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Last Notes

2026-10-25 02:19:24 GMT

Seth Fleisher’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Farther Shore
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Seth Fleisher’s novel The Farther Shore is a deeply atmospheric and profound debut.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“A compelling novel inspired by the pioneering naturalist Eugène Marais and his son, Charles, who was abandoned in the name of science…This is an absorbing work of historical fiction and an impressive and welcome debut.”
In his own words, here is Seth Fleisher’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel The Farther Shore:
Seth Fleisher’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel The Farther Shore
Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Ford said that the secret to being a successful novelist is never to have kids. (He didn’t put it precisely this way, but that’s always been my read of what he meant.) In any event, I have two. And at the time I started researching and then writing my debut novel, The Farther Shore, the two were on the smaller side. I also had a relatively full-time job with the World Bank Group that kept me busy and regularly traveling abroad. It struck me on more than one occasion that trying to write a book, raise great humans, and save the world might be mutually exclusive goals. Ten years later, having achieved two out of three feels like cause for celebration.
Every evening my wife and I took turns putting our kids to bed amid endless requests for one more song or one more book. Then, when they were finally settled, I’d steal away to Au Coquelet to work on the novel, alongside my regular late-night dinner order: a grilled chicken, mushroom, and jalapeño sandwich—an order that never got old—and a single pint of whatever happened to be on tap that night. Au Coquelet was one of the only establishments in downtown Berkeley open past midnight. Alas, it was also a COVID casualty—my favorite writing haunt has since been replaced by condos.
I rarely listen to music when I write. It distracts me from the rhythm and musicality I strive to build into prose. Plus, I have an internal playlist that rarely stops, even when I try my best to quiet it.
Here are some of the internal tunes I recall being on replay in those early days, some directly relevant to the novel, and some, well, less so.
Lake Street Dive: “Hypotheticals”
The novel begins with a hypothetical of sorts, or more precisely, a counterfactual: What if the protagonist had made one different decision? He might have salvaged a life. He might have saved his father.
Old Crow Medicine Show: “Methamphetamine”
That father—one of the two protagonists in the novel—is inspired by the historical South African naturalist Eugène Nielen Marais. In the novel, Marais is a morphine addict, as he was in real life. And while meth and morphine are drugs of completely different classes, the link feels salient. Plus the false cadence at the end of the chorus of this Old Crow tune still leaves me breathless each time I hear it.
Jason Isbell: “Children of Children”
This Jason Isbell song is an exploration of inheritance: what parents unintentionally transmit to their children, and the baggage children carry without ever having consented. In the novel, Marais is so devastated by personal tragedy that he abandons his infant son and disappears into a remote African forest where he studies and lives among a troop of chacma baboons. He is intent on discovering the origins of memory as a way of understanding his own psychic suffering. Decades later, that son, Charles Marais, now a professor of Buddhist history at Harvard, finds himself trapped by his father’s research—which has been co-opted by university faculty for sinister ends—and constrained by his own genetics.
Fokofpolisiekar: “Hemel op die Platteland”
The first song in Afrikaans ever playlisted on 5FM, a national South African radio station. At the time, it enraged conservative Afrikaners. Fokofpolisiekar is an Afrikaans punk band whose chief project was tearing apart white Afrikaner nationalist and religious identity, dismantling notions of inheritance—as the novel also sets out to do.
Richard Wagner: “Kaisermarsch”
Okay, this was not actually part of my internal playlist. It’s the one composition on this list that appears in the novel. Wagner composed Kaisermarsch in 1871 to crown the new German Empire. In 1935, as Marais’s son gradually comes to realize that senior leaders at the university are flirting with Nazi ideology, he confronts a band of students performing this Wagner composition in Harvard Yard, and things get ugly.
The New Basement Tapes: “Kansas City”
Topically, this one is not directly related to the story. But when Marcus Mumford takes on Bob Dylan, the result is perhaps the greatest earworm in the history of roots music. After hearing Mumford play this one live, it didn’t leave my internal playlist for at least a year.
Johnny Clegg: “The Crossing (Osiyeza)”
A white South African musician who croons in English and Zulu about crossing over to the other side, channeling western folk rock traditions while conjuring southern Africa. This theme of crossing over is embedded within the title of the novel, The Farther Shore. It comes from a curious line in the Buddhist Dhammapada: “Let go of the past, let go of the future, let go of the present and cross over to the farther shore.” For the novel’s protagonists, the crossings are both literal and metaphorical, as they travel the globe to find each other—and themselves.
Del McCoury: “I Need More Time”
A plaintive cry by one of the godfathers of bluegrass for more time to live. For me, it was a plea for more time to write. The two, I suppose, are not unrelated. But the song also forces us to consider how we choose to spend the shockingly few moments we have on this planet. Charles Marais, reflecting on this question, chooses to leave behind everything he’s built over decades in search of a more meaningful life.
Leonard Cohen: “Going Home”
Ultimately the novel is a story about the vast distances we’ll travel—across decades and continents—to find our way home. And Leonard Cohen merges Buddhist and Jewish identities with some of the most glorious poetry ever set to music: “He wants to write a love song / An anthem of forgiving / A manual for living with defeat.” Isn’t this also what Charles wants from his one precious and heartbreaking life? What all of us do?
________________________
Seth Fleisher is an American author whose work has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Pearl, the Journal of Anthropological Research, and elsewhere. Based in Berkeley, California, he has worked with the World Bank Group and other NGOs in more than 40 other countries, and co-founded a U.S.-based democracy initiative to counter the rising tide of authoritarianism. A former Fulbright scholar in Sri Lanka, Seth did Ph.D. work at Harvard in Buddhist social history, a fellowship at Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions, and a B.A. in literature at Swarthmore, where he and his wife first met in a Chaucer seminar. The Farther Shore is his debut novel. You can visit him online at @sethfleisher and sethfleisher.com.
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Seth Fleisher is an American author whose work has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Pearl, the Journal of Anthropological Research, and elsewhere. Based in Berkeley, California, he has worked with the World Bank Group and other NGOs in more than 40 other countries, and co-founded a U.S.-based democracy initiative to counter the rising tide of authoritarianism. A former Fulbright scholar in Sri Lanka, Seth did Ph.D. work at Harvard in Buddhist social history, a fellowship at Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions, and a B.A. in literature at Swarthmore, where he and his wife first met in a Chaucer seminar. The Farther Shore is his debut novel. You can visit him online at @sethfleisher and sethfleisher.com.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/25/seth-fleishers-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-novel-the-farther-shore/
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2026-10-23 03:56:23 GMT

Matt Kish’s Book Notes music playlist for his book Moby-Dick in Pictures
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Matt Kish’s Moby-Dick in Pictures brilliantly shares an illustration for each page of Melville’s classic n0vel, and this new edition celebrates Moby-Dick’s 175th anniversary next month.
The Atlantic wrote of the book:
“Woven of equal parts visual mastery and creative bravery, Moby-Dick in Pictures is a treasure in and of itself, one that not only pays homage to Melville, but also reimagines what it means to embark on a modern-day epic voyage of creative restlessness.”
In his own words, here is Matt Kish’s Book Notes music playlist for his book Moby-Dick in Pictures:
Over the course of 543 days, from August 2009 to January 2011, I created 552 illustrations for Herman Melville’s novel Moby-Dick. What led me to this endeavor is long and rather complicated, but the short version is that I had recently turned 40 years old and was consumed by the fact that despite two decades of work as a self-taught artist, I had never experienced any kind of measurable success. I was very close to quitting art permanently but decided to attempt one final idiotically ambitious project before putting the brushes down for good.
Moby-Dick was one of my favorite novels and had fascinated me for most of my life through multiple readings. I had always been a visual reader, vividly picturing the events of whatever story I was reading in a kind of internal, cerebral movie theater. Intuitively and perhaps rashly, I decided my final chapter as an artist would be to create one illustration for each of the 552 pages of the Signet Classics paperback edition of Moby-Dick.
At that time, my partner and I were living in one room of my in-laws’ house, so my “studio” was a small walk-in closet with no windows and barely enough room for a drawing table and a shelf for art supplies. I painted the interior a bright turquoise blue to remind me of the warm seas I had loved as a child, and began.
I used found paper like pages cut from old books, charts, maps, and things of that sort. The illustrations would function as a kind of visual parallel of the novel in that my ink and paint would float over the lines and words already on the paper allowing the viewer to see multiple images and connections at once, similar to the way that Moby-Dick can be read as an adventurous whaling novel, an allegory, a history, a myth, and so much more.
The project became a journey I never expected, and changed my life forever. I began with hope, excitement, and a laugh, but over time fought against self-doubt, isolation, and despair. Illustrating the final chapters felt almost hallucinatory because I had inhabited the novel for so long, and so intimately, that at times the world of the Pequod felt more real to me than my life.
Working in solitude, alone in a tiny closet, would have been maddening without music. I listened to a lot over those 543 days, but the tone and content changed as I moved through the novel. This playlist is a rough approximation of my emotional state from the first “Call me Ishmael” through the final “another orphan.”
“Electric Counterpoint III: Fast” by Steve Reich
I mentioned the warm seas I had loved as a child, and in my memories, these shores have become someplace almost magical and fantastic. Time has almost certainly distorted reality, but in my mind, I can effortlessly relive the feeling of warm sun on my skin, hot sand between my toes, the diamond-gleam of the cresting waves, and the deep blue of the ocean. Reich’s piece, with the bright guitar notes, brings me back to those childhood days wondering about the endless possibilities hidden beneath and beyond the waves.
“Jason and the Argonauts” by XTC
Even though I began the illustration project as a 40-year-old, at the time I still thought of Moby-Dick as a kind of American myth, complete with heroes, monsters, and a sea-journey quest. I could easily imagine the Pequod and the Argo in the same milieu, and Ahab was Jason and Zeus, hero and villain. This sense of wonder was essential in giving me the drive and the resolve to live in Melville’s book artistically and emotionally. This song, with the constantly swelling and ebbing guitar and hints at strange places beyond the horizon embodies my state of mind at the beginning.
“Do It Again” by the Kinks
I settled into a daily rhythm fairly quickly, and that was fine, for a while. Each morning, before my day job, I would read and re-read and re-re-read the page of the novel that I was to illustrate that day. All day, I would think about that page, what it suggested to me, what it provoked in me, and how I saw it. Over the hours, an image would develop and I would slowly but continually refine it. By evening, with the image fixed in my mind, I would enter the closet studio and work furiously with the few hours I had before nightfall, trying my best to record the image from my mind to the paper. And this would repeat, day after day, week after week, month after month. Each morning brought a new page, a new beginning, and the same task, the same process. Do it again.
“Ship of Fools” by World Party
I began to feel like something was wrong. In my real life, I had no time to do anything beyond sleep, eat, work at my library job, and make art in the evenings. I saw my friends less and less. I saw my spouse less and less. I saw the sun, and the sky, and the outside less and less. I began to feel more and more like I was a member of the crew of the Pequod, walking the decks with the sailors, mates, and harpooneers. And I knew what was coming. I knew the end of the story. What had I gotten myself into? And where would this take me?
“Drunk on Salt Water” by Xela
About halfway through the project, my grasp on reality became tenuous at times. I thought about ships, white whales, oceans and blood as often as, if not more than, eating dinner, mowing the lawn, or talking to my spouse. The feeling was new, and strange, not yet uncomfortable, but not pleasant. Xela’s bizarre, hypnotic instrumental, with its dry as a bone percussive loops and ghostly tones epitomizes the shifting fever dream of my reality.
“Good Morning Captain” by Slint
For the first time, I began to resent the project, its demands, and what it was robbing me of. Just as this song is about a losing one’s childhood, innocence, and happiness, I could feel myself slipping away and being forced by circumstances to become something I never imagined or wanted. When the singer whispers “I’m trying to find my way home. I’m sorry. And I miss you…I swear, I’ll make it up to you” leading into his agonizing, repeated howl of “I miss you” all I could think about was my spouse, how much I longed to be with them instead of alone in a closet chasing monsters.
“Vaulted” by Reigns
A simple, quiet, piano-centered instrumental piece, accompanied, appropriately enough, by the soft dripping of water and the distant sounds of glacial ice rumbling and cracking. I was alone. That was it. It didn’t feel good, but it had taken root in my heart. There was only one way out, and that was to finish the work. I was resigned to this. It didn’t bring peace, but maybe it brought clarity.
“Is There Anybody Out There?” by Pink Floyd
By December 2010, I had hit the bottom. The Ohio winter was closing in, ice and darkness were far too present, and even though I was nearing the end of the novel, it still seemed so far off and I knew it was filled with nihilistic fury, destruction, and death. And while I was still resigned to finishing the work, a cold black depression took root. I understood that everything I was feeling and everything I was fighting was the result of my own choices and actions. My isolation was nearly total, and yet I was the one who had put up those walls, closed the doors, and hidden away.
“Never Going Home” by Xela
Another haunting, isolated instrumental. I was in the final stages of the project. The end was near. Strangely though, over the previous 500+ days, as my perceptions of reality flickered between my waking life and the Pequod, I had come to see the characters that I had been thinking about and drawing as not only real people but also companions. And I knew that very soon, I would be drawing their deaths, by drowning or by violence, and saying goodbye. I think that as my isolation increased, the constant presence of Queequeg, Starbuck, Ishmael and the rest became a comfort. And I knew that the journey had changed me, revealing parts of myself and aspects of reality I may have been happier not realizing. I was never going home again.
“Peaceful Repose” by Vincent Diamante (from the “Flower” game soundtrack)
The ending came quietly. There was guilt. I had willingly accompanied the men of the Pequod to their deaths, and had been callous enough to make a permanent visual record of it. And all with the undeniable comfort of knowing that I could and would safely step away, back into life. But, much more painfully, I had walled myself off from my friends, my life, and my spouse for more than a year. And for what? Was it worth it? I still think about that, to this day. But, in spite of this, I did feel some unexpected peace. The work was complete. The story was over. When I finished the final illustration, I put the brush down and cried. I was finally free.
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Matt Kish is the illustrator of the recent reissued Moby-Dick in Pictures: One Drawing for Every Page (Tin House/Zando).
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/22/matt-kishs-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-book-moby-dick-in-pictures/
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2026-10-22 04:12:05 GMT

