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.

Eleanor Lerman’s collection King the Wonder Dog is filled with moving stories of loneliness and the power of animals to assuage our pain.

Foreword Reviews wrote of the book:

“The poignant short story collection King the Wonder Dog is infused with retrospective melancholy.”

In her own words, here is Eleanor Lerman’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection King the Wonder Dog:

When Leonard Cohen was an old man, his manager embezzled all his money. He was heartbroken about this—not for himself but because he’d wanted to leave something for his children (even though they told him he’d been a wonderful father and they didn’t need money to remember that). So, after not singing in public for many years, he went on tour and in his dark, rusty voice, sang his beautiful songs, old ones and new ones—and audiences around the world stood, cried, and applauded him because they wanted to show him how much they loved him and how much his music and his poetry meant to them. I’ve loved his poetry from the time I was a young teenager and even though I didn’t get to see him perform then, in my heart I was applauding him, too. And I still thank him for the poetry he wrote that taught me how to write, too. My new collection of short fiction, King the Wonder Dog: and Other Stories [She Writes Press; April 7, 2026], is my love letter to the healing power of animals.

“Suzanne” by Leonard Cohen

I have often written about how I owe my writing career to Leonard Cohen and, in particular, to this song. When I was about sixteen, living a very unhappy life in a near-forgotten beach town, I found Cohen’s first book of poetry, The Spice-Box of Earth, on a rack of books in a drug store. I only picked it up because I had heard his song, “Suzanne,” on the radio—I had no idea he was a poet. Anyway, I read the book on a bus ride back to my house and by the time that fifteen-minute trip was over, I knew what I was going to do with my life: I was going to be a poet, too, and that has been the core of my work over a career that now spans over fifty years. In the story, “Moon in the Morning,” from the King the Wonder Dog collection, Anders, who was brought up in a large family of boys on the plains of Alberta, Canada, is the only one in his family who knows he is different, as I knew I was different from everyone I grew up with, and he understands that he has a deep-seated drive to be a painter, so he leaves his family, leaves home, moves to New York City, and follows that calling. He’s never particularly successful as an artist, just as I feel that I have never been anywhere near successful as a writer, but even when Anders can’t think of what to paint, he looks out the window, sees that the moon is often still visible in the morning and paints it over and over again. I know what that feels like: to have stories and words rolling around inside yourself but not quite knowing how to get them out.

In “Moon in the Morning,” Anders survives a shooting in the paint supply store where he’s browsing the aisles, and then goes home, bandaged and smelling like the hospital where he was taken to be treated. His cat seems wary of him at first because he doesn’t seem like the person who left home that day, but when the cat finally realizes it is Anders, the person he loves, he brings him a leaf—something the cat does from time to time, bring Anders some trinket. Is it a token of affection? Something the cat thinks is helping him to pay his way for the kindness Anders shows him? There’s also a mystery here: how did this leaf get into the apartment? The widows are closed, the cat is never let outside, so where did he find it? It really doesn’t matter, though, does it? All it means is that some living creature is showing another that a bond exists between them no matter what happens. It’s hardly enough to make up for all Anders has lost in his life, and what he has not achieved, but it’s something. It’s something.

“Old Friends” by Simon and Garfunkel

There’s a line in this song, “How terribly strange to be seventy,” that could actually relate to any story in the King the Wonder Dog collection, but I think it particularly resonates with “The Alcoholic Mariannes.” In this story, the main character, Laura, a retired seventy-one-year-old who once made her living as a house cleaner, happens upon a pet adoption van and decides to wander inside. Most of the cages hold puppies, but in the back, there’s one older dog, “a skinny brown mutt,” with his head down, staring at the floor of his cage. He looks scared and defeated, and like he knows that his life will always be this way. Laura had no intention of adopting a dog, but how can she turn away from this poor fellow? However, after she fills out the paperwork to adopt the dog, she’s told she can’t have him because the rescue group has a rule that people over seventy can’t have one of their dogs. Their reasoning is that there’s no telling what might happen to the dog if the older person dies or becomes too ill to care for their pet anymore. Laura is incensed by this edict, which is sort of condemning both her and the dog for their age and their condition of being alone in the world. It’s not in her nature to make trouble, but she can’t just leave the dog by himself, so she enlists the help of her local councilman to convince the woman who runs the rescue group to let Laura have the dog. She is finally able to take him home, but as she’s leaving the rescue group’s office with the dog, she’s told that he can’t bark, as if that’s a way of letting Laura know that she’s getting “a damaged product.” Laura takes the dog back to her apartment but for days, he remains in one spot right near the front door, still with his head down, not interacting with Laura except when she takes him out for a walk. But one night, Laura wakes to hear him barking—which, apparently, he can do—and when she walks out to her hallway, she sees the dog up on his feet, barking at the door, as if he’s heard some danger outside. Laura sits down and wraps her arms around him to comfort him, and finally he leans against her, as if he’s learning to accept love and attachment. Yes, it’s very strange to be seventy—and go one traveling beyond that milestone—but you have no choice. However, you can, maybe, find some comfort on that frightening journey, even if it’s just by putting your arms around a lonely dog.

“Bob Dylan’s Dream” by Bob Dylan

If you ever want to hear a really heartbreaking song about growing old and missing old friends, take a listen to “Bob Dylan’s Dream,” from his iconic 1963 album, The Freewheeling’ Bob Dylan. He was only twenty-two when that song was recorded, but I guess he must have had a premotion about what was coming because in the song he writes about being young and hanging out with his friends who he misses in his old age along with all the fun they had, so now he’d give, “Ten-thousand dollars at the drop of a hat” if once again “our lives could be like that.” In my story, “Thieves in Disguise,” two middle-aged women, are talking on the phone about their younger days and a plan they had to go to Montreal to see the places that Leonard Cohen mentions in his poems and songs. (Obviously, Cohen turns up in a lot of things I write.) Jenna and Kathy are old friends who spent their younger days in New York City, but Kathy lives in California now, so their only contact is during these phone calls. One night, they fantasize about how they might still go on that trip, but they’ll have to save up some money to buy a few things, like a slouchy hat, a beautiful pair of leather boots, and some sunglasses they can wear at night so they’ll look like “thieves in disguise.” Jenna has one other friend, her dog Slim Shady, who was once a puppy found wandering the streets. Sometimes, much like in my story “Old Friends,” referenced above, Jenna worries about what might happen to Slim Shady if something happens to her and she can’t take care of him anymore. So, she asks her brother, who lives far away from her, if he would take her dog if she can’t care for him anymore. Jenna and her brother had a childhood marked by anger and violence from the adults around them, but it was Jenna who took the brunt of the damage in order to protect her brother. So, when she asked about Slim Shady, her brother tells her, Get all the dogs you want. If I’m the one who’s still around, I’ll come get them. I owe you that much. Maybe more.

“Shenandoah,” traditional American folk song of uncertain original, dating to the early 19^th century

In my story “Out of Season,” a gay man named Neil, who’s somewhere in his seventies, is spending the last day of his vacation in Provincetown, on Cape Cod, where he has spent many summers over the course of his long life. It’s also the end of the summer season in Provincetown, and as Neil wanders through town, he sees that the storekeepers are beginning to close up shop, putting away the kites and beach towels and all the other paraphernalia of a long, happy summer. Neil stops in the only bar that will stay open through the winter and comes upon a group of friends—older men—who live in Provincetown all year. They invite him into their conversation about how each of them acquired a cat because, as one says, every gay man has a cat. After this encounter, he decides to take a walk on the beach in a neighboring town where the painter Edward Hopper had a cottage and where he lived, and worked, for many summers. There, Neil has memories of a long-lost love who has never really left his thoughts. Finally, the next morning, as he’s driving away from Provincetown, heading home, he fantasizes about a day when he might come back here to live for good, when he’d “…pack up his apartment, and take a last walk through the empty rooms. Goodbye, goodbye, he’d say to the bare walls and the long years of life he’d be leaving behind.”

There is a sad, nostalgic element of this story that brings to my mind the folksong, “Shenandoah.” I first learned the words to this song in school, in a music class I had to take in junior high. They made us sing all kinds of folk songs, mixed in with—who knows why?—college football fight songs. But “Shenandoah” is the only song that’s really stayed with me and remains in a very vivid way, often replaying in my mind. It’s a song about a fur trader on the Missouri River who loves the daughter of a Native American chief, Shenandoah, and the refrain in the song is, “Away, I’m bound away, across the wide Missouri.” You know the man will never get back and the lovers will never be reunited. For me, that song and the feeling it engenders haunts the last day of Neil’s vacation and follows him as he drives away from Provincetown with memories of his own lost love in mind. He first came to Provincetown when he was young, but he’s so much older now. Will he get back to Provincetown next year, or ever? Who knows?

“Angel from Montgomery” written by John Prine, sung by Bonnie Raitt

In the story “Summer in the Mountains,” which is set in Woodstock, David Graeber has come to visit his cousin Joe, who, some time ago and seemingly out of the blue, announced to his wife that he was leaving because he was tired of talking about nothing all the time—blabbing on and on with her and his friends about everyday things that he no longer cares about or wishes to discuss. So, he moved up to the Catskills, to a cabin on the edge of a forest preserve, where he lives alone with his two big dogs. When David drives from town to Joe’s cabin, the two cousins enjoy their time together, reminiscing about things they used to do. For instance, David played in a band, but in the back of his mind, as he talks to Joe, is the recent doubt he has about why he’s still doing this, playing the top ten songs from some old hippie era over and over again. When he was young, the band meant everything to him but now, he has his doubts. They also discuss the growing anti-Semitism they sense all around them, and how they even experienced it when they were kids. At the end of the story, David drives back to his hotel in Woodstock and sits on the sort of lop-sided balcony outside his room. He thinks about how, “Looking out into the night, [he] is aware of the symbolism set out before him: there is a quiet street, a lonely road, a shaky perch where he sits and waits, and not far away, there is a light burning in the darkness. But what he is waiting for, he could not say. And what everything else taken together might mean for him remains, at least for now, unknown.”

The song that comes to me, playing in the background of this story, is Bonnie Raitt’s version of “Angel in Montgomery.” These lines, in particular, describe the mood that I hope I instilled in the pages of this story: “Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery / Make me a poster of an old rodeo / Just give me one thing that I can hold on to/ To believe in this living is just a hard way to go.”

“Midnight in Harlem” by Tedeschi Trucks Band

In the title story of this collection, “King the Wonder Dog,” New York City is pulsing in the background of every line. The main character, Paul, is a graphic designer who lives in Brooklyn, has a studio on the edge of Chinatown in Manhattan, and walks across the Brooklyn Bridge almost every day with his big German shepherd named King. The sky and the weather are also referred to repeatedly, as in this description as Paul leaves his studio one night to head back across the bridge to his apartment: “Stars are beginning to appear in the sky, scattered like pins. Drifting clouds look like blue mountains; the moon is a thin crust of light rising in the east.”

Paul’s wife, Cassandra, is in the psychiatric unit of a hospital on the upper East Side of Manhattan, and the story opens with Cassandra calling Paul and telling him how much she wants him to take her home, which he soon does. But back at their apartment, Cassandra becomes agitated because she thinks she can’t find a pair of gold cuff bracelets that Paul has always called her “Wonder Woman” bracelets.” Cassandra calms down when Paul finds them in her jewelry box, but the next day she is upset again when Paul tells her he has to go back to his studio, where’s he’s trying to wrap up one last freelance design job, after which he is going to retire from that kind of work. Cassandra tells Paul she wants to go to the studio with him so he says he’ll call an Uber, but she says that she wants to walk across the bridge with him, like he always does, with his “damn dog.” As the three of them head across the bridge, the sunny weather suddenly turns dark and threatening; Cassandra kneels down and crosses her arms, as if she’s using her Wonder Woman bracelets to ward off some looming threat. Paul tries to pull her to her feet but she strikes him; he’s not hurt, just startled. The next thing he knows, his dog, who has always been calm and never exhibited any kind of menacing behavior, is suddenly positioned between Paul and Cassandra, as if he’s trying to protect Paul from any further harm. Everything soon continues on as if nothing ever happened and Paul, his wife and dog, walk on across the bridge to his studio, where he thinks about what he will do when he finishes the last project he’s working on. He’s always wanted to try writing a graphic novel and suddenly, is struck with inspiration: he’ll write a story about a heroic dog and his owner, and call it “King the Wonder Dog.”

