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November 1, 2022
Stephen Policoff's Playlist for His Novel "Dangerous Blues"
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.
Stephen Policoff's novel Dangerous Blues is a compelling and inventive New York City novel with a supernatural touch.
Caroline Leavitt wrote of the book:
"Stephen Policoff's wildly creative new novel is the absolute perfect chord of magic, a wifely ghost, a bit of shamanism and a lot about human bonds and beliefs, all set against the backdrop of a Village blues club. Filled with a father's palpable love for family and for all the mysteries that just might be out of reach, Dangerous Blues might be billed as kind of a ghost story but it's a total kind of a knockout read."
In his own words, here is Stephen Policoff's Book Notes music playlist for his novel Dangerous Blues:
Dave Van Ronk, “Dink’s Song”
Four O’clock Flowers, “Just Walking in the Rain”
Mattie May Thomas,“The Dangerous Blues”
Beach Boys, “Little Surfer Girl”/“I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times”
Chopin’s Op. 28 No. 15
Robert Johnson, “Love in Vain" (Rolling Stones version)
Georgia White, “Trouble in Mind”
The Grateful Dead, “Going Down the Road”
David Bowie “Ashes to Ashes”
Howlin’ Wolf, “I Asked for Water,” (Lucinda Williams version)
Bob Dylan, “Where Are You Tonight? (Journey Through Dark Heat)”
Dangerous Blues, my third novel, is full of music, is propelled by music. It is set in my neighborhood, Greenwich Village near NYU, where I have taught almost since time began. Unlike the novel’s narrator Paul, I have not seen ghosts there, but the music clubs which still dot the neighborhood do harbor ghosts, one of which is the so-called Mayor of MacDougal Street, the eminent folk artist Dave Van Ronk. As a teen, I saw him, not in the Village clubs, his natural habitat, but at the redoubtable Caffe Lena, in Saratoga, near Albany, where I grew up. His version of the traditional, poignant “Dink’s Song” is echoed throughout the early pages of Dangerous Blues.
The Prisonaire’s sublime “Just Walking in the Rain” is the first actual song to appear in the novel, sung by the enigmatic Tara White at a club on Bleecker Street. This song hits Paul hard. He is unable to stop thinking about his wife Nadia, who has died just before the novel begins, and whom he fears may be haunting him. The folk duo Four O’clock Flowers do a splendid version of this song.
As a college student, I had a friend who was a blues fanatic, and I enjoyed listening to those scratchy records too. Although I did not learn about Mattie May Thomas until much later, her ghostly wail “The Dangerous Blues,” recorded when she was in prison, is the underlying mournful throb of the novel (and gave me the title). Very little is known about her life but her handful of songs, part of the Smithsonian collection, are laments of the highest order.
Paul’s pre-teen daughter Spring is a bit of a mashup of my older daughter Anna, who tragically died at 20 of the rare disease Niemann-Pick Type C, and her younger sister Jane, a recent college grad. When Anna was little, she adored the Beach Boys, and we had to sing “Little Surfer Girl” every morning. Brian Wilson’s extraordinary oeuvre may seem an odd juxtaposition to the blues, but I have always found great beauty and comfort there. His melancholy “I Just Wasn’t Made for These Times,” from the much-loved Pet Sounds, runs through Paul’s head (and mine) all the time.
Spring’s grandmother Pearl is a classically trained pianist. And when Spring is struggling with the idea that her mother’s ghost is appearing in her new life, Pearl inadvertently helps evoke Nadia by playing Chopin’s Op. 28 No. 15, also known as “The Raindrop Prelude.” It is a deeply gloomy, profoundly beautiful piece of music. This version by Lang Lang is one of my favorites. Whether Chopin actually dreamed of raindrops on his coffin before writing this prelude, I cannot say. Great story though. And it helps Spring think about the complexities of death and mourning.
Ghostie Boy Wilson, a legendary blues guitarist, is invented, but inspired by the almost mythical musicians Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell. I made Ghostie Boy a somewhat elliptical figure—both because it is hard for me to envision the life of such a person and because I was seeking a ribbon of mystery to circle through the story. But Johnson’s too-short life is clearly an inspiration for the superstitions surrounding Ghostie Boy. “Love in Vain,” one of Robert Johnson’s great songs, was famously done by the Stones on Let It Bleed.
I had never listened to Blind Willie McTell until I heard the eerie Dylan song about him. But his “Broke Down Engine Blues” is another song I was listening to when I tried to invent Ghostie Boy’s fragmentary songs. The restrained sense of brokenness in this moving song is important to the novel.
Paul hears “Trouble in Mind,” on his way upstate to visit the now-deserted house where his wife died. It was another one of the threads I followed while writing Dangerous Blues.
Many versions exist of this great song, originally written in 1924. But it is hard to beat Georgia White’s 1936 version, which you can actually still hear on YouTube (of course). This song is another motif for me, echoing Paul’s muted despair. And “Trouble in Mind” seems, like so many of the great blues songs, to be eternal.
“Going Down the Road Feeling Bad,” made ubiquitous by the Grateful Dead, follows Paul (at least in my mind), when he returns to Manhattan from his trip upstate. It’s another song which somebody must have written, but which resounds in the world as if it had always been here. Its mingling of melancholy and insouciance is one I often attempt to emulate in my writing. A mingling, I hope, that it is at least somewhat conjured up by Dangerous Blues.
The mysterious juggler whom Paul encounters on Mercer Street is definitely bellowing Bowie’s “Ashes to Ashes.” I wanted to quote that song in the novel—its jigsaw puzzle lyrics really capture Paul’s mindset—but getting permission was too complicated.
There is no such place as Howlin’ Wolf’s Blues Club on W. 46th Street, where many of the characters wind up at the end of the novel. But if there were, I am sure it would be filled not just with the powerful moan of that great performer, but also with the many versions of his exuberant, haunted songs. One of the best is Lucinda Williams’ version of “I Asked for Water.” Her plangent voice captures the longing and subdued sorrow of that song, and of life itself.
At several points in the writing of Dangerous Blues, I found myself going back to old Dylan songs. He has recorded many traditional blues songs, of course, but the song which really resonated for me as I was writing this novel—and which is another song I gift gladly to Paul—is the slightly obscure “Where Are You Tonight?/Journey Through Dark Heat,” on the underrated Street Legal. The final line of that song—I can’t believe it/Can’t believe I’m alive/But without you it doesn’t seem right/ Oh where are you tonight?—really sums up for me how Paul is feeling as the novel lurches to a close. He’s alive; his daughter is more or less OK; life will go on.
But it will never be the same.
One final note: Flexible Press will donate a percentage of the profits from Dangerous Blues to the National Niemann-Pick Disease Foundation; Anna would be pleased.
Stephen Policoff’s second novel, Come Away, won the Mid-Career Author Award and was published by Dzanc Books in November 2014. His memoir, Sixteen Scenes From A Film I Never Wanted To See, was published by Monkey Puzzle Press, in January 2014. His essay, “Music Today?” about his disabled daughter’s experience in music therapy, won the Fish Short Memoir Prize and was published in Fish Anthology 2012 (West Cork University Press, Ireland). His first novel, Beautiful Somewhere Else, won the James Jones Award and was published by Carrol & Graf in 2004. His fiction and essays have recently appeared in THE RUMPUS, KINDLING QUARTERLY, PROVINCETOWN ARTS, and many other publications. His 3rd novel, Dangerous Blues, will be published by Flexible Press in Fall 2022. He is currently Clinical Professor of Writing in Global Liberal Studies at NYU.
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