Linda Kass’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel World News from Waverley High
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Linda Kass’s novel World News from Waverley High is a transportive coming-of-age story.
In her own words, here is Linda Kass’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel World News from Waverley High:
World News from Waverley High is set against the backdrop of national unrest and some of the most vital music ever created.
Music has always been a focal point for me, so it felt essential that the soundtrack of the era permeates this story. The Sixties produced music that was socially inseparable from the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement, and the cultural upheaval of the era. The music wasn’t just a soundtrack. It was part of the argument. It became both the mirror and catalyst for the movements of social change. During the November 1969 Second Moratorium to End the War in Vietnam, the biggest turnout of its kind that Washington had ever seen—described as the size of two Woodstocks—rock and folk performers galvanized demonstrators gathered across from the White House as Pete Seeger led the crowd in singing Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” When I learned about this real scene, I knew I had to include it.
In reimagining this consequential historical period, I knew I would weave in moments where music grounded the story, made it feel authentic and come alive. This was one of those moments.
My novel begins with Sly and the Family Stone. In fact, four of the sixty songs included in World New from Waverley High are by this rock-pop-funk band that emerged from the Bay Area in 1968, preaching a message of peace and equity. Sly and the Family Stone was the first racially integrated band in rock history. Their hit and the title of my second chapter, “Everyday People,” reflected their ethos, a protest song wrapped in joy. Released in November of 1968 and the band’s first No. 1 hit, the song is a plea for peace and equality between differing races and social groups. It suggests we celebrate our differences, with “different strokes for different folks” which became a well-known catchphrase. It is this idea, that it makes no difference what group you’re in, that narrator Lena Rosen shares when she says, “Waverley’s energy comes from all of us, thrown together with different socioeconomic backgrounds, different religions, different races.”
Toward the end of the second chapter, the Beatles song “Blackbird,” is featured. Written by Paul McCartney in 1968, the song was primarily a metaphor for the Civil Rights Movement. McCartney was deeply affected by news of the 1960s race riots and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.. Rather than explicitly writing a localized political protest song, McCartney veiled the lyrics, writing it as a message of hope and empowerment to Black women facing racial oppression in the American South, using the British slang term “bird” for girl. Lena’s growing friendship with Derrick Wright, a fellow reporter for the school paper who is Black, leads to a conversation about music and Lena is surprised by his interest in this song. Derrick tells her he heard McCartney on a radio interview talking about the song and how he dedicated it to people affected by discrimination. Derrick said he felt a calmness when he listened to the song and remarked how that was odd given that it was racial tension that inspired the lyrics.
By the spring, Waverley High experiences a bomb threat and then the nation experiences the well-known series of bombings in an elegant brownstone in Greenwich Village, near Lena’s grandparents’ home. Protests are going on everywhere, even close by at Ohio State University. Lena calls her sister, Sylvia, attending a college in northern Ohio, to make sure she’s safe and to try to understand what college students are thinking. After a girl answers the dorm’s house phone, she leaves the phone cord dangling and Lena hears someone yell, “Play a new LP!” Lena hears the needle scratch vinyl, and an electric guitar slowly plays two notes followed by a quiet pulse-like drumbeat. “There’s something happening here. But what it is ain’t exactly clear.” While Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” originated on a Hollywood street corner, its amorphous lyrics allowed it to become a universal anthem for the anti-war movement and 1960s counterculture. It remains an enduring classic about youth, generational friction, and protest.
Ben King’s 1961 classic, “Stand by Me,” is a powerful anthem about loyalty, companionship, and finding strength in numbers. At its core, the song conveys that if you have a trusted person by your side, you can endure and overcome any of life’s hardships. Because of its message of unwavering solidarity, the song was widely adopted by Civil Rights activists in the 1960s. There’s a cool garage band in my novel called the Halcyons who play a concert for peace for their high school and surrounding community in early 1970. As the school year draws to a close, Kerry Ross, Halcyon’s lead guitarist and Student Council President, strums the solo in Rich Kohn’s garage (Rich is the band’s drummer and concert organizer) while Lena and a few others gather and listen. It reminds Lena of the friendships forged at Waverley and the realization that they may be listening to the Halcyons for the last time.
During a weekly Current History class, where the textbook is Time Magazine and discussion covers national and world news, students lament over the death marches and nationwide protests. Lena makes an emotional plea for it all to stop, and the classroom becomes silent until Derrick steps in. “It’s all in the music, man. Those songs tell our story. I mean, listen to this piece on Pete Seeger’s new album called ‘Bring Them Home.’ The words. They’re an explicit retort to this senseless war.”
The music of the 1960s transcended mere entertainment to become a cultural force, helping shape collective consciousness during one of America’s most transformative decades.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Linda Kass’s playlist for her novel Tasa’s Song
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
LINDA KASS began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. She is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa’s Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). Her fourth novel, World News at Waverley High, was just released and includes a soundtrack of the era’s iconic music. A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio. Linda lives in Columbus, Ohio. Find her online at lindakass.com
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
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2026-10-21 01:45:03 GMT

Bradley Sides’s Book Notes music playlist for his novella The Volcano Keeper
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Bradley Sides’s novella The Volcano Keeper is a moving fable of family and love.
The Southern Review of Books wrote of the book:
“Beyond clear-eyed descriptions of the world Charlie inhabits, the deeper beauty of this story is the way grief and life spin together like a thaumatrope (a spin art toy) to create a picture of love.”
In his own words, here is Bradley Sides’s Book Notes music playlist for his novella The Volcano Keeper:
It was August of 2023. My wife and I were leaving Mount Rainier National Park and headed toward Crater Lake National Park. I was processing all the grand beauty I’d observed from the past few days—this was the first time I’d seen a volcano, after all. Tyler Childers was on in our vehicle, as he often is, and there were volcanoes—majestic, terrifying, awe-inspiring volcanoes—surrounding us. I didn’t know it at the time, but I should have. A new book had been conceived.
For the longest time in my pre-writing phase, I sat with only the image. There was a volcano. There was a volcano. There was a volcano. But, then, it hit me. Finally, music was there, too, and the stories Tyler Childers was telling reminded me of my rural home. All of it. The laughter and joy and grace and loss and love. I had my inspiration for the world inside The Volcano Keeper, and I knew exactly where Charlie Melvin, my book’s protagonist, and his cattle farm, garden, and creek would be—exactly where all of his family, friends, and neighbors would be, too.
Without music, this book wouldn’t exist. I’d just have a volcano, but with no place to put it.
Here is the playlist to take you into The Volcano Keeper’s fictional Lynnville County, Alabama and the people who live there:
Tyler Childers’ “Universal Sound”
It’s the song that took me home—and the one that also helped find Charlie Melvin, the protagonist of my novella, his. “Universal Sound” really is the song of my life, and I think this book is the most me I’ll ever write.
Iris Dement’s “Let the Mystery Be”
So much of The Volcano Keeper is about belief. How it shapes us. How it enriches us. How it haunts us. This is my go-to song for contemplating belief.
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit’s “Dreamsicle”
I structed my novella as a series of vignettes to reflect the hazy, brief, and fragmented reflection of memories. Isbell, with his Alabama history, helps me go back to the past—and to imagine Charlie’s, too.
Adrianne Lenker’s “Free Treasure”
I love Lenker’s work, both as a solo artist and with Big Thief. “Free Treasure” has to be on this playlist because it so tenderly looks at the value of love. The song feels like a celebration of those relationships we hold dear. I imagine some of the family scenes in The Volcano Keeper being like treasured photographs, and this beautiful song is what I hear in the background.
Mavis Staples’ “Sad and Beautiful World”
So much of The Volcano Keeper is about how we process grief. For Charlie, the beauty of the natural world is one of the ways. It’s a sad, sad world, but there’s so much absolute wonder and beauty.
Waxahatchee’s “Right Back to It” (feat. MJ Lenderman)
There’s a lot of water in my book, and I promise you, each time I listen to “Right Back to It,” I’m floating in the creek.
Watchhouse’s “Old Ties and Companions”
Time is fleeting, and we have to hold on to those we love. They won’t be here forever. The Volcano Keeper explores this idea more, and this song from Watchhouse captures that feeling so movingly.
Sierra Ferrell’s “Lighthouse”
Love, in its best form, can help us find our way. Charlie is lost a lot in my book. He’s searching and searching and searching. He believes he finds the titular object Ferrell sings of.
Valerie June’s “With You”
Valerie June’s “With You” is one of the greatest love songs ever written. I’ll believe that until I die. It’s a celebration—of love and of life. While The Volcano Keeper certainly has sadness and darkness, I hope, at the end of the day, it reads like a celebration.
Brandi Carlile’s “You and Me on the Rock”
I have to add one more great love song on here. The Volcano Keeper is set on literal rocks that keep expanding as the story goes further and further—and the love gets deeper and deeper.
Kacey Musgraves’ “The Architect”
I don’t want to give away too much of my book’s ending, but, as I’ve said, the journey of Charlie’s life is so much about belief. Who/what guides him? Does he even a guide? Musgraves’ “The Architect” asks these same questions…
The Avett Brothers’ “Murder in the City”
“Murder in the City” has one of my favorite lyrics of the band’s catalog: “Always remember there was nothing worth sharing / Like the love that let us share our name.” For a book so focused on family, this song has to be on this playlist.
Sturgill Simpson’s “Panbowl”
I imagine most of us have those songs that just make us tear up each time we hear them, no matter how many times we hear them. Welp, Sturgill Simpson’s “Panbowl” is one of mine. It’s so full of loss and longing and sadness and pain, but it’s mixed with so much love and beauty that it feels like it’s a whole damn album (or novel) in itself.
Sarah Kate Morgan’s “Heaven In My Mind”
I can think of no better song than the folk gem “Heaven In My Mind” from the incredibly-talented Sarah Kate Morgan to match the ending of The Volcano Keeper. This song transports us with such peace and beauty, and that’s the very thing I hope the ending of my little book does, too.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Bradley Sides’s playlist for his story collection Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood
Bradley Sides’s playlist for his story collection Those Fantastic Lives
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Bradley Sides is the author of two previous short story collections, Those Fantastic Lives and Crocodile Tears Didn’t Cause the Flood, a 2024 Book of the Year finalist at Southern Literary Review. His writing appears at Chapter 16, Electric Literature, LeVar Burton Reads, Los Angeles Review of Books, The Millions, The Rumpus, and Southern Review of Books, where he also serves as the host of “The Southern Summer Book Club.” He lives in Madison, Alabama, with his wife, and, on most days, he can be found teaching writing and literature at Calhoun Community College. His latest book is The Volcano Keeper.
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https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/20/bradley-sidess-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-novella-the-volcano-keeper/
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2026-10-21 01:20:10 GMT