The song “Midnight in Harlem” could be playing on a radio in the loft and in Paul’s apartment because these lyrics, in particular, sum up Paul’s longing for his life to be better, but also to maybe realize a dream he’s had of using his talent to do something different, to write that graphic novel and take inspiration from his dog, yes, but also from the city that is so much a part of his life, night and day: “The streets are windy / And the subway’s closing down / Gona carry this dream / To the other side of town / Walk that line / (Torn apart) Torn apart / Gotta spend your whole life trying / (Ride that train) Ride that train / (Free your heart) And free your heart / It’s midnight up in Harlem”

“Mothers and Daughters” by Maddie Zahm

My mother died when I was just on the cusp of adolescence. My father, who had no idea how to care for my brother and me, let alone himself, quickly remarried, to a woman who brought chaos and craziness into our lives. She and my father also managed to erase most memories of my mother because her pictures were put away and we understood that we should not talk about her. But, some flashes of memory remain. Most important is the last gift she gave me, a small, gray, manual typewriter, so I guess she had some idea of who I was going to grow up to be.

The story “Elder Care” is probably as close as I have ever come to writing, in a literal fashion, about my memories of my early life in the Bronx, and later, about being the caretaker for my father when he was elderly and ill and living in a nursing home in Rockaway, which at that time was just a desolate peninsula attached to a distant area of the New York City borough of Queens. Rockaway is also where my father and stepmother moved us after they married, not long after my mother died. It was bleak, lonely, and sure to lead to depression. (Lately, it’s been gentrified and recast as a summer playground for surfers and well-heeled millennials who can also afford the expensive condos being built by the seashore, but that was years away from when I lived there as an angry, disaffected teenager.) The story starts with Carole, my surrogate, visiting her father in his nursing home and spending a few prickly hours with him. It then shifts to the Bronx, where Carole grew up; she retraces my own steps down a familiar avenue to a toy store I loved, where she runs into someone her own age (Carole is probably in her sixties), who remembers her as a child and remembers her mother. The woman tells Carole that she was jealous of her when they were young because of how often her mother brought her to the toy store to buy little bits and pieces, like a little doll in a white box. To Carole, this is an incredibly important clue about the mother she barely remembers—she sounds like a kind and loving woman, and Carole finally understands how much she misses her. Once she finally gets home, Carole opens her dresser drawer where she keeps hidden the tiny doll that her mother bought her in the toy store, long ago, after her stepmother threw out all her other toys and mementos of her mother. (This is me again; that’s what my stepmother did and I do have the one tiny doll that survived.) Somehow, Carole thought the doll might be gone. But satisfied that it’s safe, she goes to bed and her dog jumps up on the bed to sleep with her; when he does, Carole reflects on her life and all the difficulties she’s had but now she’s safe, so is her dog who was once a stray puppy, lost and alone. And she thinks about how glad she is to have the dog with her. “Always, come what may.”

In real life (or, what passes for it, anyway), I do have photos of my mother that survived my stepmother’s wrath, so I know that I look very much like her. And though my memory has been stripped of most of the good things we must have shared, and because my father and stepmother had me so convinced that I must have been a terrible child who was often mean to my mother, the fact that I do still have the little doll, the typewriter, and one or two images of a few sweet moments here and there, like when we shared a lunch, with spring breezes coming through the kitchen window, is very important. I have thought of all this time and again, in particular when I first heard Maddie Zahm’s song, “Mothers and Daughters.” These lines are like a message to me, sent from the past to remind me that if I ever see my mom again in the great by and by, we’ll be alright: “I’m slowly becoming my mother / We’re even beginning to look like each other / From screaming, ‘I hate you,’ and, ‘You’re ruining my life’ / To panic attacks about the day that she dies.” 

“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” by Arlo Guthrie

If you’re a member of my generation—let’s call us the Woodstock Generation—the Vietnam War dominated your life twenty-four hours a day. I was born in 1952, and from the time I became politically aware, around the age of fourteen, nothing was more important than trying to end not only that pointless, murderous conflict but also the draft that was stealing all the young men around us, dressing them in an army uniform, and telling them to kill gooks (meaning, the Viet Cong, our “enemy” and any villagers who you might suspect of aiding them). One of the most absurd aspects of the war—in a kind of gothic horror way—was how the draft was conducted. It was a lottery—a lottery for your life!—that started in 1969 and randomly assigned draft priority numbers to all 366 possible birthdates for men aged 18–26, and then pulled those numbers from capsules in a rotating drum. My younger brother was born in 1956, which made him eligible for the draft when he was 18, and which kept us both permanently terrified. Now remember, this was a time when there was no Internet, no smartphones, no way to find out what number you were assigned if you didn’t watch the live drawing on tv (yes, this sounds like a dystopian novel, but it was real life) other than to find it in the newspaper or go to the library to look it up. The whole process was torture.

Arlo Guthrie managed to turn the draft process into the quintessential anthem of the anti-war movement. In the song “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree,” which goes on for over eighteen minutes, Arlo (for people my age, he will never need a last name) tells the story of going to Stockbridge, Massachusetts to have Thanksgiving dinner with his friends Alice and Ray Brock, who lived in a deconsecrated church. Arlo helped them clean out the place and was then arrested for illegally dumping trash, an offense that later, when he was being processed by the draft board in New York City, made him ineligible for the draft. One of the most famous lines in the song is about being asked if he’s rehabilitated himself after his arrest and he answers, “I’m sittin’ here on the Group W bench ’cause you want to know if I’m moral enough join the army, burn women,
kids, houses and villages after bein’ a litterbug.”

In the story, “John and Pablo Meet Their Neighbors,” John is undergoing chemo treatment. One day, a nurse tells him that they’re moving the chemo suite “…across the hall to room 112,” and John spontaneously blurts out that 112 was his draft number. He then has to explain to the puzzled nurse about the Viet Nam war lottery. And he reminds himself that he thought the number 112 had stopped haunting him years ago, but apparently, it has not. John’s number never came up in the draft, but he became an ardent peace activist, fighting for a world where peace would prevail and everyone would be safe and happy. Look how that turned out, he tells himself. Later, he is pulled into an altercation with his neighbor when Pablo, his big, clumsy dog, accidentally falls against the fence that separates the two yards and destroys a small section. The neighbor, a large, threatening man, does not accept John’s apology about the dog’s accident and his promise to have the fence repaired; as he’s making threatening remarks, John, who is sick from the chemo, suddenly vomits on the grass and the neighbor calls him a hippie and junkie and says people like him don’t belong in the neighborhood. A few days later, after the fence is repaired, John finds himself thinking of who he was as a young man, “tall and lean,” working in a cornfield on a commune with a dog, “a big happy fellow” at his side. “And now, fast forward many years to find a man, decades older, relaxing in a rusty lounge chair [in his back yard] with a dog generations removed from the old friend who was with him in the cornfield. Maybe the young man was foolish in some ways…but he did manage to survive his trials and travails. And maybe the old man will survive his too, or maybe he won’t. That’s the way it always goes, right? Maybe yes and maybe no. And after that—well, after that, who can tell? Come what may.”

Every Thanksgiving, I still play “Alice’s Restaurant” in my house, and I think about all the other old hippies, like me, who are also playing it and thinking about how sad—and astonished—we are about the way the world is today. But we’re still here, and we’re still trying to make it better. Thanks, Arlo.

“Hurt,” Sung by Johnny Case, written by John Treznor of Nine Inch Nails

June Carter Cash died in May, 2003; her husband, Johnny Cash, died just four months later. He’d had all kinds of health problems and hadn’t looked well for a long time, but everyone who loved him and his music, knew that he had died of a broken heart. The love story between these two is one of those things that embody the best and the worst of love—the deep, true companionship; the lost-each-other-and-didn’t-get-back-together-for-years drama; the anger and fights; the holding hands to the very end duet. In 2002, when Johnny Cash released his version of Nine Inch Nails’ song, “Hurt,” I’m sure for most people of a certain age, it was like a knife in the gut. It’s not so much the specific lyrics, which are heart-rendering enough, but how you can tell, as Cash sings the song in his raw, lived-in, beaten and battered voice, that he knows—deep, down in his soul he knows—endless, incurable, elemental pain. When the video of Cash singing “Hurt” was released, Reznor said it gave him goosebumps. Reznor’s song is about a young man who knows the damage he’s done to his life—Cash’s version is about a man at the end of a long life, looking back and realizing how much of his life was dross.

In the story, “Lucky,” Jeanne, a retired text book editor, is beginning to feel something close to that. She been ill for a long time and as a consequence, one of the things she hasn’t done in a quite a while is to visit Macy’s, the huge department store on Herald Square in Manhattan. On the day she finally decides to travel to Manhattan from her apartment in Queens in order to buy something for herself, she is lost the minute she walks through the front doors. The layout is different than she remembers; she can’t find the handbag department; and even if she does locate the dress department, she knows everything will be styled too young to be of use to her. It’s a little scary and very depressing. She goes home empty-handed, only to find that her dog has not been returned to her apartment by Mona Giddings, the woman who works as her dogwalker. When she can’t get Giddings to answer her repeated calls, Mona goes to her apartment and finds that she has no intention of returning the dog because her daughter wants to keep him. Jeanne calls the police but when a policewoman first arrives, she refuses to get involved but eventually she does, and despite Mona and her daughter try to make it seem as if Jeanne is neglecting the dog, Jeanne gets him back and exhausted, walks him home.

Throughout this story, the fact that Jeanne has been ill for a long time and also, is undeniably getting older, is meant to help define how lost she’s feeling in this part of her life. The extra burden of having to get her dog back from the child of her dogwalker adds to how difficult it feels for her to just get through the days. I think that’s the kind of unrelenting ache that Cash shares with us when he sings this song. You just know he’s nearing the end and doesn’t feel that he understands what the purpose of his life has been, or what his life was worth. And you sometimes have that feeling, too. I certainly do.

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Eleanor Lerman is the author of award-winning collections of poetry, short stories, and novels. One of the youngest-ever finalists for a National Book Award, she also received a Guggenheim Fellowship, as well as fellowships from the NEA for poetry and the New York Foundation for the Arts for fiction. During a career that has spanned over fifty years, her poetry, fiction, and essays have been published in dozens of literary magazines and journals. Find her online at eleanorlerman.com and on Facebook (facebook.com/eleanor.lerman). 

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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.

Stephanie Weaver’s Bitter, Sweet is a moving and engaging memoir of trauma, resilience, and healing.

Cassandra Lane wrote of the book:

“One of life’s most Herculean tasks is learning how to forgive. Some of us go to our graves without even trying. Others are thrown down again by the Sisyphean nature of the act, but in Stephanie Weaver’s Bitter, Sweet, she invites us to climb and slide against the rough terrain of her journey toward forgiving her parents. With the love and precision of a great cook and baker, Weaver crafts a stunning narrative that challenges our expectation that forgiveness happens as swiftly as a microwaved meal and our romanticized ideals of a fairytale ending with the loved ones who hurt us the most. This is gorgeous, sensuous writing that centers the making of food as a powerful source of connection and healing”

In her own words, here is Stephanie Weaver’s Book Notes music playlist for her memoir Bitter, Sweet:

Music has a way of zapping us back to significant events in our past. As a memoirist excavating my life, I needed a solid pier to anchor the boat. To write incisively about events that happened forty to fifty years ago, finding music to evoke those times was key. My twenty-nine-song playlist follows the book timeline.

“Let the Day Begin,” The Call

This album was the soundtrack for my Circle-the-Pacific trip in 1990. When I landed in Hong Kong, I bought a fancy Sony Walkman and listened to my handful of cassettes constantly. When the opening notes of this song ring out, I am instantly back climbing the steps at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia and marveling at my scrappiness to make the solo two-month trip a reality. Little did I know that the bottom would fall out of my life shortly after arriving home from this trip, which is where Bitter, Sweet kicks off.

“Don’t Give Up,” Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush

After an innocuous comment from my father sets events in motion, I’m trying to piece together what happened to me and how it impacts my family. In my early thirties I drive across country to visit my older sister to tell her my secret: I’ve gotten memories back indicating that our father molested me as a child. Shocked by my sister’s response to my revelation, I return to Chicago reeling. Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush’s haunting harmonies pierced my soul: “You’re not the only one.”

“Baby Driver,” Simon and Garfunkel

Road trips recur in Bitter, Sweet, including thousands of miles traversed as a child in my parents’ 1969 Cadillac hearse-camper. Heading home, I remember lounging in the back while orange floral pom-pom-trimmed curtains swayed to the Beach Boys-inspired notes of “Baby Driver.” I sang along, too young to understand the sexual innuendo and losing part of the lyrics every time it abruptly ker-chunked at the end of that 8-track section. This hearse-camper and the mechanic who fixed it play a significant role reconnecting me with my family toward the end of the book.

“Losing My Religion,” REM

Finding out I was an incest survivor changed everything about my life, including my faith. The book takes a brief jump back into my early twenties when I turned to a dynamic interdenominational church on Chicago’s Gold Coast to find my chosen family, define my social life, and give me a reason for being. But as therapy went on and my depression deepened, a crisis of faith perfectly captured by Michael Stipe’s mournful vocal meant I left church for good.

“Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?” Paula Cole

Younger readers will never know the pleasure of receiving a mixtape from a friend, complete with a hand-written playlist and decorative doodles. It was a way to tell a story, create a sound poem, declare your love. By this point in the story, I have garnered the courage to leave my alcoholic boyfriend and move to San Diego. My friend MK showed up at my sendoff breakfast with a special mix for the trip tucked inside a bag of tasty snacks. MK had left her own problematic boyfriend not long before, so her song choices were immaculate, including this banger by Paula Cole and “Let Him Fly” by Patti Griffin. While I don’t recommend crying and driving simultaneously, things would be looking up soon.

“Bamboléo,” The Gipsy Kings

This bright song signals the tonal shift in the final third of the book, as I start a new job at the San Diego Zoo, meet the man who becomes my husband, and take on the completion of my healing process. I make new friends in San Diego, exploring the region with all the zest of a religious convert. Not long after I arrived, I saw The Gipsy Kings with a friend at Hospitality Point, rocked along with The Rolling Stones and Santana with my new boyfriend, and danced to Etta James’ “At Last” on a patio overlooking San Diego Bay. Half my estranged family wasn’t invited to the wedding, but life was as good as I could manage.

“Unwell,” Matchbox Twenty

Shortly after my 1999 wedding I came down with a mystery illness. Reams of tests ruled out known causes, so doctors decided I had chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia in addition to a spinal fracture. Resting at home on medical leave was exceedingly difficult for a former Energizer Bunny who defined my worth by tasks accomplished. This enforced quiet made me face how I chased my self-esteem through an endless to-do list, spurring a decision that sets up the finale of the book.

“Bring Me to Life,” Evanescence

Choosing forgiveness was a radical act, as my parents refused to acknowledge my pain, apologize, or take any responsibility for the years of sexual abuse in my childhood. It wasn’t an overnight fix for my chronic fatigue, but I realized that forgiveness was the only modality I hadn’t tried. The pulsing beat and deep longing in Amy Lee’s vocals spoke to my heart during this time, and it’s only now I know that she and I were dealing with the same issues: scary illness and depression.

“Take Me to Church,” Hosier

Hozier’s anthem critiquing organized religion is my spiritual counterpoint to “Losing My Religion.” My parents were devout Lutherans and my father a church deacon, yet they were never able to admit their failings or ask for my forgiveness. In the final chapters of the book, I come to accept the reality and limitations of my family, centered in my spirituality without church.

“Whatever It Takes,” Imagine Dragons
By the end of Bitter, Sweet I will have been broken down and built up: confronted my family, buried my parents, and realized that estrangement cannot be fixed but it needn’t define me. This pop-rock ballad from Imagine Dragons is the perfect close to my playlist.

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

Stephanie Weaver, MPH, is a lifelong educator and the author of five books. She blends her personal experiences living with chronic illness and childhood sexual abuse with her master’s degree in public health to help others heal. Her last two books– The Migraine Relief Plan and The Migraine Relief Plan Cookbook– provided guidance and recipes for people living with migraine disease and were well-received by the migraine community. She lives in Oceanside, California with her husband and their Golden retriever Daisy May.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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.

Ed Lin’s The Dead Can’t Make a Living is a mystery novel as thought-provoking as it is entertaining.

Booklist wrote of the book:

“Good guy Jing-nan delivers a clear-eyed, compassionate portrayal of overseas worker abuse in this gritty offering to the rising swell of cozy-adjacent crime fiction. This fifth adventure is another series bar-raiser, delivering well-crafted underworld adventures with humor and sensual immersion in everyday Taipei.”

In his own words, here is Ed Lin’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Dead Can’t Make a Living:

“Born to Go” — Hawkwind

People ask me if I ever get writers’ block, and I say “Never!” If you feel like you can’t get anything creative done, throw on “Born to Go” by Hawkwind. No one else has ever sounded like the proto-punk, proto-metal, cosmos-obsessed UK band, which has whittled down to one original member but will mark 60 years in the biz in 2029.

There are a couple versions of this song, but I prefer the live take that’s a bonus track on the CD reissue of 1971 LP In Search of Space. God, it sounds like there are six drugged-out dirtbags (including future Motorhead frontman Lemmy) with distortion pedals all bellowing that “We were born to go! We’re never turning back!” I can’t imagine a better band of cheerleaders. Now you have no excuses to not create. Go, already!

“See You at the Fair”—Ben Webster

I listen to a lot of non-vocal music when working, and when I start up See You at the Fair by Ben Webster, I can’t help but think of the album cover with Webster gripping his trusty tenor sax Ol’ Betsy in front of the Unisphere from the 1964 New York World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows Park. I was born in Queens, and there’s a picture of my sister and me as little kids in front of the sculpture. I’m connected with this swinging album in another way. In my 20s, buying furniture meant grabbing a friend and finding a couch at the Salvation Army light enough for two to carry down the sidewalk. Well, after I got a new-to-me couch in place, I took off the cushions for a thorough vacuuming, and discovered the See You at the Fair CD stuck in an inner crevice. The first thing I noticed was the Unisphere. The next was the Impulse label logo, which made me think I would like the album. And I did like it. It was perfectly likable for years, decades. Something happened in 2025, however.

While I was under fire during the editing of The Dead Can’t Make a Living—and writers do feel like they’re being assaulted by even the most innocuous copy questions—I kept playing See You at the Fair over and over. I felt like Webster was telling me, “Just chill, it’s going to be all right.” The title track is the sole Webster original, and it’s a fine representation of the album. The nimble rhythm section pulls a nearly ska-like beat, while Webster bumps along. When the album was released in 1964, he was 55—about my age now—and on the verge of leaving the U.S. for Europe for good. He was dead less than a decade later, and Ol’ Betsy went to Rutgers’ jazz archives with instructions from Webster that it was never to be played again.

“I Am a Rock”—The Hated

If you’ve fallen for the prudent propaganda put out by tireless reissuer Numero Group, you know Maryland ’80s band The Hated is one of the greatest American punk groups in the emo vein. When I was in college I was on a mission to buy every punk-related 7-inch single, an undertaking that produced about one gem out of 20 purchases or so. Hey, that’s a better rate than a junkmail campaign! One of the gems was the double 7-inch “Like the Days,” four tuneful and whipsmart blasts from The Hated, a verbose iteration of Husker Du. The next thing I saw from The Hated was this Simon & Garfunkel cover on Wedge, a 7-inch comp put out by the Simple Machines label in 1990.

Hearing it took me back to visiting Taiwan in the 1980s, a time when the island lived up to its pirate-base past by producing rafts of illegitimate goods, including bootlegged recordings. I bought a copy of Simon & Garfunkel’s Greatest Hits then. I wasn’t a fan, but the songs were in English. I ended up liking it as much as a punk-rock kid could. Looking back, I sure wish I could’ve had instead The Hated’s version of “I Am a Rock,” which wonderfully stresses the defiance over the vulnerability of Paul Simon’s words.

“Absolutely Sweet Marie”—Flamin’ Groovies

Like most people, I like Bob Dylan’s songs but I can’t stand his awful voice. The world is fortunate that retro-absorbed Flamin’ Groovies covered a number of Dylan’s songs that The Byrds didn’t get around to fixing. I consider myself incredibly fortunate to have seen two Groovies reunions—one with original singer Roy Loney and one with his replacement Chris Wilson—over the years at the much-missed Maxwell’s in Hoboken.

I actually had the line “To live outside the law you must be honest” in some dialog in The Dead Can’t Make a Living, but it was taken out due to copyright concerns, whomp whomp.

“Time Attacks”—Swervedriver

Once and future shoegaze champs Swervedriver released The World’s Fair EP in 2025, and I’m amplifying the nod to Ben Webster that may or may not only exist in my mind.

I wish I could’ve seen Swervedriver when it played Taiwan’s S20 Festival in 2019. It was a memorable show for the band, too, with frontman Adam Franklin telling It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine there was a “crazy old theme park with dinosaurs and a Wild West Town right next to the stage we played.”

“Time Attacks” is a deceptively carefree earworm, and the last song on the EP. Thing is, I’m such a Swervedriver neurotic (most of the band’s fans are) that I know that the song is a reworking of “Time It Takes,” a song Franklin released in 2005 under his solo moniker Toshack Highway on a burned-at-home compilation of demos titled Everyday, Rock n Roll Is Saving My Life Vol. 2. I own that CD. I bought it out of Fanklin’s guitar case after his solo show at the Mercury Lounge, years before Swervedriver reformed and played its largest-ever gigs. Real fans support thick and thin.

“That Was Then, This Is Now”—Whipping Boy

Since turning 40, I’ve listened to Whipping Boy’s self-titled third and last studio album more than any other. No, I haven’t listened to it every day for years like when I was a kid and played my tapes of London Calling and Soul Mining until the speakers sounded like they were underwater. But I have listened to Whipping Boy more than 200 times, and it is a staple of when I’m traveling, and it’s certainly going to play endlessly on the upcoming book tour.

The Dublin band was already doomed after being dropped by Sony following dismal sales of brilliant second album Heartworm. That 1995 album was critically acclaimed then, and again when reissued in 2021. But the self-produced, self-issued third album continues to languish in obscurity. I had read about it a quarter of a century ago in America’s best rock and indie music source The Big Takeover. Editor Jack Rabid raved about Whipping Boy, while noting the acrimonious conditions under which it was recorded. The four-piece band had split into two camps of two, if I recall correctly, and recorded their parts in the studio separately. Having already been a huge fan of Heartworm, I couldn’t wait to hear the new album.

Distribution of the CD was nearly nonexistent, certainly in the States. I had to order one from IrishMusicCentral.com, and it took forever to come in; they sent me two CDs to apologize for the tardiness in shipping. Like all great albums, it was tough going at first, but after the 10th listen, everything began to fall into place.

It’s a terribly bitter album. Consider the hopeless song titles: “So Much for Love,” “Puppets,” “Who Am I?” and “No Place to Go.” The band put a red-tinted cheese grater on the cover to represent how painful working together had become. It is a perfect album, musically forceful and lyrically fierce.

“That Was Then, This Is Now” is the most “rock” song on the album. Fearghal McKee spits most perceptively: “When I was just a boy I was told to be nice/Keep your fingers clean and to always seek advice/To have respect for authority and the powers that be/To pray by the alter down on your bended knees/In goodness and praise of God knows what/We were led to believe it was a communist plot.” Disillusionment and fleeting faith in the church, the music biz, and friendship. And yet this document of defeat shows its creators aren’t defeated. The band came full circle, and even though they made it home in pieces, Whipping Boy managed to put together this gleaming parting shot.

Whipping Boy was on Apple Music for a second before being pulled. No way is it on Spotify. Someone’s uploaded the whole thing to YouTube, tho. Listen now before it gets taken down.

“Every Line Has Let You Inside of Me”—The Lassie Foundation

I first encountered The Lassie Foundation years after the self-described “somewhat obscure L.A. band” called it quits in the aughts. The Foundation is probably best known as the band silvery guitarist Jeff Schroeder was in before joining the Smashing Pumpkins.

During the Tens, I was at a day job where the guy sitting across from me was also a big punk/indie/obscure music fan. We straight up traded files and CDs to rip, stuff that was long out of print. One of the files he gave me was the compilation Through and Through by The Lassie Foundation. My first thought was, man these guys got balls covering “Inside Out” by The Mighty Lemon Drops, a great song by an 80s group that many (OK, maybe just me) consider Bunnymen adjacent/derivative. The Foundation’s take on it makes a chunky version of a merely creamy song.

Through and Through tracked the band’s journey through shoegaze-filtered rock explorations. Despite its title, the compilation omits many things, including the album El Dorado, which the Foundation remastered and reissued in 2023 after a Kickstarter campaign.

Bob Mould has said that he places his killer song in the #3 slot to encourage the listener to stick with the whole album. “Every Line Has Let You Inside of Me” is #2 on El Dorado, and it’s strong enough to pull you through to the next album, too. It’s got everything, starting with Schroeder’s lost-love riff, a bass line from Jason71 (his trademarked name) so strong it’s coming through the carpet, vibraphone highlights, and Wayne Everett’s plaintive falsetto. I listened to this song quite a bit while writing and editing The Dead Can’t Make a Living, and my kid even made a level of rhythm game A Dance of Fire and Ice with it.

“One”—Yamantaka // Sonic Titan

Asian diasporic and Indigenous outfit Yamantaka // Sonic Titan would be barred from entering the States if the current administration had a gander at the lyrics to this buzzy song, laden with chants and percussion. “Ever wonder what it’s like to live in America?/Serpent tight around your throat,” sings the disembodied voice of Ruby Kato Attwood. I guess I would add that you get used to the snake if you just slip in your hand once in a while to loosen it up.

“One” has so much going on sonically, it’s the “one” song by YT//ST I want to hear when I feel like my writing’s getting too straightforward and plain.

