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July 22, 2022
Shane Kowalski's Playlist for His Story Collection "Small Moods"
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.
The stories in Shane Kowalski's collection Small Moods are dark and unsettling in the best of ways.
In his own words, here is Shane Kowalski's Book Notes music playlist for his collection Small Moods:
Something Wild has, in my opinion, one of the great soundtracks of any movie. The songs collected by Laurie Anderson and John Cale always seem to fit the mood of the scene…even influence it in an ambient way. It’s a soundtrack that rhymes with the tonal shifts of the film—whether they are played directly over the scene or heard from a passing car in the night. While putting together my book of very short fiction, Small Moods, I had this soundtrack in the back of my mind. I wanted to collect the voices that felt wild, spontaneous, easily distracted. Heart-jinxed and foolish. I looked back through old playlists and my history on YouTube and collected ten of the songs that popped up the most in the period when the stories in the book were written and then collected. They feel like the most distilled influences on the stories in Small Moods. They feel like cars with thumping heartbeats of music driving past my window at night…where are they going? Why aren’t I asleep? Am I in somebody else’s dream right now? Is it yours?
1. “Not My Slave” by Oingo Boingo
Straight from the Something Wild soundtrack. This song is one of the great love songs ever written, in my opinion. Its mood is a little bonkers, off-kilter, strange, yet perfectly earnest. It’s one of my favorites because it just feels like a weird song to ever think to write.
2. “White Ferrari” by Frank Ocean
I overplayed Blonde when it came out in 2016. It’s an album that is the perfect amber for that time in my life. And this song is Frank Ocean doing a whirlpool Arthur Russell-type number in the minor key of a mood I can put my finger on but can’t name.
3. "National Talk Like A Pirate Day” by Lambchop
There are a lot of Lambchop songs I could probably put here, but “National Talk Like A Pirate Day” has such an easy, open feel to it—as well as some really great lyrics. Kurt Wagner’s voice is the perfect instrument to convey it all. I sometimes think it’s his voice who’s reading the stories in Small Moods.
4. “Water Me” by fka twigs
This song is so beautiful—ambient and intimate. It’s like a gospel song from the mouth of lust. I remember driving along the lake in Ithaca, NY at night and this song came on and it felt like nothing else could possibly happen.
5. “Sitting In My Hotel” by The Kinks
There’s just something about this song. It sometimes makes me very happy. And other times it makes me very sad. I don’t know how it does that. I like that. I like the line “If my friends could see me now, they would try to understand me.” There’s a light Chelsey Minnis vibe to some of the lines in this song, to me.
6. “The Sweetest Taboo” by Sade
This song is a very specific mood. I don’t need to say too much else about it. It’s got a slinkiness to it. It’s got that thumping rhythm section. Sade just drenches the song in it. It’s like a rain you want to stand in forever.
7. “Yonkers” by Tyler, The Creator
I don’t know, this song is just so artful in its commitment to being unartful. It wants to shock you, make you sick, even perhaps make you want to turn it off, but it does it all while sounding like a beautiful moonlight sonata from hell. I feel like this wouldn’t be out of place in Chelsey Minnis’ Bad, Bad.
8. “Time Will Tell” by Blood Orange
Another song and album (Cupid Deluxe) I probably overplayed when it came out. I think Dev Hynes is an excellent, chameleonic composer. I’m in awe of how he can make sounds we’ve heard before sound new—as if only he could’ve created them. This song, especially, is so sumptuous and shimmeringly melodic, it’s as if it came from the hauntological echo chamber of his soul.
9. “Patience” by Guns N’ Roses
I like hearing the tender side of guys who present as very rough, tough, toxically masculine, etc. I don’t think there’s another song where Axl Rose’s voice sounds better. That lilting acoustic guitar. The whistling. The nice little coda where the melody changes. It’s just a lovely, gentle song by guys with skulls on their shirts.
10. “Man With A Gun” by Jerry Harrison
I have to end with another song included in the Something Wild soundtrack. I played it too many times not to. Jerry Harrison was a member of the Talking Heads and the influence there, I think, shows. It’s such a nice groove of a song. The shimmery guitar line. The nice, chanting chorus. It’s true what the lyric says, as well—“the rules do not apply.”
Shane Kowalski was born outside of Philadelphia, PA. His work appears in Puerto del Sol, Electric Literature, The Offing, Hobart, Funhouse, and elsewhere. He's also the author of Dog Understander (Frontier Slumber Press). He works for the United States Postal Service.
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