James Elkins’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Stories, Like Illnesses
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
James Elkins’s novel Stories, Like Illnesses is truly uniquely told and a mesmerizing treatise on memory and self.
In his own words, here is James Elkins’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Stories, Like Illnesses:
This is a wonderful site. I love the difference between authors who have favorite songs on deep background, giving them the feeling of their life, and authors who play particular songs in their head while they write, or the difference between authors who cite songs in their writing, and authors who hide them. My work is an outlier in all this, because it centers on music, and there’s music in the book—actual sheet music, which can be played or just seen on the page. That’s not to say I don’t have a playlist in my mind, and my book has references to some of those tracks—Dylan’s My Back Pages, the Grateful Dead’s Ripple—but the music in the novel is very different.
The book is the story of a person who’s undergoing a crisis. He keeps a diary of his year. At the end it’s all too much for him, and something happens (I won’t say what). Then, forty years later, we meet him again, aged over ninety. He has just been down in the basement and rediscovered his notes from that year. He reads them, hoping to relive his past—but he fails to remember much of anything that’s in the notebooks. He’s forgotten places, events, and even people. But as he reads, he realizes that he has taken the feelings he had for those people and places, and found them again in the music he plays on the piano. He has been living alone, playing the piano for forty years, and he sees that some of the music he plays lets him relive the emotions of the past without remembering the particulars or even the people.
He sets out to write notes to describe what he’s discovered. The book Stories, Like Illnesses has notes at the end, written by the elderly narrator. In different sections, he retells the stories of the book as music. His notes create a parallel text, a second text, in which the stories you’ve read in the book are retold as music. The older narrator says this is true portraiture, very exact in its emotions, not distracted by the actual people and events. It’s my attempt at a new kind of storytelling.
The composers and pieces I mention here are all real, but none of the music is theirs. It’s reminiscent of the original composers’ pieces, but it’s changed, because it’s the way the character remembers the music. That’s why I don’t have a Spotify list: you can go and find the original pieces, but they aren’t the ones in the book. These videos are the only place to hear the music that is printed in the book, and played, in my imagination, by the old narrator.
1. Like all five of these, the first video is only an excerpt of the pages where the narrator talks about Rosie, a woman he had an affair with forty years earlier. The place she had in his mind was taken by the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu. The narrator talks about Martinu’s lovely naïve music, which is very simple, but tends to evaporate, like Rosie evaporated from the narrator’s life.
2. Nikolai Medtner was a conservative Russian composer, a friend of Rachmaninoff. The narrator associates his melodies with perfect midsummer days in his very distant youth. He grew up in Watkins Glen, New York, and had a briefly idyllic childhood that he now rehearses by playing passages of similar simple happiness in Medtner.
3. Catherine was the narrator’s co-worker when he had a job in Guelph, Ontario, before his crisis set in. She was prickly and aggressive. The narrator associates her with Leo Ornstein, a wild modernist composer. Like the others, the piece here, called Suicide in an Airplane, is a real one, which however only exists in fragments in Samuel’s mind.
4. Iannis Xenakis is a favorite of listeners who like experimental postwar music. He was a mathematician, and composed pieces far beyond the capacity of most performers. This excerpt is about a piece called Mists, which asks pianists to play at several different speeds simultaneously. It reminds the narrator of his life during the year of his crisis, when many voices impinged on him and tore his attention in different directions. The music here begins like the real Mists, but most is my own composition.
5. Anton Webern was Schönberg’s most important student. As the narrator says, he composed very short pieces because he was trying to compress the excesses of old-fashioned music like Beethoven or Brahms. He didn’t trust what they wrote; he needed music to be purged of sloppy emotions. The narrator is reminded of Webern when he reads a chapter of his old notebooks describing how he had once tried to understand his own family by comparing them to the parts of a microscope. If he only managed his microscope properly, he thought, he could control everyone’s emotions. The comparison, Webern to microscope parts, is meant to conjure the hopelessness of containing emotion.
I hope these are interesting. They’re only small windows onto the novel, but large windows beyond the novel and back to the original composers.
also at Largehearted Boy:
James Elkins’s playlist for his novel Weak in Comparison to Dreams
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
James Elkins is Chair of the Department of Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is an art historian and critic as well as a recognized authority on the experimental use of images in works by W.H. Sebald and Anne Carson to Claudia Rankine and Teju Cole. Elkins grew up in Ithaca, New York and for the last twenty years he has lived, studied, and taught in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of several books on fine art and photography which focus on the history and theory of images in art, science, and nature.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
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2026-10-19 22:05:10 GMT

Silas House’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Tulip Poplars
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Silas House’s The Tulip Poplars is an unforgettable, moving novel about forbidden love in Appalachia in the early 1900s.
Bookpage wrote of the book:
“Silas House’s The Tulip Poplars is a story of love between people that society says should not love each other . . . . The South, and the rural South in particular, is often flattened in stories. Here, the pain, beauty, danger and community of life in a small Southern town are all on full display. Amos, Tom, Paschal and Maeve find their voices as they fight for what matters―for the land, for their home and for their hearts.”
In his own words, here is Silas House’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel The Tulip Poplars:
Into My Arms – Shelby Lynne and Allison Moorer (written by Nick Cave in 1997)
The novel takes place from 1918 to 1976 so this song came out long after that (this version in 2017) but it was the foundational song for my writing of this novel. I played it every single time I sat down to write and it helped to put me in the mindframe I needed to write a love story, which is the main way I thought of this novel from its beginning. It’s a perfect love song because it is so incredibly romantic and full of love but never strays into sentimentality. And the way it folds in religion also serves this book as well. Besides all of that, the vocal delivery from sisters Allison Moorer and Shelby Lynne is absolutely transcendent, as is the production by Teddy Thompson.
Little Darling Pal of Mine – Lucinda Williams
This song works for a gay romance because no pronouns are used for the person being sung to. Amos sings it at a gathering early on in the novel and he could have easily been singing it to Tom without anyone knowing. Although it’s using “pal” to suggest a friendship the romance in it is clear. The Carter Family’s version is perhaps the best known but I’m partial to Lucinda Williams’ version.
Be Thou My Vision – Choir of St. Mary’s Cathedral, Edinburgh
The Episcopal church is important throughout this book so I listened to a lot of choirs singing classic hymns while writing those scenes. There’s something transportive about the vocals that put me in those scenes in a dreamlike way, so I hope that happens for the readers who listen to these songs as well.
You’ll Miss Lots of Fun When You’re Married – John Philip Sousa, Paul Sperry, and Irma Vallecillo
I did a lot of research on music of the 1920s, especially songs that might have been sung in speakeasies and in gay gathering places. This was one of the more popular ones and it certainly applies to both Tom and Maeve’s situations since they are thrust into a marriage unexpectedly and not totally by choice. Plus, it’s fun to listen to and really helped me to enter the spaces of the night clubs of New York City during the time period.
I’m Always Chasing Rainbows – Charles Harrison
This song also helped me to get into the New York City scenes easily. Today many of associate rainbow imagery with the LGBTQ rights movement and Pride efforts and the lyrics of this song work perfectly with some pivotal scenes in the novel.
My Buddy – Henry Burr
This is a famous song that has so much gay innuendo in it that I’m convinced that the writer meant it as a gay romance, so I had to use it. The use of the term “my buddy” is just so coded and unusual for a romantic song, and even if it wasn’t intended that way it certainly works for this book. So many gay couples at the time had to pretend to be “just friends” or “roommates”.
Cielito Lindo – Los Panchos
I wanted this to be a novel that shows rural America in a different way. I think readers expect that the rural South, and particularly Appalachia, is a place populated solely by poor white folks but in this novel there are people of color and immigrants because that is true of the place during this time period. One of the groups that brought influential music into the region during this time were Mexican laborers who came to work in the vegetable and tobacco fields at the time as part of the Braceros program. I love the scenes with these workers, especially when they gather at night to play the homesick music of their homeland.
Gymnopédie No. 1 – Erik Satie, Phillippe Entremont
I think of this as the love score of this novel, and I played it repeatedly while writing it. There are few pieces of music that are more romantic. Since the piano is a central image from the very beginning of the novel it works well to have this piano-based score as a central theme of the book. One of my favorite scenes in the book shows Tom being so heartbroken by listening to this song that his wife realizes he is in love with someone else—the person who bought him the record. I loved writing that scene and certainly listened to the song dozens of times while doing so.
Just One Look – Doris Troy
The book covers a long period of time—more than sixty years—so as we get toward the end of the novel I am able to bring in songs from the fifties, sixties, and even early seventies. This is one I thought worked well for a scene where the lead characters are visiting a gay bar for the first time. It’s another romantic song that feels upbeat and very much of the time period, so it enables me as the writer and others as the readers to easily travel to that time.
All My Trials – Peter, Paul and Mary
This is a novel about two couples whose love is legislated. Their romances are illegal in the time and places where they live. Neither of them are able to marry for most of the time the book covers. They face incredible obstacles and dangers to be together. They know that their love could lead to them being killed. I find this song so moving and it made me think a lot about what these couples have to overcome just to be who they are. It shows up late in the book but is nonetheless epitomizing of the theme throughout.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Silas House’s music playlist for his poetry collection All These Ghosts
Silas House’s playlist for his novel Southernmost
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Silas House is the New York Times bestselling author of six novels and one book of creative nonfiction. His latest book is Southernmost (June 2018), which has been long listed for the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a top ten Southern bestseller and in July 2020 his first three books were reissued with new supplemental material, including new forewords, author notes, and a family tree.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/19/silas-houses-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-novel-the-tulip-poplars/
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2026-10-19 16:16:33 GMT

Adam O’Fallon Price’s Book Notes music playlist for his story collection Objects of Desire
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Awarded the Autumn House Press Fiction Prize (judged by Alexandra Kleeman), Adam O’Fallon Price’s Objects of Desire offers stories of unforgettable characters at dark crossroads in their lives.
Alexandra Kleeman wrote of the book:
“Tremendously funny and deeply felt, Adam O’Fallon Price channels the voices of characters suspended between crisis and catharsis, hovering somewhere above rock bottom, wandering the maze of their own desires and dreams. In their tenderness, these stories demonstrate the special power of the short form to hoist up the heaviness of life, to give lightness and wit to what would drag us down. But in their pathos, the struggle of Price’s characters to see their way to being a just-slightly better version of themselves, they give heft to experiences that we might otherwise prefer to discard, illuminating a rare and peculiar kind of beauty.”
In his own words, here is Adam O’Fallon Price’s Book Notes music playlist for his story collection Objects of Desire:
I can’t listen to music when I’m writing, especially music with vocals. Jazz and classical are sometimes okay in the background, but pop/country/rock/etc.—forget about it. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m a songwriter as well as a writer: music is simply too distracting—my attention is immediately split between the critical work of the writing, and the act of listening critically to a piece of music. I doubt I listened to a single piece of music during the writing of the stories on Objects of Desire, my forthcoming short fiction debut. Reading many of the Largehearted Boy entries, I’m very envious of people who can listen to music while writing—mixing those two pleasures seems like a blast.
Short stories and songs, especially pop songs, are very similar forms. Both are capable of structural perfection (unlike the novel, an essentially imperfectible form). They also both encode a kind of structural narrative, a logic into their writing, that a good version makes immediately clear to the audience. Having spent the last fifteen years at work on the stories in Objects of Desire, alongside the songwriting I’ve done with The Mayflies USA, I’ve thought a lot about how to craft a successful piece in each medium—and the overlaps between the two.
The following is a list of perfect songs that feel similar, from a craft perspective if not necessarily emotionally, to some of my favorite classic short stories.
“Rock the Casbah” by The Clash / “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta” by Kate Braverman
One approach to hooking a reader or listener is simply to repeat the hook over and over. “Rock the Casbah” seduces us by insisting on the chorus, insisting on the opening guitar riff, and insisting on the fact that Sharif does not like it—many, many times. Likewise the cyclical descent into addiction in Kate Braverman’s “Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta,” and the sinister Lenny who keeps appearing and appearing like a bad dream the story’s protagonist can’t wake from.
“Wichita Lineman” by Jimmy Webb / “Helping” by Robert Stone
The most basic currency of narrative is cause and effect, the sense that one action leads to the next. Robert Stone’s “Helping” is a tour de force in the art of consequentiality, and we mercilessly track the way each scene in Elliot’s day brings about the next: an appointment with a lowlife who talks about Vietnam triggers Elliot’s PTSD, his PTSD triggers an alcohol relapse, the relapse causes his wife to say she’s leaving him, their fracture causes him to threaten a stranger with violence, and so on. Glen Campbell’s “Wichita Lineman,” written by the great Jimmy Webb, has a similarly linear, causational structure; each quick change seems to summon the next shift in the harmonic structure, and, like a good story, the song has taken several ninety-degree turns and ended up somewhere unexpected before we’ve even realized what’s happening.
“Get Lucky” by Daft Punk / “Dog Heaven” by Stephanie Vaughn
There are narratives that take you on a linear journey forward, like “Wichita Lineman,” and then there are songs that feel like circular trips, a walk around wooded lake in which you keep returning to the same pleasant spots again and again. Daft Punk’s “Get Lucky,” with its four endlessly revolving chords, is this kind of circular tune. Certain stories also rely less on consequentiality and more on a circular, associative logic. The great Stephanie Vaughn’s “Dog Heaven”—and many of the stories in her wonderful collection Sweet Talk—operates this way, returning over and over to the same themes and ideas, each time digging deeper into their essence and meaning.
“Dry the Rain” by the Beta Band / “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver
Great songs and stories often have a funny way of focusing in as they go along, taking their seemingly trivial premise seriously, and, like life, accruing gravity as they careen toward their ending. In Carver’s “Cathedral,” an offhand anecdotal story of a blind man’s unwanted visit becomes a beautiful recounting of the somewhat awful narrator’s moment of empathy and grace. Similarly, in “Dry the Rain,” what begins as a rather silly mumbled ditty about dirty clothes and dust transforms, inexorably, into a head-nodding anthem of hope.
“Jealous Guy” by Donny Hathaway / “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” by Amy Hempel
One shared feature of classic songs and short stories is the way they often grab you immediately—they know what they want to do and waste no time doing it. It’s not always true—there are slow burns, of course—but many of the classics have something signature encoded into their DNA, and you can hear/read it from the first note and word. Donny Hathaway’s vastly superior version of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy” insists on itself from the first thump of the kick and bass and wobbling piano, and then Hathaway’s searing vocals seal the deal: we must listen, and listen again. Likewise, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried” immediately establishes its central theme and spine with the opener, “Tell me things I won’t mind forgetting… make it useless stuff or skip it,” reeling us into its narrator’s tale of her best friend’s tragic death.
“Orphan Girl” by Gillian Welch / “Emergency” by Denis Johnson
Sometimes a story or song showcases a voice so fresh and real and compelling that it’s as if you’re reading a book or hearing music for the first time. Most artists are, in their way, a composite of their favorite artists. But every now and again, the occasional artist seems to hatch from an egg, fully grown, in possession of a voice that is immediately and distinctly their own. “Orphan Girl,” from Welch’s first album Revival, showcases both her intimate alto and a rare skill for writing songs that seem to have always been in the American songbook. Denis Johnson, meanwhile, came along in the early 1980s as a kind of palate cleanser for the staid American lit at the time, muscling in with his tales of Midwestern spiritual junkiedom, like “Emergency,” a singular story that no one else could have written.
“I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock and Roll)” by Nick Lowe / “Show Don’t Tell” by Curtis Sittenfeld
Some artists, on the other hand, seem to have digested the entire American canon or songbook, reproducing their version of it with such verve and style that you have no choice but to buy in. “I Knew the Bride” is an evergreen example of Lowe’s diverse mastery of songcraft, giving the listener a surprisingly sad precis of the titular bride’s loss of youthful spirit to age. And Sittenfeld’s “Show Don’t Tell” is a classic coming-of-age story, a roman-a-clef based on the author’s time in the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and journey to success—nothing groundbreaking, but done with such deadeye skill and sharp humor that we cannot help but submit to the story.
“Hide and Seek” by Imogen Heap / “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin
Finally, there are stories and songs that offer their audience something utterly complete and comprehensive, compressed into the space of a short story or song. Both “Hide and Seek” and “Sonny’s Blues”—in completely different ways, of course—offer the lucky reader-listener something huge and emotionally complete, one in four minutes and the other in twenty pages. Reading stories and songs like these, I’m convinced that these are the only two artforms that, in such a limited span of time, can make us feel that we’ve been presented with a life in its entirety.
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Adam O’Fallon Price is the author of two novels, The Grand Tour (Doubleday 2016) and The Hotel Neversink (Tin House Books 2019), which won the 2020 Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original, and a collection of short stories entitled Objects of Desire, forthcoming in October 2026 from Autumn House Press. His short fiction has appeared in Harper’s, The Paris Review, Granta, VICE, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, EPOCH, and many other places. He lives in Carrboro, NC and teaches fiction writing at the University of North Carolina. He is the bassist in The Mayflies USA.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/19/adam-ofallon-prices-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-story-collection-objects-of-desire/
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2026-10-18 17:00:13 GMT