In spite of that lyric snippet, the band doesn’t really do direct commentary. Their groove is visionary, spiritual music, with songs that include a young woman recounting the destruction of her home planet, the murder of a spider, and whale songs. What would you expect from a band that took their name from a mashup of a Buddhist deity and a song title from Sleep, the main outcrop of stoner rock?

Recent years have brought lineup changes, including Kato Attwood’s exit, and now YT//ST seems to have gone on hiatus. Sucks.

“Streets of Calcutta”—The Ananda Shankar Experience and State of Bengal

I don’t know much about Indian sitar master Ananda Shankar, but I do know a little about London DJ and producer State of Bengal (aka Saifullah “Sam” Zaman) from the 90s Asian Underground scene. The two collaborated on Walking On, a 1999 instrumental album that combined Shankar’s virtuoso playing with breakbeats.

The album is wonderful on its own, and helps burst the cocoon during the commute home from a dayjob to allow the writer to emerge from the subway renewed and ready to do the real work. Listening to “Streets of Calcutta,” the final track and recorded before a live audience, will pump hemolymph into your wings.

Sadly, we lost both men relatively young. Shankar died of a heart attack at the age of 56, only a few months before the album’s release. Zaman died in 2015, also of a heart attack, a month after turning 50.

“Stupid Fuckin’ People”—The BellRays

This is one of those songs you’re always ready to hear. For me, I think about the politicians and discriminatory attitudes who make life harder for migrant workers in societies that sorely need them. In Taiwan, the 3D jobs—dirty, dangerous, and difficult—in manufacturing, agriculture, and construction are filled with workers from Southeast Asia. Yet the legislation that is in place is more set on limiting their time in Taiwan and restricting their movement, rather than ensuring migrants have safe work environments and humane hours. The Dead Can’t Make a Living examines the lives—and one murder—among Taiwan’s migrant workers.

Singer Lisa BellRay channels town-hall level anger over a band that sounds like a single-guitar MC5 on speed.

I’ve watched a number of Vlogs that Taiwan’s migrant workers post on YouTube. One guy shot his last episode outside the factory he worked at for years. Near the end, he turned to the building. I got the feeling he wanted to give it the finger, but didn’t want to waste the energy. Instead, his goodbye was a dismissive wave.

Taiwanese people make sure to leave the country’s tourists with smiles and good memories. Taiwan’s migrant workers—who may be more essential to the country’s economy and society—should be leaving the country with the same sentiments.

also at Largehearted Boy:

Ed Lin’s playlist for his novel David Tung Can’t Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

Ed Lin is a journalist by training and an all-around stand-up kinda guy. He’s the author of four other novels in the Taipei Night Market series: Ghost Month, Incensed, 99 Ways to Die, and Death Doesn’t Forget as well as five other novels. Lin, who is of Chinese and Taiwanese descent, is the first author to win three Asian American Literary Awards. He lives in New York with his wife, actress Cindy Cheung, and son.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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.

Anna Zumbahlen’s poetry collection Surety imaginatively and surehandedly presents seasonal shifts both in the landscape and personal.

Sandra Lim wrote of the book:

“What kind of experience is surety? In Anna Zumbahlen’s poised lyrics, it is a nuanced and cerebral wager, offering subtlety and sensation in equal measure. Against the backdrop of a year and its seasons, the poet contends with moments of animist tenderness and personal hauntings in rural landscapes and domestic spaces. Enveloped in various atmospheres of mental and physical weather, what an intent, driven, and intimate imagination these maneuvering poems portray.”

In her own words, here is Anna Zumbahlen’s Book Notes music playlist for her poetry collection Surety:

Look at What the Light Did Now – Little Wings

When I lived in Sac City, Iowa, in my early twenties, the time in my life that Surety draws from, I was in the habit of starting a new playlist on the first of each month. This practice produced a series of playlists that replicated the subtle shift of seasons: what the light was doing. This shift was minor from June to July, but major from June to December. In the winter, I could use them to revisit summer, though I had to do so carefully to let the songs keep their seasonal mist. These are Iowa summer songs, many of which have in some way reflexed into my life lately.

I Want A House – Mr Twin Sister

Because also, context shifts despite effort to fix the feeling in time, and emotional gravity finds other centers. A couple of years ago, I fell in love with someone in California, and we saw Little Wings play in Los Angeles. Other context shifts have been smaller, sillier: to me, this song is about the little yellow house I rented in Iowa, but I recently encountered it on social media attached to a home renovation influencer’s Instagram reel.

Acid Rain – Saintseneca

Surety is about, among other things, solitude, community, farmland runoff, and love. It’s about living in a place I loved intensely but am not from and always planned to leave. One of the tensions that directs the book has to do with a lawsuit brought against drainage districts in Sac, Calhoun, and Buena Vista—three rural counties in northwest Iowa—in 2015 over farming pollution in Polk County’s watershed. I recently learned that cancer rates in Iowa are currently second-highest in the country. This is attributable, at least in part, to agricultural runoff.

Ooo – Karen O

I knew this context still mattered to the book, but I haven’t been feeling it as immediately for the last couple of years. It’s been a decade, and I’ve been living in the Southwest, in communities and climates far away from Iowa. But the feeling still gets activated by songs like this one, a sideways lullaby that goes with the poem “Increased and Spread,” which is on page 23 of Surety (and also readable here).

Regarding Ascending the Stairs – Lady Lamb 

When I lived in Iowa I was often alone, but one thing that was a salve for loneliness was watching musicians on YouTube. Last fall, I made the weird discovery that this singer is an old friend of someone close to me. The world is small, and heartbreak is abstract until it isn’t, and you can inhabit someone else’s articulation of heartbreak (through music, through poetry) until it becomes personalized. And then it is differently meaningful.

Ramona Reborn – Delicate Steve

I loved this song in my yellow house in Iowa, rediscovered it in a little blue house in Joshua Tree nine years later, saw Delicate Steve play in a roadside bar in Ojai a few months ago. This song is a soundtrack for the parts of the book that are and are not me, the questions that are and are not still present for me. Recently, a friend was telling me about how it felt for her to read work she wrote a decade ago, to realize that it held the same questions and tensions she continues to turn over. But it’s a hopeful sort of discovery, to find your present self in an old self, and vice versa. In a text, she said:

Yeah for me its like “you don’t have anything”

And its like actually I have a whole history and arsenal

Swim Club – The Cave Singers

It took me years to finish writing Surety because it felt entirely too artificial, tonally impossible really, to write Iowa summer from winter elsewhere. I kept coming up against the same concerns: how to activate the archive of self, or document how impressions accumulate and change over years, without imposing an artificial narrative on experience. How to sit inside and reproduce the tone of a scene not immediately present. What music and poetry might do with memory through repetition and reconsideration over time, especially with attention to questions about language, connection, and certainty, which are still very much my questions. In any case, this song corresponds to a poem about Ledges State Park on page 58.

Don’t Carry It All – The Decemberists

A couple of weeks ago at The Echo, a singer triggered for me a visceral memory of driving to Iowa from Denver for the first time. That experience of the past collapsing into the present was not actually precipitated by The Decemberists but by Truman Sinclair. He is in a different phase of life than Colin Meloy now, but he has a similar sort of energy and is a heartful boy with a harmonica. I have also been thinking a lot about One Week in January by Carson Ellis (who is married to Colin Meloy), a book that is a perfect case study in the strangeness of reanimating self-archive. One peculiarity of publishing is that it is so slow, but it makes gone or changed intimacies immediate again.

Bird of Paradise – Frazey Ford 

I feel like this song has been sampled in something? It has a contextual echo that I can’t place or define. But this is the version I had with me in Iowa, and now I live in California, and in the yard there is a fig tree, a rosemary bush, and a bird of paradise.

Sonsick – San Fermin

And resolve to love.

Who Knew – You Won’t

This song has retained its context for me more purely than others, and to me it’s about unconditional love. I liked to listen to it every time I turned south off of Highway 20 to come home to Sac City.

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

Anna Zumbahlen is a poet living in Southern California. She holds a PhD in English & Literary Arts from the University of Denver and an MFA from the University of Montana, where she was the recipient of the Richard Hugo Memorial Scholarship. Read recent work at www.annazum.com.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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.

Patricia Henley’s collection Apple & Palm is filled with stories both moving and wise.

Booklist wrote of the book:

“Stirring . . . Henley’s tales remain finely attuned to the characters’ discomforts, desires, and moments of revelation amidst social expectations.”

In her own words, here is Patricia Henley’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Apple & Palm:

I read Brenda Euland’s book If You Want to Write in the late eighties when there weren’t many books on the writing process. It was first published in the United States in 1938. Graywolf later re-issued it. My big takeaway at the time was this: Seek out wordless recreation. How easy that was in the late eighties. I stopped listening to music with lyrics while writing. I envy writers who are able to withstand the onslaught of lyrics while writing. But I make up for it when my writing sessions are finished. I have to get up and move, and, if the weather is too inclement for walking, I often dance.

Amazon Music informed me yesterday that my favorite music in 2025 was by Pistol Annies. Miranda Lambert and I  might have made quite a team back in the day when I still drank tequila, smoked roll-your-own cigarettes, and danced with strangers. Maybe she gives that back to me, a time in my life when I stupidly loved the rawness of making mistakes and testing boundaries.

A battle was sometimes in progress. Do I do what’s right or what might feel good? Sort of like the protagonist (do songs have protagonists?) in Gillian Welch’s “Look at Miss Ohio.”

Similar battles ensue for some of the characters in my new collection of stories, Apple & Palm. Here’s the inspirational playlist for this book.

“At Last” by Etta James

This ballad is so pure-hearted. It’s a good reminder of the brain chemistry that ensues when you fall in love. The singer doesn’t have doubts. Her voice is warm and as smooth as butter. It’s a comfort to me as I explore The Argument some of my women characters are having with themselves. The Argument is often about attachment versus heartache.

“Desperado” by The Eagles

Oh, this was the anthem of some of my characters back in the day. It still sends me into a swoon of regret. I aim to stay aware of the regrets of my characters and how the past informs the present. This could be Sally’s theme song in “Sally’s Tangent.” She gives up wanting the things that she can’t have. She leaves both of the men in her life, moves to New Orleans, wears androgynous clothes, and eschews the attention of men.

“Big-Boned Gal” by K.D. Lang

This song makes me think of times when I was overweight (whatever that means) as a girl and people would say, “Oh, she’s just big-boned.” It’s a body-positive song released in 2001 before we really talked about body-positivity much. We were still weighing ourselves every day and getting perms and free makeovers at Macy’s. The big-boned gal in the song just goes for it, without inhibition. She’s not ashamed of the  body she was born with. She holds the other dancers in a trance. This song reminds me of my character Maddy who lost her front teeth as a girl and my character Harper who is disfigured from a car accident. It’s a foot-stomper. My crush on K.D. Lang washes over me. Every time. But life isn’t so easy for Maddy and Harper.

“Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” covered by Joan Baez

What a melancholy tune. This is another one of those youthful anthems. There’s a hardness I cultivated in my younger days. Sally in “Sally’s Tangent” pulls the cloak of toughness around her. I can imagine her listening to this on repeat.

“Non, je ne regrette rien” by Edith Piaf

The full-throated voice of Edith Piaf blossoms from an open window at Tansy Art Dispensary, a women’s art collective in Whistle Pig, the town where most of the stories in Apple & Palm are set. The women welcome Harper, but Harper can’t see giving in to their invitation. Accepting their invitation would surrender her autonomy. I love this song for the way it brings back memories I don’t have the right to dwell on for long. It was popular before I was born. For the length of the song I have the golden chance to inhabit a different era.

“Got My Name Changed Back” by Pistol Annies

This paean to divorce is so sassy. It makes me want to dance. The lyrics contain no regrets, an attitude I adopt as a self-protective device now and then. I imagine Claire in “Smorgasbord” needs a song like this to assist her with all the labor involved in giving birth to herself after marriage.

“I’ll Be Seeing You” by Norah Jones

This is a heartbreaker. It’s an honest song about separation and longing, published in 1938. The lyrics must be embedded in the hearts and minds of all who listened to popular music in the 20th century. It was popular during the WWII era, and it’s been covered by many artists, including Frank Sinatra, Cat Power, Billie Holiday, Etta James, Brenda Lee, Norah Jones, Tony Bennett. Take your pick the next time you need a poignant love song.  In Apple & Palm, this has to be Roxy’s anthem in the story “Currency.” She’s over 100 years old. She had her heart truly broken at the end of WW II. She lost her country of birth, the freedom she felt among women while serving in the military, her mother, who cut off contact with her when she discovered that Roxy was to be an unwed mother, and her one true love.

“Members Only” by Bobby Blue Bland

I fell in love with this song when Abdul Rashid sang it at The Subway Lounge toward the end of the blues documentary “Last of the Mississippi Jukes.” Since then I turn to Bobby Blue Bland videos on YouTube and watch him perform it at different stages of his life. He was still capable of that signature growl when he was in his seventies. It’s an inclusive song: we’ve  all been broken by love or lack of love. It’s the sort of song that motivates my character GT in “Pivot” to open a music club in a small town in Appalachia. He’s lost his partner, his infant son, his Chicago home. This song eases the scales from his eyes; he sees what he’s gained. 

