story experiences.
The Strokes “Hard to Explain”
I had to include something from the Strokes here, but it was difficult to choose the right song. Did I do it? I’m not sure! Time travel is hard to explain, so. . .
Usher “Yeah!”
This song is 2004 in a bottle. It was everywhere; you couldn’t go into a Duane Reade or turn on a car radio without hearing it. It reminds me of open windows and fresh air, just swirling around all of the time.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs “Date With The Night”
This song makes you feel like you’re in over your head, but in a good way. It contains all of the promise and warning a person might need at the start of an especially wild night. It’s perfect for this playlist because the time and space jumping shortcuts can only be used after dark.
The Walkmen “The Rat”
The Walkmen were blowing up during the period in which The Night Shift is set. The first Walkmen show I attended was truly wild, and I felt like the coolest person in the world just being there. The momentum in this song is so much fun and a little scary—I imagine listening to this is similar to what going through one of the shortcuts would feel like.
Interpol “PDA”
This song oozes early 2000s energy. It hearkens back to a time when nights could feel endless—there was always some other place to go when the last place closed. I love the twinkly, blurry feeling in this song; if it were a person, it would absolutely be messed up and having the best time of its life.
Talking Heads “This Must be the Place”
There is something about this song that is so disorienting and so grounding all at once. It captures the feeling of coming and going at the same time. Jean, the protagonist, has a lot of conflicting feelings about home and belonging, and I think this song describes the same ambivalence.
Mary J. Blige “No More Drama”
Lu, the protagonist’s boss in The Night Shift, is a Mary J. Blige super fan. Every time I listen to this song I think of her, playing this album over the speakers in the middle of the night in an empty commercial kitchen. I love all of the different textures in this song, and the balance between pain and determination that Mary captures in this vocal performance. For me, this is Lu’s anthem.
The Ramones “Danny Says”
One of the sweetest characters in the book, Alan Grudge, is based on Joey Ramone. Joey is probably my favorite New Yorker of all time. Writing Alan was kind of a thought experiment, working through a possible alternative reality for Joey Ramone. I tried to envision a world in which he was still alive but pretty anonymous, a world in which you could maybe run into him on Avenue B. I think this song is particularly sweet and mournful, two of my favorite features of Joey’s vocal performances.
Pulp “Mis-Shapes”
In The Night Shift, I created a fictional party called Transmission that is absolutely cobbled together from my memories of attending many Misshapes over the years. There was no way to put together a playlist for this book without including this song.
Frank Black “Headache”
I think this song is about a time travel hangover—maybe the perfect way to close out this playlist?
Natalka Burian is the cofounder of the Freya Project, a nonprofit reading series that supports community-based activism and the work of women and nonbinary writers. She is the author of Welcome to the Slipstream, a young adult book, and the cocktail cookbook A Woman's Drink, and is the co-owner of two bars, Elsa and Ramona.
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