Erin Belieu’s Book Notes music playlist for her poetry collection Cocklebur
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Erin Belieu’s career-spannimg poetry collection Cocklebur showcases her inimitable talent for ever lyrically capturing darkness through whimsy.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“Spanning her four-decade oeuvre, [Cocklebur], the sparkling sixth collection from Belieu (Come-Hither Honeycomb), captures her propulsive lyricism and trademark imagistic dynamism. Here is Belieu’s fully realized poetic voice singing clearest and most poignantly in self-proclaimed ‘early dotage’—’a savage trick.’ . . . Readers will find this scintillating and memorable.”
In her own words, here is Erin Belieu’s Book Notes music playlist for her poetry collection Cocklebur:
Two conundrums were built into my effort for the lovely Largehearted Boy: this playlist for my latest book, Cocklebur: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, Oct 2026) meant feeling my way through much of a lifetime’s poetry and music, and where they’ve intertwined most significantly for me. That’s a lotta years. Lucky for you, I finally accepted that I couldn’t include all 500 songs that insisted they needed to be on my list.
The other challenge stems from the autobiographical fact that I was once the girl who worked at the record store for years and briefly pointed myself in the direction of rock journalism as a career path before finding my way to Boston to study poetry. In that context, making this list was both the most writing fun I’ve had in a good while and self-inflicted torture for a music nerd.
What’s reflected here is the music that first shaped me into a poet and songs that have specifically been in conversation with my six poetry collections as I was writing them. Most of the choices are songs that have stood the test of time, which is fitting given the project that is a new and selected, cutting down, sometimes ruthlessly, to the essential.
“Books of the Bible”—various artists
As an antsy child, who believed maybe one in twenty things any adult told me, I dreaded my weekly Presbyterian Sunday school. But the morning we were taught the “Books of the Bible” song, I roused from my stupor with a feeling I’ve never forgotten. “Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy...”
I’d no idea what our teacher was talking about, but when I heard her sing “Doot-uh-ron-o-meeeee,” the complex bounce and rhythm of it, I was stunned. The strangely mesmerizing colors of its sound; how extraordinary words suddenly seemed. I tried the taste of it out loud for days, randomly stuffing it into sentences. I remember this song giving me the gift of my first poetic response to language around the age of five.
Aretha Franklin—”Ain’t No Way”
Early memory of my friend’s dad playing this song at the neighborhood’s happy hour where our parents got sloshy on Manhattans and fluorescently pink wine while we played around them in the yard. I remember full stopping in the middle of a game of Ghost in the Graveyard just to listen. My first awareness of the potential nuance and profound power of voice and phrasing. No surprise here—whatever Aretha served stayed served.
Guys and Dolls—”Adelaide’s Lament”
My father scraped up college tuition playing trombone in pit orchestras for out of town musicals. In my childhood, he’d play their cast albums for me, telling the shows’ stories between songs. I know much of my poetry’s sense of rhyme, syntax, and rhythm is influenced by those brilliant early and mid-20th century songs. One vivid example (as Adelaide details her hypochondria caused by her boyfriend’s failure to put a ring on it):
You can spray her wherever you figure the streptococci lurk
you can give her a shot for whatever she’s got, but it just won’t work
If she’s tired of getting the fish eye from the hotel clerk
a person can develop a cold…
The delayed completion of the syntax! The syncopation of its language! I still marvel at a perfectly executed triple rhyme (see E. A. Robinson’s “Eros Turannos” for an evergreen banger of an example). It’s like watching a figure skater land a triple axel, requiring the same degree of difficulty.
Glen Campbell—”Wichita Lineman”
For me, born and raised in Nebraska, country music (I mean good country music) was threaded into my daily life: floating from windows, the background music in any store. The Johnny Cash Show and Hee Haw were in our regular TV rotation when frequently visiting my grandparents out in the state’s far western panhandle. A particular favorite in terms of poetics are the lines in which Glen Campbell sings “and I need you more than want you/and I want you for all time…” which is a great example of how deeply affecting a completely rhetorical line can be. No sensory sparkles to hide behind—just the risk of earnest longing constructed with a propulsive wordplay that recontextualizes the meaning. I think of this when a line I’m working on is in rhetorical mode and I’m trying to dig the energy from what doesn’t offer the shiny beads of figurative language.
X—”Johnny Hit and Run Pauline”
Given my mildly misspent youth, there are many candidates for the punk songs that haunt my work, but probably X more than most influenced my sense of narrative drama and speed in a poem, and my early interest in the corrupted corporeality of the gothic. X was one of the best storytelling bands of the era. Despite some if its appealing intensities, the punk scene I swam around was (unsurprisingly) a brutal space for teenage girls. While I had the snake brain instinct not to get too far out on the ledge, I saw many young women end up face down. Much of my budding feminist consciousness developed in reaction to the violence I saw and heard during the late 80s and had me actively seeking out women’s voices (Patti Smith, Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney) in response to that testosterone tsunami.
Bob Dylan—Idiot Wind (Bootleg #6)
“Idiot Wind” is a song I’ve known since I was a teenager. But it wasn’t until hearing the Blood On the Tracks bootlegs years later that I felt this song’s authentic pain, akin to listening to an artist perform surgery on himself. There it was—the regret, complicity, sorrow, as well as the furious anger he’d flattened into one bitter flavor on the version he chose for the album. I’d never felt the depths of that song until then because Dylan hadn’t originally trusted his listeners (and himself, I’d guess) with the most honest draft of it.
Dylan’s original mistake is something for which I have great sympathy. It’s not easy to make good choices when you’re bleeding out. But the cautionary difference between those two versions came to my mind when choosing the poems for the selected part of my collection. In my books Black Box and Cocklebur, there are poems that for me now exist as (mostly) healed wounds, and I recoiled from showing my reader those scars, even while knowing the art of them meant they had to be in Cocklebur. The truthful version of “Idiot Wind” is a song in the purest confessional mode, an autopsy sawing through bone. But as is seen in Dylan’s failure to choose the most complex and revealing version of the song for his album, such self-dissections come with a dear price, one Dylan was not yet ready to pay. A corrected mistake in Dylan’s case, but the evolution of “Idiot Wind” keeps me asking my poems, no matter their subject, “Where is the lie? Where is the truth?”
The Raspberries—”Go All The Way”
Besides being one of the most musically sophisticated three minutes of pure power pop ever recorded, and its charmingly ecstatic joy at getting laid—a fine rock-n-roll tradition, and a poetic one too —I’ve always loved that the woman participating here (in the 1970s no less, peak era of rock stars adopting their girlfriends) is so clearly consenting to getting it on. And the singer (Eric Carmen), literally WHOO-HOO-ing at his great good luck, is so unabashedly smitten with her. No tedious emotional taxidermy of the cool boy’s pose. No maidenly dithering about whether she has the right to want what she wants and ask for it. Just sex as joyous, sex as a soul restoring good. How mutually delightful. As someone who’s written throughout my six poetry collections about the pleasures and erotics of living in a human body, particularly a woman’s body, there’s an unusual sex positivity and emotional wholesomeness to this song in which the woman is clearly in charge of her own choices and pleasures.
Billie Holiday—”I Loves You, Porgy”
(Here I use the name as listed on her recording, though Holiday chooses to change the Gullah/Geechee dialect pronunciation of “loves” to “love” when singing it for her own good reasons.)
If I can write a poem with the distinctness of phrasing, depth of character, and truthful vulnerability of this song, I will go to my rest happily. This isn’t necessarily Billie Holiday’s “most important” song (because how could we ever choose that?). But for me, it’s the one in which the genius of her vocal interpretation shines through the song’s dramatic narrative with the most bespoke artistry possible. The singularity of Holiday’s artistic consciousness is profound. To embody the craft that captures your particular mind and soul so thoroughly and dimensionally that you’d never be mistaken for anyone else—for me, that’s the definition of poetic voice.
Etta James—Stop the Wedding
I love all of Etta James unreservedly. But from a poetry perspective, this song especially demonstrates how to start a subtle sound pattern in a poem, keeping the bubbles low, then letting it come to full boil at the end for maximum impact. In this case, James spends much of the song in a melancholic middle gear, with tantalizing nods throughout to the roof shaking places her voice is promising to go. She’s edging us toward what becomes the fully realized pattern in the end, finally blasting the church doors off their hinges with, “NO. NO. NO. NO. DON’T DO IT! STOP THE WEDDING!,’ releasing her monumental vocal power that’s been seeded throughout the song. It’s not only her legendary voice but the satisfying completion of that pattern that thrills her listener. And it’s one way to think about how we build structural integrity into free verse poems.
Give me a time machine and one of the first places I’ll go is to a performance of James singing this live in 1962. The official recording of “Stop The Wedding” quickly fades on her voice at full throttle about 10 seconds after she unleashes it. This is a musical felony in the first degree to me, and whoever made that call on the production should still be doing time. Oh, to have been in the audience when she burned that church all the way to the ground.
Dwight Yoakam— “Johnson’s Love”
Among the great inheritors of that good country music I mentioned before, Dwight Yoakam is my favorite. His album Hillbilly Deluxe is one I still listen to all the time. I briefly lived in Athens, Ohio, close to the part of Appalachia where Yoakam’s family is from, so I’ve seen up close both the beauty and desolation of which he sometimes sings. His song “Johnson’s Love” was especially influential to my second poetry collection, One Above & One Below, in that it got me thinking about the idea of high lonesome as a vocal construction and mode of storytelling; how one might attempt that effect with words alone. That led into deep dives with Bill Monroe, The Stanley Brothers, and later, Alison Krauss. Hence, my longer poem in that book titled “High Lonesome.” The atmospheric layers of both lap and pedal steel on this track are crushing. And when Yoakam’s velvet and steel twang hitches into the plaintive tremble of Hey, hey, Maureen...sweet Jesus. I will take that man any day, with his hat on or off.
Bruce Springsteen— “Nebraska”
When the Springsteen’s Nebraska album came out, I’d lived away from home long enough for my poems to want to turn around and look at it again from the distance of memory. Both the song and album strongly influenced my sense of the mythmaking of landscape, how landscape at its best is an active character in a poem. I’m always interested in where a poem is happening and how that shapes or interacts with the speaker’s psyche (Richard Hugo’s “Degrees of Gray in Phillipsburg” is a memorable example of this). That an artist famously from the Nebraska opposite world of New Jersey could channel the darker undertow of my state so intensely and correctly, summoning the banshees of my somewhere that is others’ nowhere, the accomplishment of this remains astonishing to me. The Boss is one of my people.
Aimee Mann— “Ghost World”
Aimee Mann has been a big influence on me, both her brilliant songwriting and how she handles her business. Mann’s hard won, long term survival as a woman artist—along with her unwillingness to keep her mouth shut about an industry that constantly questioned her worth and appeal—I’ve found inspiring, and, as the youths say…relatable. Hard to pick just one of her songs, but “Ghost World” I think about often, given my poems’ long interest in portraiture: the signature deep character work she does with it in such a compressed space. Smartly sardonic, soulmate to the underdogs, the deepest and darkest kind of funny, no one captures the directionless malaise of our present Americana—the “raw towns we believe and die in,” as Auden has it—better than Mann. “Ghost World” gives us a portrait of the girl America disposes of daily, the one giving the speech at graduation but too broke to go to college. Two verses that float through my head frequently:
Everyone I know is acting weird
Or way too cool
They hang out by the pool
So I just read a lot and ride my bike
Around the school
and
12th of June, a gibbous Moon
Was this the longest day?
I’ll walk down to the bay
And jump off of the dock and watch
The summer waste away
Add in her voice, that to me sounds like an angel who’s maybe a little exhausted by their immortality, and her songwriting range that moves easily between wry deadpan and unvarnished sincerity, well, yeah. Aimee Mann is one of my heroes.
Otis Redding—”These Arms of Mine”
This song is my final answer to that impossible question with which music junkies torture each other: “What is your choice for greatest song ever recorded?” It occurs to me that throughout my books, from my first collection, Infanta, all the way through to the new poems in Cocklebur, the poets’ ancient work of wooing is a constant motif in my poems. Yearning, longing, rejecting and being rejected, the beauty and troubles of sex and connection, the loneliness of being a person, the rip tides of relationship that can leave us choking on a throatful of sand or pull us under completely—this has been the stuff of poetry since the first person ever thought to arrange words into a love incantation or exorcism. Redding’s song is incomparable to my mind as the greatest pulse and depth of eros, the most intense down badness, anyone ever committed to tape. And it appeared on a mix tape I received once, which did its work of catching me in its spell, ultimately leading to the wonderful surprise of my son. If that doesn’t demonstrate the power of music’s poetry, and this song particularly, I don’t know what else does.
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Born in Nebraska, Erin Belieu earned an MA from Boston University and an MFA from Ohio State University. Belieu’s work focuses on gender, love, and history, filtering wide-ranging subject matter through a variety of theoretical frameworks. She often addresses feminist issues and uses poetic conventions and street talk. Belieu is the author of many books of poetry, including Come-Hither Honeycomb (2020); Slant Six (2014); Blac
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2026-10-17 02:24:04 GMT