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

PATRICIA HENLEY is the author of three novels, five collections of stories, two chapbooks of poetry, and a stage play. Her first novel, Hummingbird House, was a finalist for the National Book Award and The New Yorker Fiction Prize. Her short fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and other journals. Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, and other anthologies. Her new collection of stories, Apple & Palm, is forthcoming from Cornerstone Press in March 2026. She taught in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at Purdue University for 26 years. She lives in Kingston, Washington. Learn more at patriciahenleyauthor.com

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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 poems in Sean Murphy’s collection red, white, and blues brilliantly juxtaposes politics and modern mythology.

Danez Smith wrote of the book:

“A dope set of poems I trust will find their way into readers’ hearts and minds and be useful to their transformation.”

In his own words, here is Sean Murphy’s Book Notes music playlist for his poetry collection red, white, and blues:

red, white, and blues is the fourth installment of a large, ongoing project acclaimed artist Matthew Shipp describes as “a kaleidoscopic, deep, and opulent journey.” Once more, I’m exploring America and its mythology through a series of poems that function as biography, history, and cultural commentary. Where the previous collections interrogated these concerns primarily through the lens of jazz and blues musicians, these poems home in on politics—and key players who have shaped our shared culture. A moral cross-examination covering history, war, religion, and pop spectacle, this collection asks what we worship, what we excuse, and what the stories we tell do to us.

I wrote red, white, and blues because I believe poetry can still tell the truth when other forms have failed us. These poems are not interested in neutrality; they are interested in clarity. They move through history and pop culture because that is where our myths live—where power learns to hide and where harm learns to look inevitable. (I also have come to believe poetry is the best way to mash up history, media, political commentary, and provides a succinct formula for connecting dots in ways Op-Eds, fiction, and social media grandstanding can’t and won’t—see below). I wanted to write a book that names what we worship, what we excuse, and what we leave behind, while still honoring the strange, stubborn beauty that survives in language. If these poems bruise, I hope they also invite conversation. If they provoke, I hope they also connect. Art matters because it reminds us that we are not alone in our witnessing.

These poems are political, name names, and while I don’t have any illusions my modest efforts can affect the type of meaningful change we desperately need, it’s a flag flown in solidarity, and a middle finger to the establishment. As such, I think it’s coming into the world at the right time—and perhaps can inspire some dialogue or instigate something positive.

This playlist attempts to go deep into the rock, blues, and jazz catalog, with some wild cards and surprises as well as some no brainer choices. Overall, I hope the songs chosen help illuminate if not elevate the poems they accompany!

“Eden” by 10,000 Maniacs (for “Adam’s Apple Blues”)

This collection homes in on power and politics in America, but it begins with Adam (and ends with Roy Batty from “Blade Runner”), so we cover ancient myths to futuristic sci-fi, heavy on religious overtones, being that a benevolent Big Guy who created all this and watches over it is the first, most problematic myth of all. Anyway, this is a gorgeous, melancholy meditation from one of the biggest indie bands from what seems like a whole different time and place (which it was–early ‘90s).

“Christopher Columbus” by Burning Spear (for “Christopher Columbus’s Mermaids”)

Burning Spear has all kinds of righteous anthems; this one is topically on point, but also delivered with the moral weight of a reggae and cultural legend.

“A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours” by The Smiths (for “Captain Cook’s Chimera”)

If anyone was up for tackling conquest (even if it was only in matters of the blackened, broken heart), Morrissey was up for the task.

“Custer” by Johnny Cash (for “George Custer’s Courage”)

This, coming from Johnny Cash, brings the spiritual weight of one million history books.

“Slave Driver” by Bob Marley (for “King Leopold’s Conquest”)

If I may quote myself (from a previous playlist, no less): I’m not certain any artist has ever consistently combined compassion and censure, mingling the New Testament empathy of Jesus with the Old Testament admonition of Ecclesiastes, quite like the immortal Bob Marley.

“Right Off” by Miles Davis (for “Jack Johnson’s Apostasy”)

Miles, dropping knowledge, and forcing the world to tilt at a more inclusive angle.

“J.J. Gittes” by Jerry Goldsmith (for Jake Gittes’s Nose”)

So many great songs about L.A., but “Chinatown” was more about America, and its protagonist, J.J. Gittes, is a stand-in for all of us. Makes sense to go to the source (one of the all-time movie soundtracks).

“Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads (for “Willy Loman’s Life”)

Same. As. It. Ever. Was.

“Lady Sings the Blues” by Billie Holiday & “God Bless the Child” by Eric Dolphy (for “Harry Anslinger’s Song”)

On May 31, 1959—as she lay dying at the Metropolitan Hospital in New York, aged 44—Billie Holiday was arrested, handcuffed, and put under police guard for possession of narcotics. Anslinger was the insufferable shitheel who helped hound and harass innocent, fragile, helpless geniuses like Lady Day. He was also, shocker, an absolute hypocrite, on the short list of all-time worst Americans.

“Haitian Fight Song” by Charles Mingus (for “Charles Mingus’s Cry”)

For this, the opening track of his 1957 masterpiece The Clown, the composer wrote “I can’t play it right unless I’m thinking about prejudice and hate and persecution, and how unfair it is. There’s sadness and cries in it, but also determination.” What he said. Mingus!!!

“The Clown” by Charles Mingus (for “Charles Mingus’s Metaphor”)

Charles Mingus made five albums in 1957, and the first one he recorded was The Clown. He called it The Clown because the title track was also a mission statement. He called it The Clown because he knew artists sometimes frighten the people who pay them. He called it The Clown because he cherished the dividends an apt metaphor can provide. He called it The Clown because the only thing heavier than his smile was his sorrow. He called it The Clown because he understood performing tricks often makes the wrong people laugh. He called it The Clown because look at the album cover. He called it The Clown because he knew most of us want to see how the magic works—until we’ve seen it.

“Hackensack” by Thelonious Monk (for “Thelonious Monk’s Movement”)

Monk played piano. Monk wrote some of the best jazz tracks of the 20^th Century. Monk would stand up, mid-concert, and dance around the stage. Monk changed the world, permanently, for the better.

“Man oh Man” by The Impressions (for “Curtis Mayfield’s Construction”)

Here comes St. Curtis—not yet Super Fly but actively metamorphosizing into something extra, something beyond what even he might have imagined—obliged to make men’s flesh do indescribable things with the instruments of their invention, a foundation meant to expand after its completion; music’s magic being the fact that it’s never finished.

“The Boss” by James Brown (for “Muhammad Ali’s Induction”)

The older I get and the more I learn—about the ‘60s, America, myself—the deeper my awe of the man who changed his name to Muhammad Ali grows. Is there one figure (don’t say John Lennon) who humanizes, epitomizes, the racial, sociological, human upheaval of the era? Here is the rarest of folks who was the best in the world at what he did, at the height of his ability to make history, and money, willing to sacrifice it on principle. And more: a cause that every year is proven more prescient and unassailable on both moral and military levels. April 28, 1967, a little over a month before Sgt. Pepper initiated the Summer of Love, Ali made a statement as brave, audacious and impactful as any of that—or any—decade.  Look: we live in a time where we can boast about our beliefs and have our righteousness measured by likes and follows, all from the safety of an overpriced coffee shop. As such, I’ll continue to be humbled and inspired, as a dude with big hopes and modest abilities, by the icon who stared down doubt, ignorance, security and compliance. Ali is the exception to the way we’re ruled, and how we roll, and like the rest of us mortals, his biggest fight took place outside the ring.

“Symphony of Destruction” by Megadeth (for “Richard Nixon’s Fix”)

If you look at the wars of aggression (both overseas, via the military, and here at home, via the government one party has initiated and overseen, it’s hard to think of three more appropriate words: Symphony of Destruction.

“Politicians In My Eyes” by Death (for “Henry Kissinger’s CV”)

First Ballot Hall of Fame for Most Evil Asshole category. On the Mt. Rushmore of All-Time American Cretins. Good riddance, at long last, to this irredeemable degenerate.

“Charlie Don’t Surf” by The Clash (for Colonel Kilgore’s Concerto”)

This poem doesn’t seek to add to what Joe Strummer and Francis Ford Coppola already did (who could it?), but it enjoys mashing up the spectacle, claiming some space for creative deconstruction.

“Machine Gun” by Jimi Hendrix (for “Sergeant Elias’s Sacrifice”)

Jimi Hendrix’s guitar says more (about Vietnam, about war, about the senselessness of violence, about everything) than any poem or movie could manage.

“Ball of Fire” by Israel Vibration (for “Pol Pot’s Purgatory”)

Where ya gonna run—when this fire start to burn?

“Pricilla’s Theme” by Roy Ayers (for “Pam Grier’s Perm”)

A perm. A permanent statement. Or purposeful state of mind. Which is what the ‘70s were: a decade where black was not only beautiful, but exploited as such, and if soul could sell we got on that train and danced.

“Nobody’s Fault But Mine” by Led Zeppelin (for “Evel Knievel’s Nuts”)

On one hand, they made a toy out of him that made millions of dollars. On the other hand, attacked a man with an aluminum baseball bat, did time, went bankrupt. Like the most iconic Americans, dude contained multitudes. Are we not entertained?

“Glamour Profession” by Steely Dan (for “Chuck Barris’s Blow”)

It got to the point where even cocaine was embarrassed to be seen with Chuck Barris. Okay, I made that up but if you lived through the ‘70s, you get it. If you know, you know.

“The Message” by Grandmaster Flash (for “Ronald Reagan’s Revolution”)

Just Say No to drugs, except the one we’re selling to terrorists, for profit. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. And vice versa.

“Hole in the Sky” by Black Sabbath (for “Gordon Gekko’s Greed”)

“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.” When Gordon Gekko became an ironic hero to the types of bros who treat America like a chop shop to be broken up for parts and sold to the highest bidder, something irretrievable died, and it ain’t coming back.

“The Game” by Motorhead (for “Roy Cohn’s Clients”)

In America, the more shameless and out in the open you are, the less likely you are to be caught or even questioned. It doesn’t compensate for the damage he did to know he died, miserable, scared, and alone. But it helps.

“Play the Game” by Queen (for “Freddie Mercury’s Magic”)

I want it all, each of us declared in our own style, hoping Freddie had taken one for the team, a dirty saint made to suffer so we could sin on, lip synching his songs as we drove blind toward whatever destiny had designed.

“Shut Em Down” by Public Enemy (for “Rodney King’s Cameo”)

Video, we say, or it didn’t happen. It happened, and we have video. A video that proved it happened, and that it was happening, everywhere, all the time. Always was, and still is. Don’t Believe the Hype & Fight The Power.

“Every Day I Have the Blues” by B.B. King (for B.B. King’s Blues”)

It’s all there in the music, but not everyone is born to sing and some of the best songs die, unheard in darkness, which is why the blues is a symptom and a cause and a cure and also something that can never be explained; the blues describe the unspeakable and somehow make you dance and sing and cry. The blues means you can forgive but you will not forget, and a declaration that becoming a saint does not make you less human and dying only means the suffering stops for all the wrong reasons. The blues tells a never-ending story about what the race line means and why we’ll never be a colorblind society. The blues offers anyone who neither has nor understands the blues an abiding invitation to kindly shut the fuck up. And mostly the blues means white people should never stop listening whenever a black person talks about the blues.

“I Need a Roof” by The Mighty Diamonds (for “Rudy Giuliani’s Reward”)

As soon as the least of our brothers are seen as something less than human, the floodgates of evil open wide. 

“Hypnotize” by The Notorious B.I.G. (for “Allen Iverson’s Answer”)

We’re (not) talking about practice. Every baller knows: the real thugs in this world wear suits and strafe locker rooms w/ friendly fire, their diet a steady buffet of black & broken hearts.

“Campaigner” by Neil Young (for “Howard Dean’s Scream”)

“I am a lonely visitor / I came too late to cause a stir.”

“World Leader Pretend” by R.E.M. (for “The Decider’s Decision”)

They did not, in fact, greet us as liberators.

“The Known Unknown” by Khan Jamal & “Known Unknown” by Vernon Reid (for “Donald Rumsfeld’s Romp”)

When Iago whispers in Othello’s ear, it leads to tragedy that reads like reality. When Rumsfeld whispers to Bush, it leads to tragedy that reads like fiction.

“Everybody Knows” by Concrete Blonde (for Mitch McConnell’s Mini-Stroke”)

Guy woke up on the right side of the bed every day for decades, eager to inflict damage. He hurt as many people as possible and savored every second of it. There’s no hell hot enough.

“Official Silence” by Henry Threadgill (for “Clarence Thomas’s Conscience”)

Sometimes there are no words.