Daniel Pope’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Go Help Yourself
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Daniel Pope’s novel Go Help Yourself is an endearing debut, the Pacific Northwest slacker novel of the year!
John Keene wrote of the book:
“Corbin Taylor Moore, the Seattle-based anti-hero narrator of Daniel Pope’s rollicking debut, is a weed-smoking, pill-popping, self-critiquing twenty-something experiencing something of a mid-life crisis. It doesn’t help that his mother, a famous self-help author, barely understands him, that he struggles to connect with his coworkers or soon-to-be ex-girlfriend, or that a crow hauntingly appears the day of his crash-out, followed by a murder of crows as events progress. A brilliant send-up of our contemporary late neoliberal moment, Go Help Yourself captures the vicissitudes of Millennial life today and brings a vibrant new literary voice to readers.”
In his own words, here is Daniel Pope’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel Go Help Yourself:
Life Signs by Water From Your Eyes
Rachel Brown’s deadpan delivery combined with Nate Amos’s chaotic and unrelenting guitar lines in the verse mirrors the contrast of ironic distance/inner emotional volatility that characterizes my protagonist, Corbin. Corbin hates his body; he thinks he’s too fat, ugly, etc.; he thinks that if he were beautiful, it would solve all his problems. He keeps all these torrential feelings at an ironic distance, and that’s why he can’t see himself clearly. But he can’t avoid himself. Nor can he avoid the murder of angry crows, which keeps returning at random points to attack him. Why? I like a book that keeps you guessing, and a song that does the same. It makes the moments of clarity so beautiful. Like in the chorus, when the chaotic patchwork clicks into a startling sudden order, and the song just soars. And that guitar solo! If someday someone decided to produce a TV show out of my novel I’d beg the reptilian TV execs to get Water From Your Eyes to write the theme song.
Ugly by Sugar High
Corbin could have written the lyrics for this song. There couldn’t be a more direct way of defining his problem, or what he thinks his problem is: I’m so ugly. I think this is universal: everyone must have felt it at some point. No matter how many inspirational Instagram posts you read, when you feel you’re not in the club, it’s difficult to convince yourself that the “true beauty” is “within.” But in the examination of these ugly feelings, this song shows in them the pattern of something far more profound. As Corbin says, “I had wanted to be a writer because I’d thought that if I could put the right words in the right order, everyone would realize that I was beautiful inside. But I wasn’t beautiful inside.” The beauty of this song proves its singer wrong, and I hope my novel does the same.
Drunk II by Mannequin Pussy
The first draft of Go Help Yourself was written in a period of converging crises: on the one hand, I was going through a breakup; on the other, the whole world was going through a pandemic. While the novel lampoons the self-help genre—Corbin’s mother is a famous self-help guru, and he hates her—of course I couldn’t have survived these crises without some kind of healthy self-helping of my own. So I started running. And whenever this song, “Drunk II,” came up on my running playlist, it made me fly. It’s got that blurry, drunken, “fuck everything,” “let’s point this rocket ship into the fucking sun” mentality, that loving embrace of your own brokenness that feels, for some reason, so, so good. Which might be a very bad and immature thing, but it’s a feeling that Go Help Yourself’s protagonist, Corbin, knows all too well. And these lyrics! And do you remember the nights I called you up? / I was so fucked up, I forgot we were broken up / I still love you, you stupid fuck. I wish I’d written that.
Between Two Mysteries by Mt. Eerie
My novel is set in Seattle, so I had to get something by Phil Elverum in here, a Pacific Northwest legend. And what better for a PNW novel than a song that directly references Twin Peaks, both sonically (with that keyboard part) and lyrically? The town rests in the valley beneath Twin Peaks / Buried in space / What goes up there in the night / In that dark, blurry place? An ongoing theme of Go Help Yourself is the way that Seattle is changing in ways that are beyond the control of Seattleites, dictated from above by the corporate overlords; and yet, just as the body fights back against the mind, just as crows continue to flourish in the cracks of human society, so too will that essence of the PNW live on: And the songs fade, and the singers die / But my heart will not stop thumping / The shapes in the dark still look convincing / So here I am.
I Don’t Love by Have a Nice Life
I like a playlist that has a narrative shape. So here we are approaching the dark night of the soul: I don’t want to live like this anymore / I don’t want to live at all. Corbin’s masochistic/hedonistic embrace of his own misery—the drugs and the binge eating, on one hand, and the manic exercise/self-help regimen on the other—can only go in one direction, and that is toward oblivion. The haunting muddle of this song reflects a muddled mind seeking refuge in nothingness: the layered and indistinct synthesizers, the crunch and fuzz of the drums and bass, the muffled voices drifting like silhouettes in fog. Until suddenly, everything lines up into clear, soaring octaves and harmonies, and the floating voice sings I don’t love / I don’t feel anything / I don’t feel anything where this love should be. I don’t know about Dan Barrett (who sings these lyrics), but in Corbin’s case, the problem is not that he doesn’t love, but that he thinks he doesn’t deserve it.
Second Son of R. by Oathbreaker
Writing a novel is hard, and it should be. How do you expect to connect to your character’s struggle without struggling through the material? So consider this the crisis point for both Corbin and me: The crashing drums, the roaring guitar, the screaming, and then—in a moment of stillness, when everything dies out except the guitar—a slow moment of grief: Your empty house won’t comfort me. In the novel, Corbin’s anger at his mother is easier to feel than sadness, but the anger keeps the house empty, it keeps the plastic on the furniture; in the writing, my desire to produce a good novel, which is (at least in part) a desire to be known, runs up against my fear of being known and of knowing myself. In another breakdown toward the end of the song, the time signature shifts from 4/4 to 6/4, which means that the guitar has sped up while the song has slowed down. There’s an immense tension in this contradiction, the inner crisis only sharpened and focused by the glassy stillness holding it suspended, until finally comes the immense catharsis of total breakdown. I won’t spoil the novel, but in my case, this is the catharsis that came from finally tapping into the part of myself I was avoiding and putting it on the page and realizing that this was where the story was all along. God, what a relief!
Fishing Bird (Empty Gutted in the Evening Breeze) by Grouper
This song is wreathed in tape hiss, an analog warmth, an acknowledgement of music as a material process that includes both the musician and the listener. This intimacy frames the scene: the fishing bird, the fish in the water, the singer speaking directly to them—How long can you hold your breath? / Flash of silver moving away. There’s an intimation of the interconnectedness of things, but our part in it is ambiguous. So it is with Corbin: what’s going on with these crows? It seems they’re fishing for something. Maybe his eyeballs. But is he projecting? Is it his denial of the reality of the body that prevents him from seeing them clearly? He and the crows are involved in some total process; we are all part of the same web, and we ignore this at our peril.
Camargue by Malibu
Malibu is a favorite artist to write to. Her songs have little structure, only patterns left briefly in the sand before the tide comes in again. The best word to describe it, besides “oceanic,” is “sublime,” with all its beautiful and terrifying valences. The sublime allows us to understand something impossible by aesthetically experiencing the impossibility of understanding it. I believe that every novel aims at a moment like this: an understanding that cannot be represented in language but can be presented as the failure of language. So this is the revelation after the crisis, but it’s a revelation that you can’t approach directly. You have to let it envelop you.
Watchlar by Cocteau Twins
A good ending manages to be both an organic continuation of what came before and the beginning of a new cycle. Here, the dreamy singing, synths, and guitar demonstrate continuity, but the clinical electronic beat is a new vibe.
The best endings are like the ending of a concert where the musicians invite the audience onstage to dance: we’ve been enjoying this thing from a distance, but suddenly, there we are, included within its frame.
You could see my novel as a conflict between the body and the mind. Here, having passed through all the contradictions of the mind, we return to the body, as we always must. Hopefully this time with a bit more love for it and what it does for us.
I hope this song returns you to your body; I hope you feel the love. And I hope you enjoyed 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.
Daniel Pope is a writer and musician from Seattle. His work has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Bellevue Literary Review, Gulf Coast Journal, and elsewhere. He currently lives in the UK, where he is a doctoral candidate at the University of Manchester’s Centre for New Writing.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
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2026-10-16 08:47:07 GMT

Mallory Smart’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Book of David
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
The stories in Mallory Smart’s collection Book of David masterfully unearth the darknesses found in the American Midwest.
Eric Larocca wrote of the book:
“Every reader who peers into the pitch-black maw of Book of David unwittingly surrenders and bears witness to a gospel of cruelty engraved in viciousness, darkness, and unrelenting rot. Bewildering and utterly breathtaking…”
In her own words, here is Mallory Smart’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Book of David:
I’ve been calling Book of David Midwest rot instead of Midwest horror. There are basements, highways, dead friends, old technology, local legends, bad weather, and people who stick around longer than they probably should. There’s also Dave. He keeps showing up.
This isn’t exactly a soundtrack to the book. Some of these songs were around while I was writing it. Some feel like the Midwest I know. Some remind me of people I haven’t seen in years. Some just sound like something bad is about to happen.
Defiance, Ohio — “You Are Loved”
Defiance, Ohio sounds like basements to me. Not creepy basements. The basements where you ended up when you were young because nobody had enough money to go anywhere and there was usually an old couch down there.
There are people you spend so much time with growing up that you don’t realize you’re developing rituals. You sit in the same places. Tell the same stories. Nobody schedules any of this. It just happens.
Then you get older and keeping those people in your life becomes actual work. Somebody moves. Somebody gets married. Somebody has a kid. Suddenly you’re picking a Saturday three weeks from now for something that used to happen because it was Saturday and everyone was around.
“You Are Loved” gets at the sadness of that without making it completely depressing.
Broken Social Scene — “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl”
There are people I knew as teenagers who are still teenagers when I think about them. I know they’re somewhere being adults now, but that isn’t the person who lives in my head.
“Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl” has always felt a little unsettling to me for that reason. Nostalgia gets strange when you stay inside it too long. Eventually you’re remembering your memory of someone.
Steve Miller Band — “The Joker”
“The Joker” matters inside Book of David. I don’t really want to say why.
I’m fascinated by the way a song can stop belonging to the person who made it and start belonging to somebody you knew. Music is particularly good at haunting people because you don’t get much say in when you hear it. You can throw away an object. You can stop going somewhere. You have very little control over what starts playing while you’re standing in a Walgreens.
Smashing Pumpkins — “Bullet with Butterfly Wings”
I grew up in the Chicago suburbs, so Smashing Pumpkins was inevitable.
I thought about picking “1979,” but that feels almost too easy. “Bullet with Butterfly Wings” feels closer to the Midwest I actually know.
My Midwest isn’t endless cornfields. It’s strip malls and subdivisions and parking lots and highways. It’s being close enough to Chicago that Chicago is always there, but far enough away that you’re still going home at the end of the night.
When I was younger, there was always this idea that something more interesting was happening somewhere else. Sometimes that somewhere else was only twenty miles away. You could drive there. You could move there. You could become whatever version of yourself you imagined existed there.
The suburbs are strange because they’re designed around movement. Roads everywhere. Highways everywhere. Cars everywhere. Everyone can theoretically leave.
Then you grow up and realize how many people stayed.
That contradiction feels like the Midwest to me. Restlessness mixed with an incredible ability to remain exactly where you are.
Sufjan Stevens — “John Wayne Gacy, Jr.”
I grew up around Chicago, where John Wayne Gacy is part of the cultural memory whether you want him to be or not.
What has always disturbed me most is how ordinary everything around him looked. A suburban house. A neighborhood. People next door.
Sufjan Stevens makes the song quiet when the subject seems like it should demand noise. I think that makes it worse.
I’ve never needed horror to happen somewhere gothic. Give me a normal house with something wrong inside it.
Frank Turner — “Polaroid Picture”
A photograph is a strange attempt at preservation. Here is proof everyone stood together once. Here is what you looked like before you knew what happened next.
I have a strange attachment to dead technology and physical things that outlive whatever they were supposed to preserve.
Sometimes the object survives the relationship.
Sometimes it survives the person.
Echo & the Bunnymen — “The Killing Moon”
Some songs already sound haunted.
“The Killing Moon” has this sense that whatever is going to happen has already been decided and everyone else is just catching up. I like horror that works that way too. Nothing has happened yet, but you already know the night isn’t going to end the way everyone expected.
Morrissey — “Ouija Board, Ouija Board”
One of my favorite things about ghost stories is how quickly the supernatural becomes inconvenient.
Everyone desperately wants proof of life after death until a dead person actually starts bothering them.
“Ouija Board, Ouija Board” is spooky, melodramatic and a little absurd. I assume the dead would still be annoying too.
Donovan — “Season of the Witch”
I like horror most before I know exactly what’s wrong.
The room looks the same. Everyone is acting normally. Something has shifted, but nobody can tell you what.
“Season of the Witch” lives in that moment. It doesn’t explain itself, and I don’t want it to.
Violent Femmes — “Country Death Song”
If someone asked me for one song that sounds like Midwest rot, I might give them “Country Death Song.”
The Violent Femmes are from Milwaukee, but it’s more than geography. The song feels like something somebody heard from somebody who heard it from somebody else. By the time it reaches you, everything terrible has already happened.
That’s how local legends worked when I was growing up. A road had a story. A bridge had a story. A house had a story. Somebody knew somebody who knew what happened there.
The details changed depending on who told it.
That was part of the fun.
I’m interested in the life a story develops after the actual event is over. Maybe there was a real person at the center once. For a while people remember the person. Then they remember what happened to them. Eventually people who never knew them are telling the story too.
The Midwest is particularly good at this. There are places where you can drive past an ordinary patch of road and somebody in the car will tell you not to stop there. Ask why and suddenly you’re hearing about something that supposedly happened thirty years ago.
Maybe it happened. Maybe it didn’t happen exactly that way.
The story survived either way.
Lana Del Rey — “Tulsa Jesus Freak”
I’ve always been interested in the point where devotion to an idea turns into devotion to a person. America is particularly good at blurring those lines. Religion becomes celebrity. Celebrity becomes mythology. A person becomes a symbol people can use for whatever they need.
“Tulsa Jesus Freak” has that strange combination of devotion, desire and American geography.
Even the title sounds like somebody you’ve heard stories about but never actually met.
Vera Sola — “The Cage”
This is the song I keep playing now.
I started listening to it constantly around the time Book of David stopped feeling like something I’d been working on and started feeling like something that was actually going to exist outside my computer. I don’t know why this became the song. It just did.
Most of the songs on this playlist remind me of something that already happened. “The Cage” is different. Whatever memory I’m eventually going to associate with it is happening right now.
Ten years from now, I’ll probably hear it and remember this period of my life.
I have no idea what part.
Ramshackle Glory — “Bitter Old Man”
Everybody knows some version of the guy in “Bitter Old Man.”
He’s somebody’s friend. Somebody’s ex. Somebody you used to see constantly and now only hear about when something happens.
I like characters who’ve had enough time to disappoint themselves. Book of David has a few.
Johnny Cash — “The Man Comes Around”
This had to be last.
“The Man Comes Around” sounds like an ending before it even starts. Cash pulls from Revelation and doesn’t have to do much to make it frightening. Horsemen. Judgment. Death. The end of everything.
I love the distance between apocalyptic imagery and the way people actually experience catastrophe. The world might be ending, but somebody still needs gas. Somebody’s phone is dying. Somebody is pissed off about something that stopped mattering an hour ago. People don’t suddenly understand the significance of the moment just because it’s significant.
Book of David starts with small things too. Friends. Roads. Basements. Old objects. Stories people tell each other.
Then things get worse.
Johnny Cash can take it from there.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Mallory Smart’s playlist for her novel I Keep My Visions to Myself
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Mallory Smart is a Chicago-based writer, editor-in-chief of Maudlin House, and podcast host.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/12/mallory-smarts-book-notes-music-playlist-for-her-story-collection-book-of-david/

2026-10-16 08:08:26 GMT

P.J. Blumenthal’s Book Notes music playlist for his story collection Self Portraits
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
The stories in P.J. Blumenthal’s collection Self Portraits are wonderfully diverse and fascinating.
Elfriede Jelinek wrote of the book:
“When you book Blumenthal, your trip is fully guaranteed. Adventure galore in the unknown known: first-class entertainment, funny and serious-just as it should be. Book now!”
In his own words, here is P.J. Blumenthal’s Book Notes music playlist for his story collection Self Portraits:
Self Portraits is a collection of 23 stories, all quite diverse and strung together like a string of beads. The introductory piece is like the “guru” bead on a Buddhist mala, the “pappas” on a Greek komboloi, the “imame” on an Islamic tesbih or the “cruciform” bead on a Catholic rosary. It serves as a point of departure and unification for these diverse portraits, these portraits of selves.
During the act of writing, I never listen to music. External music is a distraction for me. My ears need to concentrate on an inner music: the music of language, of vowels and consonants which I struggle to fit together in my search for verbal harmonies and creative dissonance.
Four of my stories do however refer to music explicitly:
“Laura” – a reminiscence about a young woman whose name, Laura, is an homage to a song composed in 1944 by David Raksin for a film called…what else?: “Laura”. That melody is at the heart of my story, quietly haunting, and evoking painful longing.
In my story “The Murals”, a narrator relates what he experiences after stepping into a street mural and entering – how shall I put it? – a parallel reality. During his explorations of the city he has stumbled into, he hears music somewhere, but it is a music he has difficulty describing because it is very unlike the music we are familiar with on our side of the mural.
“The Other Side of the River” – here the narrator, after crossing a bridge over a river, describes a part of town tourists rarely visit. There, to his surprise, he encounters old friends – and someone who seems to be an old lover. In the flat of this – nearly forgotten – lover, the narrator finds a musical instrument leaning against an easy chair he has sat down on. It resembles a mandolin but is somehow different. Moreover, the tuning is unknown to him. He picks it up and begins playing. Soon, the narrator and his old lover are singing together – in a language unrelated to the one the narrator had been using before he crossed the river. For the reader’s sake, the narrator translates the lyrics into English.
“The Museum of Victimology” – In this story, the Curator of the Museum of Victimology guides a visitor through the rooms of the museum. From time to time, the Curator’s explanations and descriptions are interrupted by music which here has the function of delineating an entr’acte before the action continues. We are never informed about the nature of this music. We only know that it is an integral part of the narration and the museum.
My Playlist
“Laura” – theme of the film of the same name (see above). “Everybody’s talking about Laura” was the sales blurb in 1944 when this Otto Preminger film hit the theaters. It’s a thriller, a film noir. Detective Lieutenant Mark McPherson, played by Dana Andrews, is investigating the murder of the attractive young advertising executive, Laura Hunt. McPherson’s investigation brings him in contact with various people who have known – and loved – Laura Hunt. That wistful, haunting melody, composed by David Raksin is heard continually as a Leitmotif and adds to the suspenseful ending…
“Ten Cents a Dance” – sung by Ruth Etting tells the sad story of a “lady teacher” who needs to earn extra money as a for-purchase dance partner in a dance hall in 1930 (at the beginning of the Depression). Her melancholy fate carried through this sad song echoes in my inner ear frequently and finds its way into stories.
“Casta Diva”, an aria from Bellini’s Norma – sung by Maria Callas – In this scene the priestess Norma is praying to the moon goddess, a chaste goddess, in the hopes of averting a war between Celts and Romans. Her voice is powerful, her yearning fervent and convincing, the melody passionately lyric. This is a state similar to one I experience when I enter that realm where new words are born.
“Waltz in C# minor” Frédéric Chopin – a light and contemplative piece by one of my favorite composers. Eliot thought Chopin should be reborn in intimate company. This complex mixture of pensiveness and playful scampering is also a part of my mood when I write. I am sure I have listened to this waltz hundreds of times.
“Someone to watch over me” – George and Ira Gershwin – from the musical “Oh Kay” from 1926. I’ve never heard Gertrude Lawrence’s version from the original Broadway production, but I’m sure it was hypnotic. She was a great performer. The song evokes a mood that frequently sweeps through me – a part of the yearning that accompanies the writing process.
“Ruhe sanft mein holdes Leben“ – sung by Beverly Sills and the London Symphony Orchestra – from Mozart’s unfinished opera “Zaide”, composed when he was 23. The melody is transcendent and has accompanied me many years of my life. Sometimes I catch myself singing that melody and sometimes I play it from memory on the flute, the mandolin and the chromatic harmonica.
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
P.J. Blumenthal is an American writer living in Munich, Germany. He is the author of a nonfiction book on feral man, Kaspar Hausers Geschwister (Kaspar Hauser’s Siblings), as well as a German-language blog, “Der Sprachbloggeur.” Three volumes of his poetry have appeared in the USA so far: A Lusty Romance, Poems for Readers and Slow Train to Cincinnati.
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2026-10-16 07:26:05 GMT

Lee Bains’s Book Notes music playlist for his poetry collection Work Lunch
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Lee Bains’s poetry collection Work Lunch embeds the reader into the ever-evolving American South.
Kiese Laymon wrote of the book:
“Work Lunch is not simply the best of what poetry can be; it is proof that blues, soul and some god somewhere are real. This is what writing, witnessing with your senses, and giving a fuck can do. Lee Bains is one of them ones, y’all.”
In his own words, here is Lee Bains’s Book Notes music playlist for his poetry collection Work Lunch:
As somebody who has written songs for a long time, I’ve established the rule that, when I’m actively writing song lyrics, I very consciously stay away from listening to already existing music. I either listen to the piece of music that the lyrics will accompany, or just sit with silence. (For this reason, I’m usually way out of the loop with new albums by the time I finish whatever new album I’m working on!)
So, it’s kind of nice that, when I’m writing poetry or prose, I can listen to music! I love listening to music when I write, and the right piece or album can bring me to a much more inspired, connected, focused place. But, while writing, I largely stay away from any music with singing, and, when I do dip into sung music, it’s choral (and often in an unfamiliar language), so that I don’t register what they’re singing as words so much as sounds. I love all kinds of instrumental and choral music, and writing is usually the time I get to spend with it most.
Aphex Twin – Selected Ambient Works 85-92
The mystery and murkiness of this record is captivating, the melodies truly beautiful, and the beats mesmerizing. I struggle to think of any music I’ve heard where the familiarly distorted, warbling, dark sounds of cheap recording equipment and gear is used to such masterful effect. The sound of it all erases the lines between lo-fi and hi-fi, art music and dance music.
Julianna Barwick – Healing Is a Miracle
This album fit like a blanket of grace during 2020, as America was suffering from the pandemic, austerity, unaccountable white-supremacy, state violence, and social polarization. I don’t think I could name a single word that Barwick sings on this album, but I can tell you what it sounds like: a return home, a washing of the wounds, a girding of the loins, and easing back out there to fight another day.
The Chieftains – IV
There’s a brooding, rumbling energy to this record that is hard to find elsewhere. These ancient tunes feel immediate and urgent. When it’s time to strap into this one, the writing is fixing to get very focused and very serious.
Miles Davis – In a Silent Way
I could make this whole list into nothing but Miles records, but I don’t think any album can settle me into night-time writing like this one. There is a quivering intensity to the record and the way the band softly leans together. You can hear them listening. Nobody will ever make funk whisper like Miles Davis.
Brian Eno – Music for Airports
A constant fount of inspiration, mystery and beauty. It’s funny to think about it playing over loudspeakers in airports, as he apparently intended, because it’s so tender, reflective, and artful. Even if I am in as frantic a place as a busy airport, though, listening to this on headphones can give me a sense of solitude and focus.
Charlie Haden & Hank Jones – Come Sunday
If The Word is an ebullient altar call in a pulsating Pentecostal congregation, this record is a slow quiet Methodist gathering to worship in a small town. You can hear the handshakes and hugged necks, the sun lazily peeking through stained glass.
J Dilla – Donuts
These tracks crackle with a life and depth that are endlessly inspiring. Much has been made of J Dilla’s way of instilling a deeply human rhythmic feel in his beats (“Dilla time”), but he was also a great artist in his layering of sounds and textures, creating evocative pastiches in every track.
Rahsaan Roland Kirk – Blacknuss
It’s hard to think of a musician who marries soul with technical brilliance and singularity of voice more than Rahsaan Roland Kirk. I think that shines through particularly brightly on this record, since so many of the tunes are deeply familiar to me, yet rendered here in a way that seems impossibly new.
Messthetics & James Brandon Lewis – Deface the Currency
I’ve been listening to the rhythm section of this band since I was a teenager, and Canty and Lally’s propulsive, writhing grooves are completely unmistakable. They are the unified heaving crowd underneath the streaming flares and billowing teargas of Lewis and Pirog’s flashing lines. It is the sound of front-line American democracy.
Aine O’Dwyer – Music For Church Cleaners
These recordings are so incredibly intimate, secret, stolen. The creaking organ bench, the muted sounds of what might be traffic or air-conditioning, the whispers of custodial workers, all blending with the haunting, ancient, contemporary drones of O’Dwyer’s organ. They beg reflection and noticing.
Scientist – Scientific Dub
This record drags back time and thrusts into the future, drills into the earth and rockets into the cosmos. What a mesmerizing, hard-grooving movement through space and time.
Ravi Shankar and Ali Akbar Khan – Ragas
There’s something so sprawling, deep and energetic about this album, and the two masters’ performances. For me, it can inspire a type of constant, fluid writing that feels like unspooling a thread.
William Tyler – Modern Country
This beautiful, meandering, textured album summons images of driving through the South, marrying the backseat experiences of an 80s/90s childhood with the contemporary experience of those rare blissful lazy sunny drives on tour.
Hildegard Von Bingen – Heavenly Revelations
The first line of the first song on this compilation of compositions by the genius Medieval Christian mystic, theologian, artist, and proto-feminist Hildegard Von Bingen, “O Euchari in leta via” is maybe the most immediately holy melody I’ve ever heard. Like it was sent down direct. When I’m in the right spot, it’s instant transportation.
The Word – The Word
This album has hummed in my spirit for over 25 years now, the pleading and exclaiming sounds of gospel music rendered without a single human voice. Truly a joyful noise.
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Lee Bains is a poet and songwriter from Birmingham, Alabama, who since 2012 has released four studio albums of what Rolling Stone calls “Southern gospel punk,” and will publish his debut poetry collection Work Lunch with Hub City Press in 2026 after several of the poems were first published by the New Yorker in 2021. A cult songwriter forged in independent scenes, his work has carried him all over the U.S. and Europe, has received acclaim from the likes of Rolling Stone, The New York Times, NPR, The New Yorker, and The Guardian, and has led him to be a supporting musician for other artists like Lonnie Holley, Moor Mother, and Algiers. Lee has lent his work to support striking coal miners, immigrants’ rights groups, abortion funds, and anti-racism organizations. He has performed and read at Emory University, the University of Mississippi, Tulane University, Auburn University, and The Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm, Sweden). He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, where he works between tours as a handyman.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/13/lee-bainss-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-poetry-collection-work-lunch/