“Mental Slavery” by Mikey Dread (for “Rupert Murdoch’s Mutation”)

Some men, if you’ll pardon the cliché, just want to watch the world burn.

“The Great Deceiver” by King Crimson (for “Joel Osteen’s Soul”)

“In the night he’s a star in the Milky Way / He’s a man of the world by the light of day / A golden smile and a proposition / And the breath of God smells of sweet sedition.”

“Nowhere Man” by The Beatles (for “Donald Trump’s Stakes”)

He’s a real nowhere man. Sitting in his nowhere land. Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.

“Atlantic City” by Bruce Springsteen (for “St. James’s Place”)

Fun fact: The properties in the board game Monopoly are named after streets in Atlantic City, N.J., famous in the early 20^th Century for its beach and boardwalk. The tourist town eventually declined, and gambling was legalized in 1976, followed by high rises and casinos, several owned by real estate tycoon Donald Trump, who declared A.C. the eighth wonder of the world.

Less fun fact: The rise and fall of Atlantic City serves as another reminder of how wealthy people invariably set the world on fire, for profit, and leave countless lives in a smoldering, ignored heap. Also, if American journalism hadn’t sadly become access-only exercise for clicks (capitalism, again) and InfoTainment hadn’t had whatever was left of its soul exorcised for reality TV empire tilting, the embarrassment of Donald Trump would have been relegated to the ash heap of history as a punchline and cautionary tale decades before he descended that faux-gold escalator to carry America into the sewage from which he sprung 

“Slipstream” by Jethro Tull (for “Elon Musk’s Assets”)

In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” The Misfit, a sociopath driven to nihilism, claims “it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can — by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness…”

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears (for “Jeff Bezos’s Billions”)

Whether my modest efforts make the slightest difference matters less to me than the fact that this poem will be relevant and applicable one year, ten years, one hundred years from now. When this buffoon who’s helping wreck the planet is a gross footnote to an era when America was at its worst, and some of the sickest people who ever shared oxygen with other human beings ruled the world. Like Ozymandias, their time was brief, the damage significant, and their example used as cautionary tale.

“Here Comes the Flood” by Peter Gabriel (for “Roy Batty’s Tears”)

More human than human. Because in America, it takes a replicant to show us what it means to be an authentic human being.

Or, as Peter Gabriel, in full-on God Mode, sings—equal parts prayer and prophecy:

Lord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It’ll be those who gave their island to survive.

CODA: “Memory Hole” by Bobby Previte

William Carlos Williams: 

It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.

Bertolt Brecht:

In the dark times 
Will there also be singing? 
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.

Without empathy there can be no art. Without art there is silence. Silence is apathy, which is how power does its damage with impunity. This is what poetry fights against, bearing witness and singing in the dark, trying to find the things even poetry doesn’t provide.

also at Largehearted Boy:

Sean Murphy’s playlist for his story collection This Kind of Man

Sean Murphy’s playlist for his graphic novel Punk Rock Jesus

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

Jake Skeets is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, selected by the National Poetry Series and winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and an American Book Award. A Whiting Award recipient, Skeets is from the Navajo Nation and was appointed the Nation’s third Poet Laureate. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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.

Deanne Stillman’s book Twentynine Palms remains powerful and prescient on the 25th anniversary of its publication.

Bookreporter wrote of the book:

“Stillman manages to stray from the cliches and super-emotions of most real-life murder tales. In doing so, she crafts an indelibly poignant story about the whys and wherefores of war and how it truly affects us at home.”

In her own words, here is Deanne Stillman’s Book Notes music playlist for her book Twentynine Palms:

I like to think that I wrote Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave because of my love of the desert and my urge to tell stories of castaways. It’s about two girls who were killed by a Marine after the Gulf War in Twentynine Palms, California. As I discovered, they both had family legacies of poverty and violence that stretched back for decades, in one case to the Donner Party and the other to a shack in the Philippines. And they shared an inevitable arrival in the Mojave near the world’s largest Marine base, where service jobs are plentiful and many a beleaguered single mom can eke out a living. My book is now having its 25^th anniversary, and as I think about it once more, the two things that led me to write it weren’t the only reason for doing so. I love loud music in desert bars, especially on a jukebox, and throughout the ’90s, which was when I worked on this book, such establishments were plentiful. Plus driving to Twentynine Palms from LA afforded yet more time for this kind of listening. If you remember KNAC, the metal station, you know what I’m talking about. If not, see my NY Times coverage. I generally listened until it faded into Christian advice shows, although sometimes Ephesians had its appeal, depending on who was reciting it. And then there were CDs, if you remember those.

So first of all, that leads me to…

“I Can’t Drive 55,” written and recorded by Sammy Hagar in 1984 to protest the nationwide speed limit of 55, apparently after he got a speeding ticket on the way to Lake Placid, New York. It’s on his VOA album and became a monster hit when he joined Van Halen a year later, replacing David Lee Roth, and the band began performing it at shows. This is the chorus – “Go on and write me up for 125/Post my face, wanted dead or alive/Take my license, all that jive/I can’t drive 55, oh no, uh” – and if you’ve never been flying off the freeway while blasting that screamer, I just don’t know what to tell you.

And that leads me to…

“You Really Got Me,” another Van Halen hit, this one released in 1978, and sung by David Lee Roth. It was a cover of the eponymous Kinks hit, already a classic written by Ray Davies, but here put through a heavy rock blender and amped up by Eddie Van Halen’s signature guitar riffs. It’s another song that makes you wanna put pedal to the metal and, well, not drive 55 as you uncork the afterburner and head for who knows where in the desert.

Other mandatory road songs included “Burnin’ for You” and “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” both by Blue Oyster Cult. The second has overtaken the first in terms of catchiness and recognition, due to the uproarious SNL sketch in which Christopher Walken plays producer Bruce Dickinson, who keeps demanding that the band add “more cowbell” to its recording of Reaper, and Will Ferrell played a fictional bandmember who bangs on the bell. As Vulture Magazine put it, this became the Mount Rushmore of sketches, to the degree that Christopher Walken later said it ruined his life because every time he walked into a room from then on (the year 2000), everyone would call out “More cowbell.” But the song was released in 1976 and I was already saying “more Reaper” as I headed east into the desert and into the story that I was writing. Incidentally, the song is a Romeo and Juliet tale, with a chorus that tells you Shakespeare rocks:

Come on, baby
(And she had no fear) And she ran to him
(Then they started to fly) They looked backward and said goodbye
(She had become like they are) She had taken his hand
(She had become like they are) Come on, baby
(Don’t fear the Reaper) 

My behind-the-wheel soundtrack also included – and still does – pretty much anything by Dick Dale, “king of the surf guitar,” especially “Nitro,” which lives up to its billing and is an explosion of molecule-busting sounds that kind of echo whatever the desert – or ocean – is sending. His music mimics the sound of gigantic waves breaking, cracks open invisible Mojave portals. As it happened, he lived in Twentynine Palms and raised Arabian horses, and in fact was of Lebanese descent. I once visited him at his sprawling ranch, and he spoke of the influence of Middle Eastern folk music on his own. We talked for hours; his verbal riffs were long like what he played on his guitar. I wrote about his repertoire in the NY Times.

Once in Twentynine Palms, the jukebox at the Oasis was overflowing with desert treasure. There was “Dirty White Boy” by Foreigner, which not only rocked hard and heavy but had a refrain that characterized cowboys and outlaws, not unlike some of the men I knew and also some who were involved in the story I was writing:

I’ve been in trouble since I don’t know when
I’m in trouble now and I know somehow I’ll find trouble again
I’m a loner, but I’m never alone
Every night I get one step closer to the danger zone

In that vein, there was also “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger, later covered by Metallica. Not sure which one I like better; the original by Seger is perhaps more engaging as it’s one guy singing about hitting the road after a gig – Here I am, on the road again/There I am, up on the stage/There I go playin’ the star again/There I go, turn the page – and the anguish is apparent, though it certainly applies to any guy fleeing his past or current obligations, remaining front and center as he disappears. The Metallica version of course amps up the saga and it’s not for nothing that it’s on their Garage Inc cover anthology. I remember a couple of guys in town who would punch this repeatedly on the jukebox and sing along as they downed another shot, then headed into the night.

Which leads me to…

George Thorogood and “One Bourbon, One Shot, One Beer” and “I Drink Alone.” Both are tributes to the drinking life – and what that means – and both are bar classics. There are a lot of beverages under the bridge in these songs, especially “I Drink Alone” with its lines “me and my good Buddy Weiser” and “Yeah, the other night I laid sleeping/
And I woke from a terrible dream/So I caught up my pal Jack Daniel’s/And his partner Jimmy Beam.” Thorogood is so embedded in our culture that while working on my book Desert Reckoning, also set in the Mojave (this time, north of LA), I remember walking into a convenience store one day and hearing a woman’s ringtone going off; it was “I Drink Alone.” All I could do was raise an imaginary glass and give her a toast. Bar culture is lol, let’s face it.

Speaking of Twentynine Palms (the town), there’s a Robert Plant song called “Twentynine Palms” and it’s beautiful and haunting and I’d say you can dance to it, but you can’t. You can however drive to it, but that doesn’t quite work. Best to just sit down and just listen. He released this in 1993 on his Fate of Nations album. It’s about a love affair with, well, someone he was said to have been involved with at the time (several names have been put forth, and sounds like another musician, as per this chorus), but like any love song, the exact name of the other person doesn’t matter, because there’s a lot going on here:

It comes kinda hard
When I hear your voice on the radio
(When I hear your voice on the radio)
Taking me back down the road that leads back to you
Oh, oh, oh
29 Palms
I feel the heat of your desert heart
(Feel the heat of your desert heart)
Taking me back down the road that leads back to you

And finally, there’s this. I couldn’t listen to it at the time I was writing Twentynine Palms, because it wasn’t written yet. It’s a song that the great singer-songwriter Tony Gilkyson (X, Dave Alvin, Lone Justice, and his own repertoire) and I wrote, based on my book. It’s called “Mirage,” about two girls fantasizing about getting out of town and heading for the ocean – water! Thanks to Tony, it’s a breathtaking song and has gone way beyond anything I imagined. Here it is, from one of his gigs a few years ago, performed with another great singer-songwriter, Rick Shea, who is also on the recording. Please take a moment to listen.

also at Largehearted Boy:

Deanne Stillman’s playlist for her book “American Confidential”

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

Deanne Stillman’s previous books include American Confidential (see playlist here), Blood Brothers, which was named a “best of the year” in the millions and True West Magazine and was excerpted in Newsweek, for which she listened to pow-wow music and cowboy songs, and the same goes for her book Mustang, with hard rock and heavy metal and surf music part of the mix. Her book Desert Reckoning opens with the lyrics from “Renegade” by Styx, and they drive this story about a 21st century manhunt; the book is based on a Rolling Stone article and won the Spur and LA Press Club Awards.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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.

Lisa Lee’s Book Notes novel American Han is one of the year’s most moving and smartest debuts.

Kirkus wrote of the book:

“Lee’s heartrending debut . . . captures the culture of the Korean diaspora both with small details—a jar of kimchi buried in the yard for more than 10 years, dug up only when the house is sold—and with broader brush strokes . . . Lee’s self-aware, relentlessly honest narrator feels absolutely real, and her story cuts deep.”

In her own words, here is Lisa Lee’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel American Han:

In my debut novel, I wanted to capture the feeling of han, a Korean concept and emotion. Borrowing from Elaine H. Kim, scholar of Asian American and Ethnic Studies, han is “the sorrow and anger that grow from repeated experiences of oppression.” While Koreans in Korea might argue that han is a thing of the past, no longer a defining feature of Korean identity, I wanted to explore how immigrants of my parents’ generation brought han with them to America and passed it down to their children, and here it became something new, a distinctly Korean American han, inflected by American racism and the pressures of assimilation.

The music that inspired me while writing my book almost all hails from the 1980s through the early 2000s, the time period in which my book takes place. Many of these tracks capture the feeling of my youth—melancholy, anger, defiance—which is partly the feeling of han and is the mood that dwells in my book. Of course, there’s also plenty of humor and playful energy in the lives of the Kim family. Some of these songs connect to their desire for freedom and change and their particular tendency toward absurdity. It is my great pleasure to share with you the music that soothed me and influenced me, that gave me the confidence to listen to my inner voice.

“Roads” by Portishead (1994)

Dummy is the album I listened to on repeat in college. I’d never heard a sound like it before, never heard of trip-hop, never heard such a beautiful, anguished voice. “Roads” is like a mirror of the melancholy and isolation and disillusionment that many of the characters in my book feel. Like the speaker in the song, there’s “a war to fight” within my narrator, Jane Kim, especially, as she tries to satisfy her family’s expectations and be true to herself, which makes her feel paralyzed by sorrow.