2026-10-16 05:56:24 GMT

Lance Olsen’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Lance Olsen’s reimagining of the life of artist Henry Darger, An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies, is at once both tragic and transcendent.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
“Olsen (Absolute Away) gives voice to outsider artist Henry Darger, who died in 1973, in this admirable narrative…It’s an arresting portrait of a troubled figure.”
In his own words, here is Lance Olsen’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies:
Henry Darger (1892-1973) is one of those fascinating, secret-handshake, so-called outsider artists. I’m always startled and made glad how many small pockets of people know about him these days. I’m always startled and forlorn nobody knew about him when he was alive, saw a single one of his 350 unearthly collages, read a word of his extravagantly long novels (one measures 15,145 pages) until he was on his deathbed.
For decades Henry spent his days as a custodian mopping floors at various Chicago hospitals, his nights writing and making art that rendered the horrific adventures of the Vivian Girls, whose mission it was to rescue a smashed world filled with child slaves.
Because he left few traces behind besides his work, extraordinarily little is known for sure about his life, except that he existed hand to mouth for most of his 81 years in a cluttered 17.6-by-13.9 room at a boardinghouse, living as near to a solitary, repetitive existence as possible—except in his fiery imagination.
Henry simply wasn’t interested in attention, even less so in fame.
He created for no one save himself—and to save himself.
So how can you not want to write about somebody like that, spend a few years trying to speculate about and empathize with such a singular mind?
That curiosity and compulsion caught me when I stumbled across the first major comprehensive exhibition of his work at the American Folk Art Museum in New York in 1997. Twenty-seven years later I wrote the first line of my novel An Inventory of Benevolent Butterflies: “Sometimes in the morning I remember thinking: it is the sorrow of leaving a place you’re not done loving yet.”
It’s a novel interested in exploring Henry’s radical interiority, his non-sequitur imagination, through an intensely subjective first-person point of view. At its heart beat questions about for whom we really create at the end of the day; about reading as problem; about the importance of serious art as a hospital for soothing hurt rather than a business privileging quantity over quality.
Thirteen chapters. A song around each:
“Lost Girls” (Tilly and the Wall, 2006)
Based on Henry’s Vivian Girls, this one provides one of the epigraphs for An Inventory—
And your eyes are like screaming
And since there is no end, and no beginning
You will run
You will run
You will run
—and collars the atrocity exhibition called Henry’s childhood, when his disabled father had his eight-year-old son institutionalized at the Illinois Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children for masturbating too much.
One of the fun research corners for me was discovering how many songs have been written about him by everybody from Natalie Merchant (“The Ballad of Henry Darger,” 2001) and the German indie band Get Well Soon (“Just Like Henry Darger,” 2012) to the noise-rock Lungbutter (“Henry Darger,” 2019) and Philippe Cohen Solal and Mike Lindsay’s concept album, OUTSIDER (2021), whose lyrics are appropriated from Henry’s writing.
“Another Brick in the Wall” (Pink Floyd, 1979)
At the asylum, he suffered acute negligence, beatings, and quite possibly rape at the hands of both the staff and his fellow inmates. Because of Illinois’s overcrowded prison system, adult criminals were housed with the children. Once you were institutionalized, the thinking at the time went, you would never leave. They were all just bricks in the wall.
“Fast Car” (Tracy Chapman, 1988)
So almost from the minute he arrived, Henry, being Henry, began planning his escape. It took him six years and four attempts before he succeeded, at which point he walked the 165 miles back to Chicago, no fast cars in sight. Starting from zero, he had nothing to lose.
“Not Strong Enough” (boygenius, 2023)
It’s difficult to tell for certain from the shadows he left in his wake, but it’s possible Henry was autistic, certain he lived most of his life as an impoverished misanthrope, and probable he was gay in a culture whose erasure of such identities was very close to absolute—even as he attended Catholic mass several times a day to beat down the fiends inside him, packed his room with religious memorabilia, and carried on a lifelong wrestling match with his furious god, because he didn’t know why he was the way he was.
“I Want You (Fever)” (Momma, 2025)
A year or two after he returned to Chicago, Henry met a man named William Schloeder (whom Henry sometimes referred to in his writings as “Willie,” sometimes as “Whillie), a nightguard thirteen years older than he, and entered a several-decades-long relationship with him. It’s conceivable Schloeder and he were just friends. It’s likely they were lovers. Schloeder lived with his mother and sisters, and seems to have tried to distance himself geographically from Henry more and more, finally moving with one sister to San Antonio. Early on, Henry went so far as to look into the possibility of adopting a child that Schloeder and he could raise together.
“Baby” (Warpaint, 2010)
Although they never saw each other again after Schloeder left Chicago, Henry never stopped thinking about him, was crushed when Schloeder’s sister wrote him a brief postcard to let him know his friend/lover had died of the flu. Henry wrote Schloeder into his novels, into the elaborate mythology he created, so Schloeder could continue to live as a hero in the book of Henry’s fantasy.
“Lola” (The Kinks, 1970)
Sexuality in Henry’s work was mystery and polyphony. Although he calls his protagonists the Vivian Girls, constructs them by collaging cartoons of girls out of magazines, comic books, tracts about the Civil War, and so on, he also lovingly freehands a penis on each.
“Bookends” (Simon & Garfunkel, 1968)
Which is to say the Vivian Girls were also stand-ins for Henry, for the injuries he abided as a child, hermaphroditic projections of the Henry that wanted to emancipate the child slaves of the world, which is to say emancipate himself, over and over again, for he learned trauma never follows a neat linear narrative arc. Trauma is perpetual bramble, tangle, fright, and briefly won fights. Your memories—they’re all that’s left you.
“My Body is Falling Apart” (Daisy, 1992)
Having no access to health care, Henry’s body slowly, painfully undid itself. By the time he was in his forties, he had pulled most of his teeth. He faced chronic stomach distress, chronic leg misery, chronic eye misery, increasing senility. He was bedridden for months when hit by a car in 1969, only to recover long enough to slip on the ice at the bottom of his boardinghouse steps. His landlords, the Lerners, helped him move into a nearby Catholic nursing home operated by the Little Sisters of the Poor.
“When It’s Cold Outside I’d Like to Die” (Moby, sung by Jacob Lusk, 2026)
What I especially love about this song is Lusk’s voice, which captures the stunning, eerie altérité of pure Henryness. When his neighor, David Berglund, was cleaning out Henry’s apartment for the Lerners after he had been moved to the Little Sisters of the Poor, he stumbled across Henry’s collages and writing in a trunk and stacked here and there. On a visit to the nursing home the next day, David told Henry about his find. “Throw it all away,” Henry responded. “Too late now.” He died the day after his eighty-first birthday and was buried in a pauper’s grave. Now an artwork by him sells for upwards of $800,000.
“My Way” (Frank Sinatra, 1969)
In my eyes what’s beautiful and grievous about Henry was his unwillingness to bend. He was a recluse. He was a grouch. He was hurt terribly by the world. He was continuous ache and sorrow. He made his art for an audience of one—maybe two, if he showed any of it to William Schloeder. He had no use for the opinion of others. He followed his own rhythms. And it broke him. His isn’t the story of transcendence, recovery, resolution, except as Kafka might have imagined it.
“Heroes” (David Bowie, German version 1977)
Here let us pay homage to Henry’s ancestry. His father, a tailer, was a German immigrant from Meldorf, a town in western Schleswig-Holstein. His mother, who died giving birth when Henry was four, was born in Wisconsin. Henry always told people he had been born and raised in São Paulo because he thought that sounded more enigmatic and stylish. In his room late at night, he would sometimes sing to himself in a madeup version of Portuguese. He was a kind of a hero. Nur diesen Tag. But just for one day.
“Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” (Monty Python, sung by Eric Idle 1970)
Because only Eric Idle can be happy hanging on a cross.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Lance Olsen’s playlist for his novel Always Crashing in the Same Car
Lance Olsen’s playlist for his novel Skin Elegies
Lance Olsen’s playlist for his novel My Red Heaven
Lance Olsen’s playlist for his novel Dreamlives of Debris
Lance Olsen’s playlist for his book [[ there. ]]
Lance Olsen’s playlist for his novel Theories of Forgetting
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Lance Olsen is author of more than 30 books of and about innovative writing, including, most recently, the novels Absolute Away (Dzanc, 2024) and Always Crashing in the Same Car: A Novel After David Bowie (FC2, 2023). He is a Guggenheim, Berlin Prize, D.A.A.D. Artist-in-Berlin Residency, Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Residency, two-time N.E.A. Fellowship, Connecticut Artistic Excellence Grant, and a Pushcart Prize recipient, as well as a Fulbright Scholar.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/14/lance-olsens-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-novel-an-inventory-of-benevolent-butterflies/