“Sexy Boy” by Air (1998)

This was my daughter’s favorite song a few years ago, when she was in kindergarten. In the car, she’d ask me to play it, and strapped in her car seat in the back, she’d sing in an eerie voice, “Sexy baaaaaaagel.” Her love for the song made me love it again too—the dreamy electronics, the androgynous vocals, and since I don’t understand French, the lyrics added mystery to the already seductive sound. Nicolas Godin has said that when he and Jean-Benoît Dunckel wrote the song, they were thinking about who they wanted to be. They weren’t handsome when they were younger, he explained. Kevin Kim, my narrator’s brother, has been made to feel by American culture that he’s not a man and will never fit the ideals of what a man should look like. So this longing to be beautiful and masculine and admired aligns with Kevin’s desire and his mood on a mellow day.

“Raspberry Beret” by Prince (1985)

The secondhand beret represents rebellion, anti-materialism, and a rejection of societal norms, all things boiling under Jane’s good girl veneer. This playful and psychedelic song—complete with string arrangements, finger cymbals, upbeat claps, and of course Prince’s signature high-pitched, ecstatic shrieks—captures the lightness of Jane’s youth. The sound is whimsical and carefree, evoking a nostalgia that isn’t super obvious in my book, but appears in the moments she spends with her best friend, Samir, who offers a counterpoint to all that han.

“Maps” by Yeah Yeah Yeahs (2003)

I have to include Yeah Yeah Yeahs because the band appeared in an early draft but was sadly cut (by me, not my editor). In the scene, Jane and Samir and some other friends attend a show at the Fillmore to see a new band that was starting to blow up and there was a long description of the Korean band member shrieking wildly, completely mesmerizing Jane. “Maps” is said to be about Karen O’s tumultuous relationship with her then-boyfriend, and while the romantic pining aspect doesn’t quite fit my book, the feeling of longing matches that of Jane and her parents each wanting to get back the lives they feel they never had a chance to live.

“Tramp” by Otis Redding and Carla Thomas (1967)

The playful exchange between Carla Thomas playing the part of a sophisticated city girl teasing Otis Redding as a country boy in overalls who has no money and needs a haircut makes me think of what Jane’s parents’ relationship might have been like when they started dating. Jane’s dad’s first job in America was as a gas station attendant, and her mom was being set up to marry a doctor, a man who would fit in line with her family of male doctors. I like to think about Jane’s mother as a young woman falling in love with Jane’s dad, who doesn’t meet her family’s class standards, but she’s drawn to his creative ambitions and his charisma and good looks.

“Cut Your Hair” by Pavement (1994)I enjoy the message of this song that mocks the pressure to conform to succeed. I always admired Pavement for their anti-industry sarcasm. Ironically, this song that criticizes the music industry’s obsession with image over talent became Pavement’s biggest hit. With its dark humor, “Cut Your Hair” echoes the pressure on my characters to assimilate. I’ve always loved the running joke surrounding it. The song ends: “Attention and fame’s a career / Career, career, career, career, career.” Fans were confused and thought Stephen Malkmus was shouting KOREA over and over. So he went with it and shouts KOREA when playing live.

“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears (1985)

This song is conveying something about the corrupting influence of ambition and competition. This is very much the atmosphere in which the Kim family lives. It’s something that Jane feels from her peers at school, in her community, and within her own family. In communities like Napa in the 1980s, many people viewed their lives as a ceaseless contest for dominance and became isolated as a result. This song captures that feeling of isolation. The characters in my book try so hard to win and be on top, and even to just fit in, that they don’t notice how their ambition harms each other and themselves.

“6’1”” by Liz Phair (1993)

Exile in Guyville is my favorite album from high school. The nineties were a uniquely misogynistic time when Saturday Night Live aired supposedly hilarious parodies of figures including: Janet Reno, first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general (the joke was she looked like a man), Chelsea Clinton, teenaged daughter of President Bill Clinton (the joke was that she was ugly), and Pat, androgynous fictional character played by Julia Sweeney (funny because: man or woman?). It’s no wonder that I was drawn to Liz Phair’s message of self-empowerment and female agency. I admired her bold defiance, her gritty, tough girl sound. The bravado of this first track sets the tone for the whole record and is a call to young women to stand up for themselves, to stand tall even if they’re physically small. I imagine this energetic song as the soundtrack for Jane Kim as she builds the confidence to stand up to everyone trying to keep her down.

“Corporeal” by Broadcast (2005)

Such a perfect, dreamy song. I love the staticky electronic textures and the hypnotic bass line that weaves through like a pulse against Trish Keenan’s ethereal melody. For me, the song represents the anxiety of the 2000s, when our lives were increasingly mediated through digital technologies designed to manipulate us, categorize us, and offer us the illusion of choice. We were being presented with more options than ever before, but our choices were being made for us. The song is about getting back to the physicality of the body because pain, fear, pleasure, and desire are real. A retreat to the body is the last bastion of real experience in the face of digitally mediated personality. My novel is set in the early 2000s, the time when technology was beginning to take over our lives. This song expresses the fear of what’s to come.

 “She’s Got Her Ticket” by Tracy Chapman (1988)

This is the song I imagine blasting on the radio at the end of the book as Jane drives away to move across the country. Her escape from an oppressive family and impossible societal expectations is bittersweet because while they’ve all survived their lives, she feels that her brother has been left behind. Still, I see her driving off into the sunset, feeling hopeful. I love the lines “her mind is made up” and “she knows where her ticket takes her,” as if Jane knows that she’s finally breaking free and on her way to finding her place in the world.

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

Lisa Lee is the recipient of the Marianne Russo Emerging Writer Award from the Key West Literary Seminar, an Emerging Writer Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, and a Pushcart Prize. She has received other fellowships and awards from Kundiman, Millay Arts, Hedgebrook, the Rona Jaffe Foundation, Tin House, Jentel Artist Residency, and the Korea Foundation. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, VIDA, North American Review, Sycamore Review, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere. Lee holds an MFA from the University of Houston and a PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from the University of Southern California. She lives in Los Angeles.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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 essays in Elizabeth Zaleski’s collection The Trouble with Loving Poets are as introspective and profound as they are funny.

The Chicago Review of Books wrote of the book:

“…full of the intricacies and eccentricities of life―often funny, at times somber, and always moving.”

In her own words, here is Elizabeth Zaleski’s Book Notes music playlist for her essay collection The Trouble with Loving Poets:

The book is divided into five sections of three essays each, and I’ve picked one song (and occasionally a bonus track) to accompany each essay. Enjoy!

WITH FAMILY

Vegetable Psychology, Lovesick Astrology—Prince, “1999”

Prince’s “1999,” along with its campy music video, nicely encapsulates the apocalyptic polyamory* that is the background of this essay. Though I don’t talk about this particular parent-child enmeshment episode in the book, the bonus tie-in here is that one of my mom’s paramours was a nightclub singer who looked a lot like Prince. I know this because my parents once took us to the nightclub to make his acquaintance. Because I was seven and had no idea what was going on, I spent most of the evening doing quite serious cartwheels across the dance floor.

*I gift “Apocalyptic Polyamory” to the first metal band who claims it.

The Sweeper and the Residue—Cat Stevens, “Hard Headed Woman”

Aside from the complete Letter People record collection (especially Mr. M, Mr. S, and Mr. R, who rock out), Cat Stevens’s Tea for the Tillerman was the only vinyl record in my parents’ collection worth keeping. My dad has always said that “Hard Headed Woman” was the theme song to his marriage (well, two marriages) to my mother. Though I usually have little patience for didactic folk, something about Stevens’s unironic striving for significance has always struck the right chord with me, and I find his voice utterly compelling.

Moving—Metallica, “No Leaf Clover”

If we had a family soundtrack, it would be 75 percent Metallica, 15 percent Bon Jovi, and 10 percent Enya. I was the kind of uncool Metallica fan who got a late start and liked Load, Reload, S&M, and Garage Inc. more than their early albums. I rewatched some of the S&M concert recently and realized that James Hetfield was just thirty-six years old at the time, six entire years younger than I am today. Good god, where does the time go. A more fun realization in looking back at Metallica was that their lyrics, always under attack for heathenizing us, are largely innocuous—practically PG compared to much of contemporary pop. Lyrics aren’t especially Metallica’s strength as a band, but the line “Then it comes to be that the soothing light at the end of your tunnel was just a freight train coming your way” is A+.

WITH MEANING

Waking Up Is Hard to Do—Bonnie “Prince” Billie, “Death to Everyone”

Will Oldham (who records under various monikers) was one of the first “indie” artists I ever listened to. I didn’t know anything about Will Oldham, and this was before googling was a regular feature of everyday life, so I thought there was really someone named Bonnie “Prince” Billie who lived in a remote cabin and recorded totally lo-fi, totally absorbing weird-ass music. No one else can pull off lyrical anachronism the way BPB does without it being cringy or just plain dorky. “At home on Wednesday morn / Astride my horny horn / You’ll be in glory born / And I will be a beast for thee” are actual words he sings in a song, and that song is good. You don’t hate him even a little bit by the end. I don’t know if I See a Darkness was a classic soundtrack for people who were deeply depressed in the early 2000s, but it should have been. “Death to Everyone” sounds like a song you’d hear while riding the carousal at an existentialist carnival. Wheeeeeee!

Pretty Dead Things—Radiohead, “Karma Police”

If pushed, by myself, right now, to say who my favorite all-time band was, I would say Radiohead, but I didn’t listen to them until college. I finally found Radiohead, along with Bob Marley, by checking out a physical CD at the local library. I listened to Amnesiac that way and then illegally burned it to the new iBook I’d gotten for school. After that, I LimeWired their back catalog and have never stopped listening. Though the story of this essay is more one of irony than karma per se, “Karma Police” still feels like the right choice, and the video kind of fits too.

Romantic Destinations—Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, “Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World”

Near the tail end of the Costa Rica trip, I remember my traveling companions were sprawled in the grass waiting for a bus when I heard an almost inhumanly beautiful voice singing a song that seemed sort of familiar but also not. I asked Vanessa what she was listening to, and I bought the whole Facing Future album when I got back home. I listened to that album forward and backward for two solid years. When I visited Hawai‘i for the first time recently, I was able to sing along, phonetically at least, to “Henehene Kou ʻAka” when I heard another group of musicians playing it. Also, I saw (green) sea turtles in the wild, and they are phenomenal.

WITH MEN

The Trouble with Loving Poets—Lhasa de Sela, “Fool’s Gold”

The poet/musician who inspired this essay was an early adopter of YouTube, and it was even stranger back then to be involved with someone fielding praise from global randos. He recorded a cover of this song and emailed it to me around the time our interest in each other was burning out, and it’s one of the few good things that came of that affair. The original is a great song. I dated a lot of musicians, as well as a few writers, and I always thought it would be funny to make a “Dudes I’ve Fucked” playlist. This is not that, but there would be a lot of . . . decent music on the DIF playlist.

Hung Up—Latto, “Big Energy”

No explanation necessary.

Bonus track: Empress Of, “Woman Is a Word.” The guy with the “pronounced downward bend” had excellent taste in many things and thought I’d really like this song. I do.

Dumped—The Low Set, “Mothman”

As noted above, I dated a lot of musicians, and one of the other fun things I did after I quit dating was join a band to prove to myself that I could be in a band. It’s not that hard. The band was called The Low Set, which was an inside joke (with myself) about my breasts. My bandmates Levi and Peter had actual talent, while I had a spare bedroom we could practice in, a keyboard, and more jokes. I occasionally “sang” one of our songs because I wanted to write the lyrics. “Mothman” is one such song, about the West Virginia cryptid.

WITH US

HPV and the Burden of Knowledge—Jesus Christ Superstar, “Strange Thing / Mystifying”

I’m not really a musicals person, but Jesus Christ Superstar is a rock opera, and as someone completely unqualified to judge such things, I think Ted Neeley’s and Carl Anderson’s vocal performances in JCS are among the best of the last century. Featuring one of several jazz arguments between Judas and Jesus, “Strange Thing” is about Mary Magdalene, and while it is less impressive than their epic showdown at the Last Supper, it is easier to stream. Neeley’s “Gethsemane” is crazy good, but Judas/Anderson is the true star of the show—he gets the final word and goes to heaven in a fringed jumpsuit. What does any of this have to do with an essay about the ethics of STD disclosure? Guilt! Righteousness! Struggle! Betrayal! Sacrifice! Absolution! I’m a person who has convoluted moral arguments in my head a lot. Jesus and Judas operatically sparring about theology just kind of jives with me. Also, I wonder if Mary Magdalene had HPV.

All the Dead Dogs—Taylor Dayne, “Tell It to My Heart”

Was it really love or just a game? RIP Taylor and Dayne.

Original Syntax—Modest Mouse, “Bury Me with It”

Modest Mouse has extremely playful lyrics that I greatly appreciate. There’s a certain Onion-headline turn in almost every line of thought they start down. Isaac Brock’s vocals are also delightfully deranged and once gave me hope that I could sing lyrically sophisticated punk rock songs if I just hid the mediocrity of my voice behind gads of prosodic distortion. As you already know from above, only part of that dream was realized. I love “Bury Me with It” to death; it’s a “fuck it” theme song about not fighting till the end but instead taking your leave when all the fun has already left town. (It reminds me of my favorite Tim Kreider cartoon, “What’s Your Plan When the Shit Hits the Fan,” where Tim is raising a glass of champagne while saying, “To die.”) “I just don’t need none of that Mad Max bullshit” is one of my favorite lines to yell out loud, along with the later, more condensed, “Oh, shit now!” Primary thematic connection to essay: language play amid disaster.

WITH HOME

Even in Death—Sufjan Stevens, “Casimir Pulaski Day”

“Casimir Pulaski Day” has one of the best opening lines of any song ever, and if you disagree, you are wrong. It goes, “Goldenrod and the 4H stone, the things I brought you when I found out you had cancer of the bone.” The way the line melodically, rhythmically, and sonically settles—almost whimsically—moving from such tender, inadequate gestures to devastation . . . it’s remarkable songwriting. Every time I listen to “Casimir Pulaski Day,” I think about all those kids we lost growing up, especially Brian, and I am sad.

Song and Dance Men, Part 1—Air, “Venus”

If marijuana is a gateway drug, then perhaps trip-hop is the path you skip down to reach that first gate. The two go very, very well together, and if you add sex as a third thing on top of them, you are pretty much at peak pleasure. My stoned days are way behind me, but the intensity of affection bound up in Air’s entire Talkie Walkie album is instantly alive when I hear the opening bars of any song on that record.

Bonus tracks: Other sounds of the summer were anything by Bjork, Beck, or Daft Punk, MIA’s Arular, Gorillaz’ Feel Good Inc., System of a Down’s Mezmerize, the Postal Service, Kings of Leon, and Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”

Hymn—“Abide with Me”

Indisputably the best hymn, a claim I will fight you on, in Jesus’s name. I spent a long time looking for a version that sounded right (no organ, not in a cathedral) and settled on this one, even though they skip the last verse, which happens to be the best verse because you get to taunt death.

Bonus track: Blur, “Tender,” which we listened to on repeat during the Arizona trip. We also wrote an original commemorative song about our journey, perhaps most notable for slant rhyming ’zona with Yoder.

There you have it! Rock on, friends.

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

Elizabeth Zaleski is the author of The Trouble with Loving Poets and Other Essays on Failure. Elizabeth grew up in rural northeast Ohio, in Amish country. After living and traveling all over the US, she now lives in slightly less rural northeast Ohio, outside Akron. She works as an editor and is the curator of Great Farts of Literature. Quitting piano at age fourteen is one of her only regrets, and she still plays like an eighth grader.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.

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.

Alicia Jo Rabins’s When We’re Born We Forget Everything is a magnificently engaging memoir of spirituality, feminism, and queerness.

Matthew Gavin Frank wrote of the book:

“Raucous, entertaining, and always authentic, When We’re Born We Forget Everything filters the pilgrimage narrative through a punk aesthetic, and what emerges on the other side gloriously upends the received strictures and obligations of that which we’ve deemed ‘holy,’ and uncovers along the way a beguiling treatise on love. Throughout, When We’re Born We Forget Everything had me plotzing with joy.”

In her own words, here is Alicia Jo Rabins’s Book Notes music playlist for her memoir When We’re Born We Forget Everything:

When We’re Born We Forget Everything is primarily a spiritual memoir (of the feminist Jewish variety) but it’s also a musical coming-of-age story, since I’m a musician as well as a writer. Music is woven throughout the book, as it is woven through my life; I started off playing classical violin, then fell in love with fiddle music, indie rock, and songwriting, and have been combining those ever since. As an artist, no matter what form I’m working in, I’m generally most interested in vulnerability, rawness, emotion.What happens when we combine serious practice and craft with those elementally uncomfortable and transformative parts of the human experience? Music, I think, is the purest example of this. I’m just endlessly moved by the power of human expression, whether it’s a poem, a story, a string quartet or a single human voice whose rough edges haven’t been smoothed off. In this playlist I’ll gratefully collect some of the tracks in various genres that inspire me with their unapologetic, straightforward emotionality. They’re not particularly obscure, but they mean a lot to me; all of these are touchstones I listened to repeatedly during the writing of this book as a reminder to go deep, be honest, and (even in the tenth revision) let it be raw, personal, and real.

“Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Part

This piece, by the Estonian composer Arvo Part, is my desert island music. I just don’t think I’ve ever heard a more beautiful piece of music. It’s used in a lot of films because it has the quality of bringing a sacred attention to what is happening while it plays, whether in one’s own life (like the cafe where I am typing this as the sun sets in Portland) or whatever’s onscreen in a movie. It captures the poignancy of being alive. Listening to this helps me from a craft perspective, too; the slow tempo reminds me to make bold creative decisions and stick with them; the repetitive structure reminds me of the power of simplicity.

“Goldberg Variations” by J.S. Bach (played by Glenn Gould)

I consider counterpoint, the art of creating musical “conversations” between different voices in a composition, a musical expression of the spiritual practice of holding opposite truths at the same time. Multiple voices interact, overlapping, sometimes speaking at the same time, and weaving something greater in their collaboration. My brain gets some sort of intense dopamine from counterpoint, the tension and resolution and ongoing complexity of it, and the Goldberg Variations are a prime example of this. I love both of the recordings Glenn Gould made of this piece: the one in 1956, which launched his career with his joyful, high-octane performance, and the one from 1981, shortly before his death, an incredibly slow and meditative rendition of the same piece. That in itself is a lesson in the way that art can accompany us through our lives. I love to write about ancient myths and how they intersect with contemporary life (retellings of Biblical women’s stories are woven through my memoir) and I think the act of interpreting a composition, or a folksong, is part of that same human process: receiving the treasure, speaking it in our own voices, and then passing it on.

“Sail Away Ladies” (trad) – John L. “Uncle Bunt” Stevens

This is one of the recordings that made me fall in love with fiddle music, and a tune I still play today. I love this recording, which was clearly collected in the field. It’s a banger! His boot stomping on the ground is the perfect drum, and the open string drones give a slightly eerie tonality to the otherwise simple tune. I love the way it whips itself a little faster as it goes on. I love the accessibility of old-time fiddle music and the way it reliably makes people smile and shimmy, even if it’s the first time they’ve heard it (I’ve played it in a lot of different countries!). In my writing, I’m often trying to thread the needle between complexity and accessibility, and coming back to fiddle tunes keeps me grounded in the simple joy of notes arranged in time, words on a page. Nothing fancy, per se, but it doesn’t get that kind of groove without many, many hours of practice, and that’s what makes it so good. (Also, I write about busking in the book, and I definitely played this tune many, many times on the street!)

“Baym Rebns Sude” by Alicia Svigals

In my memoir, I write about buying this album at a music store in downtown Northampton, MA in 2005, and beginning to fall in love with klezmer music. I ended up taking a couple lessons from Alicia Svigals, this violinist, and she ended up getting me a gig that changed my life….so this album is both in the book, and something I listened to while writing the book. In klezmer music, they say, the violin laughs and cries at the same time. I’m in awe of the power of the ornamentation in the way Svigals plays. It’s so evocative. When I think about “tone” in writing, I think about this piece and how it builds a world without any words. It’s not about what’s happening, it’s about the vibe, the approach, the flavor, the presence of that voice and the way it cries and laughs. 

“Pretty Bird” by Hazel Dickens

Oh my goodness, I love the way Hazel Dickens sings. The little dips and leans in her phrasing, the directness, the way she plays with her vocal break when she jumps up to the high notes. Every single note is so pure and authentic. It perfectly matches the simplicity and directness of the lyrics, with their slightly ominous sense that something is threatening the beloved pretty bird, which seems to be a young woman–the danger, hope and possibility of being young, and the hard-earned wisdom of the speaker/singer of these words. The fact that she sings this unaccompanied makes it feel like a poem to me, with so much space and silence around the single notes.

“Martha” by Tom Waits

I’ve been listening to this song for decades and when I’m feeling particularly vulnerable, it still makes me cry. I love the slightly out of tune piano, the unabashed sentimentality of the ballad, and of course Tom Waits’ voice, which, while it will get much rougher and edgier from this point on, is already fairly unvarnished in its beauty, occasionally opening up into vibrato. The storytelling of this song feels like a high-wire act, coming so close to cheesiness but never crossing the line. It’s a short-story-song; you get a strong sense that it’s not really Tom Waits singing to someone named Martha, but a beautiful, classic tale. I draw on this song for the combination of intimacy and craft, the way he jumps back and forth in time, the ending image from the past. It’s a perfect ballad.

“Into My Arms” by Nick Cave

Here’s another perfect ballad, in my opinion. I love the wryness and the combination of humor, irony, and sincerity; this song begins with a profession of atheism, or something close to it, in the face of a beloved’s faith, and by the first chorus, it’s basically praying to that exact force the “speaker” doesn’t believe in. I love how it’s structured around counterfactuals, sort of a prayerful thought experiment inspired by love. As with so many of the songs on this playlist, there are very few chords, and none of them are fancy, but the combination feels perfect. This song is also intimately related to the subject of my book: spiritual seeking, the doubt and passion and certainty and complexity and paradoxical nature of it. I feel lucky that I got to see Nick Cave perform this song live last year when he came through Portland on tour!

“Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears” by A Winged Victory for the Sullen

This is in the Spiegel im Spiegel corner of my world – a track that brings me into an awareness of the sacred, calms me, snaps me out of drudgery, and reminds me that pleasure exists (sometimes I forget!) I listen to this on repeat while revising to remind me about simple beauty, set the bar high for what I would dream someone might feel like when reading my work. It has a way of transforming everything around it, I find, and it inspires me. (I do have to be careful that writing to this type of music doesn’t trick me into thinking my words are making the beauty I’m hearing, when it’s really the soundtrack, so I always reread it later without music just in case.)

“Sisters of Mercy” – Leonard Cohen

I’m always interested in how the sacred intersects with the body, and there’s a decent amount of sex in my memoir, which makes me think of Leonard Cohen.  It’s not in the book, but I remember a particular boyfriend in 10th grade (at art camp) who taught me the meaning of erogenous zone, as in, I literally had never heard that word and he physically taught me what it meant while this song played in the background. Ha! The relationship with the boyfriend didn’t last, but the relationship with Leonard Cohen did; he’s my favorite songwriter. I love that his voice is not a trained instrument – it’s moderated, it’s slightly ironic, it’s often very pleasing, but it’s also quite earnest in its directness. And I love how he brings complexity to the simplest love songs, like the way he ends this one: “We weren’t lovers like that, and besides it would still be all right.” It’s an expansive view of love, of human relationships, of holding loosely, and sort of looking at the world with a sideways grin. Reassurance, humor, sensuality, spirituality, affection, liberation, all in one song. 

“Sweet Lil’ Duck” – Kathleen Edwards

Kathleen Edwards’ voice is one of my very favorites. This is one of those tracks that feels like a B-side, not the radio friendly hit on the album, but the one I return to over and over. It’s another touchstone for me about simplicity, the power of slowness, taking the risk of diving fully into a particular mood or vibe without worrying about whether it’s “too much”. The piano is slightly out of tune, sometimes the harmony gets louder than the melody, and to my ears that just makes it more beautiful. 

“Jim’s Room” Nina Nastasia

The way Nina Nastasia uses her voice is a tremendous inspiration; it’s so direct, almost guileless, and it moves me deeply. I want to write the way she sings, and I return to her over and over again, trying to learn from her how to write and sing from my own center. I love the mystery and darkness of this song, the inscrutability of the lyrics, the subtle surprise of the structure, and the unusual arrangements: overlaid string harmonics and sort of deconstructed percussion sounds. And then there are the implied stories of relationships in her songs: not as literal as the ballads I wrote about above, but more impressionistic, poetic, leaving a lot of space for imagination but still sparking very specific associations for me. I feel I’ve learned so much from listening to Nina Nastasia, I almost feel shy thinking about the intimacy of her albums.  

also at Largehearted Boy:

Alicia Jo Rabins’ playlist for her poetry collection Fruit Geode

Diana Spechler interviews Alicia Jo Rabins of Girls in Trouble

Sana Krasikov interviews Alicia Jo Rabins of Girls in Trouble

For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.

ALICIA JO RABINS is an award-winning writer, musician, and Jewish educator. She is the author of Divinity School (winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (finalist for the National Jewish Book Award), and the creator of Girls in Trouble, a feminist indie-folk song cycle about biblical women. Her feature film A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff was called “a blessing” by The Atlantic. Rabins holds an MFA in poetry and an MA in Jewish women’s studies. She tours internationally as a performer and teacher.

If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.