2026-10-16 05:13:23 GMT

Will Maclean’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Solace House
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Will Maclean’s Solace House melds a gothic novel with dark academia brilliantly.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“Maclean proves to be a master at pacing, creating suspense with ease; nothing is predictable in this novel, least of all the shocking conclusion. His characters are beautifully drawn . . . While the mood is both psychedelic and gothic, with unmistakable Lovecraft-ian overtones, it’s very much anchored in the early 1990s, an era Maclean brings to life flawlessly. Brilliantly written and scary as hell, this is a masterwork of horror fiction. Original, mind-bending, terrifying fun.”
In his own words, here is Will Maclean’s Book Notes music playlist for his novel Solace House:
Music is always a huge part of writing for me, and I mostly write with my headphones firmly on. Also, if I’m writing about a particular era, as I have done for both of my books so far, music is vital to accurately capturing the mood of that particular time. I always strive to listen to the music that people were actually listening to then, rather than the music popular memory insists we were all listening to. They’re usually two very different things.
And so, the music I listened to as I wrote my novel Solace House falls into two distinct camps: Music from 1993 and thereabouts, which sums up that time, and music that isn’t from 1993, but I love, and listen to as I write, or as part of my whole being-at-my-desk ritual. I’ve presented that mix of music here.
Solace House is narrated by Alex Lane, a first-year student who can’t go home for various reasons, and so finds himself spending his summer with a bunch of other students as they clear out some properties bought by the university, with the intention of turning them into halls of residence, which is where they discover Solace House and its many secrets.
Solace House is probably best described as a horror story, but if it is, I like to think of it as the kind of horror story that doesn’t stay on the tracks, veering off into other areas – mystery, nostalgia, the esoteric, the deep past, the far future, neolithic monuments, um, the band Queen – all with a side order of magic mushrooms. You’ll see what I mean when you read it.
Jennie – “Like Jennie” (2025)
To start writing, I listen to something that’s current, exciting and as NOW as you can get, as it jolts me awake and makes me feel connected to the rest of the world. Currently, it’s this. In a month’s time it’ll be something else. I unashamedly love unserious, energetic pop music, and I always have. Don’t bore us, take us to the chorus. Haha! Magic.
The Orb – “Backside Of The Moon (Under Water Deep Space)” (1991)
As Solace House is set in a very specific time period, I needed music from the time that would transport me – and the reader – right back there. The sound of The Orb saturates the first third of Solace House, very much as it saturated that time – If you went out at all during the first few years of the 90s in the UK, you would hear The Orb – in clubs, at parties in people’s houses, at festivals. Clive, the post-grad stoner in Solace House, listens to The Orb constantly. Perhaps uniquely for this kind of thing, The Orb’s music isn’t turgid or boring – their stuff was always strange and playful and incredibly enjoyable. The album this track originates from – Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld – has that fusion of space travel, Englishness, and otherworldly vibes which perfectly encapsulates that era. It was perfect for that time, and perfect for Solace House.
The KLF – “Wichita Lineman Was a Song I Once Heard” (1990)
Another absolutely foundational record from the early 1990s is Chill Out by The KLF. As The KLF often made tongue-in-cheek music, I don’t think people quite appreciated the level of thought and heart and soul they put into things until they were no longer a going concern. Emblematic of all that effort is Chill Out, an album designed for ravers to listen to as they found themselves marooned in rural England after an illegal rave, coming down from whatever drugs they’d taken the night before, surrounded by sheep. It was released in 1990, but I remember that by summer 1993 it seemed everyone had a copy. It’s synonymous with that time in my head.
Ultramarine – “Weird Gear” (1992)
Ultramarine’s first album – Every Man and Woman is a Star – is also synonymous with summer 1993 for me, as my friends played this endlessly. I could have chosen just about any track on this album, but this one is particularly lovely – a spare, naked, beautiful little tune, sung by a man, too, which was a very early 90s thing – men making themselves vulnerable and opening up a bit, exploring their sensitive side. Sadly, that was not to last. All of the above three tracks appear on a fictional mixtape I made for Clive, one of the main characters in the book. I like to do that sort of thing for characters, if it’s important to them – it helps to colour their inner lives. This is especially important in stories which deal with dark subjects, I feel – if something bad happens to the characters the reader has to feel that bad thing too, as much as possible, so I really like to make the characters as vivid and rich as possible. That way you miss them when they aren’t there anymore.
Woob – “Depart” (1995)
This is a fantastic ambient track that I use when I’m either stuck or I really need to concentrate. It’s a great, great piece of music, and like all the best music, it’s a different mood every time you hear it. Sometimes it sounds desperate and painfully sad, other times it sounds purposeful and driven and determined, like an unsettled spirit. It’s timeless. Paul Frankland, AKA Woob, is one of my favourite artists of all time, I think, and nowhere near as widely known as he should be.
Pye Corner Audio – “Stars Shine Like Eyes” (2016)
This track squarely hits a mood I often find myself looking for – the sound of something from a half-remembered past that’s still vital and unresolved. It sounds like something from the soundtrack to a mid-1970s BBC drama about the paranormal – clearly what they were going for, let’s be honest – and there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s a propulsive sense of drama to it, like something significant is unfolding. I listen to this sparingly as I don’t want to diminish its charge. This is on the Ghost Box label, who specialize in this kind of hauntological eeriness.
C-Land – “Gone with the Wind” (2021)
This whole album is just great, but this track is my favourite. I love that people are still making fascinating, atmospheric music which takes you to a place you didn’t know you wanted to go, despite people telling us over and over that this doesn’t happen anymore. I’d argue that it happens now more than it ever used to. Contactee’s Journal is SUCH a great album title, too – a short story in two words. Despite setting two novels (to date!) in the past, I find nostalgia quite suffocating, weirdly, so I’m constantly looking for current, contemporary music I can write to. I love this.
Burial – “Beachfires” (2017)
This is a track like nothing else on earth – a wholly negative space of grey ash, jet-black shadow and absolute absence. A friend of mine said it’s like listening to the end of the world and I can’t really argue with that. I listened to this a lot as I put together the second half of the book, as it has such a disturbing tone, such a sense of tangible threat, but it’s simultaneously so abstract. It sounds like the ultimate state of something.
Queen – “The Fairy Feller’s Master Stroke” (1974)
Here we have a track that’s integral to the book, one which the characters discuss and refer to. I was delighted, halfway through writing Solace House, to remember that Queen had done this track, as it was exactly what I was looking for, just absolutely perfect for my purposes within the text. Most of the lyrics are cribbed from the very long poem called “Elimination of a Picture” which Dadd wrote to accompany his painting – the same poem that was a distinct influence on Edwin Flayne’s poetry within the book – and it’s clearly a poem Freddy loved. I also love how absolutely bonkers this track is, how unashamedly artsy and absurd. Freddy Mercury was one of those people who just seemed to enjoy everything life had to offer, and here he is, enjoying Richard Dadd.
Charli XCX – “365” (2024)
This is just a proper banger, especially about one and half minutes in when it Just Absolutely Fucking Goes Off In Your Face. I loved brat, and I find Charli XCX really interesting as an artist. I liked that the whole brat project preserved that spirit of rave and dance which was so key to my formative years. Writing-wise, this – and tracks like it – are a handy defibrillator for when I find myself in a slump. You are overthinking things. Get out of your own way.
Half Man Half Biscuit – “Horror Clowns are Dickheads” (2025)
HMHB are a British institution, and they’re from the Wirral, where I’m from, so I first became aware of them at school, as they were (and still are) local heroes. They’ve morphed over time into a unique sort of 21st century folk outfit, and their songs are usually a whimsical scourge against pretension, badly-thought-out art, and life’s many timewasters. Their targets are wide-ranging and deserved, and here they have a pop at contrived Scary Clowns, in their trademark way, which marries highbrow and lowbrow commentary, and is always hilarious. I love them and I always have. Tracks like this are a huge palate cleanser at the end of a working day, when you start to take yourself too seriously.
Lady Gaga – “Government Hooker” (2011)
Another palate cleanser for the end of a day. For me, there have only ever been two top-tier pop stars – Marc Bolan and Lady Gaga – and I love Gaga so much. She’s the antidote to unexceptional pop music, and she dresses like a pansexual cyborg chandelier from another dimension, which is precisely what I want from a pop star. And the music’s great too.
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Will Maclean is a screenwriter whose first novel, The Apparition Phase, was shortlisted for The McKitterick Prize. Solace House is his American debut. He lives in London with his wife and daughter.
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https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/14/will-macleans-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-novel-solace-house/

2026-10-16 04:28:58 GMT

Ben Ehrenreich’s Book Notes music playlist for his book Hold Still
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Ben Ehrenreich’s book Hold Still is a brilliant elegy to his mother, author and activist Barbara Ehrenreich, told through short stories and journal entries.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“Ehrenreich is wrestling with the idea of story itself—what it takes to put a life in order, what’s sacrificed when you do so, and whether it’s possible or fair to try. . . . A meditative and wide-ranging response to loss.”
In his own words, here is Ben Ehrenreich’s Book Notes music playlist for his book Hold Still:
In the months following my mother’s death in the fall of 2022, I assigned myself the task of writing a story every day. I did it to keep myself anchored, without any thought of publishing, or even reading them again. I gave myself no further guidelines: it didn’t matter how long they were, whether they were “factual” or “fictional,” or whether they contained any of the narrative elements conventionally regarded as essential to a “story.” All of which opened up the question of what a story is. Hold Still, the book that I later compiled from these efforts, tracks my engagement with that question as much as it does my grief, or the passage of those days.
It helps that when I was writing these stories—often on the bus or on the subway or while walking to or from work—I was almost always listening to music. Most of the songs I’ve chosen here are ones that I was listening to then and that in one way or another informed the stories that I wrote.
1. Duke Ellington, “Single Petal of a Rose”
This track is the subject of a story in Hold Still called “Duke Ellington’s Left Hand.” It’s a short song, deceptively simple, and so gorgeous that it actually hurts to listen to. More than any piece of prose or verse, it helped me to understand how this book might be structured, how I might make things hold together—and even move—in the absence of any traditional narrative supports.
2. Love, “Everybody’s Gotta Live”
“Everybody’s gotta live,” sings Arthur Lee, “and everybody’s gonna die. Everybody’s gotta live, I think you know the reason why.” But I don’t know, Arthur, and I don’t believe that you did either. Probably worth asking nonetheless.
3. Philip Glass, “Metamorphosis I”
Just an immensely powerful piece of music. What do you become when you can no longer be what you always thought you were? What choice do you have but to find out?
4. Patrick Shiroishi, “If Only Heaven Would Give Me Another Ten Years”
For a while I couldn’t listen to anything with lyrics, at least not in any language I understood. The conventional chorus-verse-chorus structures of songs that I had once loved felt insipid and worse than false. I could only listen to songs that had been broken, or that somehow broke through. Like this one.
5. Archie Shepp, “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”
I know, I know, this is a bit on the nose, but let the man sing. “Sometime I feel like I’m almost gone,” Shepp hollers, and then repeats an earlier refrain: “A long way from home.”
6. The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, “Help, I’m a Rock”
You do what you can, but it happens sometimes that that you become a rock, in which case the only thing to do is scream for help. Except of course that as a rock you cannot scream in any way that will be heard by anyone who might be able to help. Which is how it goes. Don’t overthink it, just scream.
7. Pharoah Sanders “Love Will Find a Way”
Still, I have not yet encountered a darkness so dark that Pharoah Sanders can’t shine some light into. I hope to keep it that way. Enough triumphant love spilled out of his saxophone to save us all, if only we would listen.
8. Darondo, “Didn’t I”
There is always room for the agony of regret, which Darondo appears to have known better than almost anyone.
9. Don Cherry, “Hope”
Hope is a tired, old word, and worse than useless in most contexts, but Don Cherry blows enough ragged meaning into it to convince me we should maybe hold onto it for a little longer. Listen the whole album if you have time.
10. Michael White, “The Land of Spirit and Light (Part 2)”
An early draft of Hold Still included a story that referred explicitly to the music of the insufficiently celebrated jazz violinist Michael White, specifically to listening to it as I walked across the city, “the air suddenly alive with a lunatic autumn clarity.” This was the track I had in mind. The story didn’t make the final cut, but this should tell you all you need to know.
11. Shira Small, “Eternal Life”
Shira Small recorded one album while she was 17 and still in high school, not long after her mother’s death. She had 300 copies printed and then gave up singing and mainly forgot about it. The internet did not. “Ruled by human logic we sometimes confine ourselves to one plane of the universe,” she sings, and sings again, and again, and again. Sing along, it’s catchy.
12. Moondog, “High on a Rocky Ledge”
I don’t know what god of the streaming-service algorithm delivered Moondog to me when I most needed him, but I can repay the gift only by passing it on to you. You know how to thank me.
13. Frank Ocean, “Moon River”
This one gets the briefest of mentions in a story called “A Monster on a Hill.” Louis Armstrong sang it too, and Aretha, and Sarah Vaughan. Also Barbra Streisand and Frank Sinatra and Ben E. King and perhaps most famously Audrey Hepburn, but no one hit it as mournfully and perfectly as Mr. Frank Ocean.
14. Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, “Ol’ Man River”
This track is also mentioned in the same story. It’s the only song I can remember my mother ever singing, always as a joke, her eyes shining wickedly as she sang it, waiting for you to beg her to stop. It’s really a dreadful song in every way, but Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ version is full-throated and insane and slyly campy enough to almost redeem it.
15. Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, “The Homeless Wanderer”
As a child, Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru was imprisoned by Mussolini’s troops on an otherwise uninhabited island off the coast of Sardinia. As a teenager, she played piano for the emperor of Ethiopia. She became a nun at 21, and died in Jerusalem almost 80 years later. The music she recorded in the meantime sounds like it must have traveled from another world—one containing at least one piano, ten fingers to play it with, entire oceans of melancholy, and a strange, spare beauty powerful enough to burst from one dimension to another.
16. Mohamed Mazouni, “Écoute-moi Camarade”
My mother would not have forgiven me if I did not include at least one song that she could dance to. This one would have made her laugh first, and only then get up out of her chair.
17. The Lijadu Sisters, “Come on Home”
Here’s another one, mama, a little slower, but we’re none of us young anymore.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Ben Ehrenreich’s playlist for his novel Ether
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Ben Ehrenreich is the author of four previous books, most recently, of the New York Times Notable Book, Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time. He has also published The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine, based on his years of reporting from the West Bank, as well as two novels, The Suitors and Ether, which was also published by City Lights.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/15/ben-ehrenreichs-book-notes-music-playlist-for-his-book-hold-still/

2026-10-16 03:30:12 GMT

Denise Rose Hansen’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Blue Sunset
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Denise Rose Hansen’s novel Blue Sunset is a lyrical debut both atmospheric and immersive.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“Hansen’s controlled, poetic prose shines brighter and brighter as Maja’s life and past come fully into view. The quiet but moving climax occurs in a gorgeous, wrenching scene set at the British Library, illuminating a series of parallel motifs and connections between herself and, surprisingly, Percy and Mary Shelley. A lush, atmospheric novella brimming with poetry, pain, and desire.”
In her own words, here is Denise Rose Hansen’s Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel Blue Sunset:
What is the sound of longing? Of taking a leap, which may look more like a fall? The music gathered here was playing in the background at some point when I wrote Blue Sunset. Much of it is instrumental, as too many words are too many words.
The set begins with È stata la mano di Dio by The Fulcanelli Dull Jazz Quartet, named after the Sorrentino film (and Maradona’s controversial handled goal against England in the 1986 World Cup). The nostalgia, the antique elevator energy, the synths, the layered simplicity – that’s quite like the kitsch and longing mood I wanted to condense in the book.
The guiding star here is the 1980s, which is pure melancholia for me, perhaps because I only spent four months in that decade. From the Irish band Operating Theatre – which really was set up as a hybrid theatre company in 1980 – to Yasuaki Shimizu’s perfect 1982 album Kakashi; from vintage-sounding Danish power punk by Iceage to absolutely essential Alice Coltrane, the session ends with the moody Peri Banu vid sjön by Swedish psychedelic ensemble Dungen. It opens their album Häxan, but I always hear it more as a closing.
1
È stata la mano di Dio
The Fulcanelli Dull Jazz Quartet
2
Spring Is Coming with a Strawberry in the Mouth
Operating Theatre
3
海の上から
Yasuaki Shimizu
4
Why Am I Alive Now?
Anohni
5
Blue Nile
Alice Coltrane
6
Spring Rounds from Rite of Spring
Alice Coltrane
7
Dear Saint Cecilia
Ice Age
8
Rio Babilônia
Jorge Ben Tor
9
No boca do sol
Arthur Verocai
10
Chala Vahi Des
Shye Ben Tzur
11
Orpheus
Ronald Langestraat
12
I’ll Take Care of You
Gil Scott-Heron and Makaya McCraven
13
Trois couleurs: Bleu: Song for the Unification of Europe
Zbigniew Preisner
14
Continuum 1
Nala Sinephro
15
Peri Banu vid sjön
Dungen
For book & music links, themed playlists, a wrap-up of Largehearted Boy feature posts, and more, check out Largehearted Boy’s weekly newsletter.
Denise Rose Hansen is a Danish writer and editor who lives in London. The founder of Lolli Editions, she is now an editor at Penguin where she publishes the likes of Shahrnush Parsipur, Ágota Kristóf, and Anne Serre.
If you appreciate the work that goes into Largehearted Boy, please consider supporting the site to keep it strong.
https://largeheartedboy.com/2026/10/15/denise-rose-hansens-book-notes-music-playlist-for-her-novel-blue-sunset/