Time and place

Sad and beautiful songs for people who feel Big Feelings.

Hello! I’m going to open with the suggestion that while you read this, you listen to the Spotify playlist that I made for my book Bitter Sweet, which is published in July. Much of this week’s writing is about the songs and artists that feature on it.

I make a lot of playlists when I’m writing. As well as being what I call ‘productive procrastination’ (much like writing for Substack, when I should be writing a new novel) it helps me to see a character more completely; who they are, where they fit into society, who they want to be vs. who they really are. As is true of books and indeed all art, so much identity is tied up in what we like — and what we want to be seen to like.

Masakichi music video shoot - 2015. Me, Hannah, Reuben.

Before I get into talking about other people’s music, because me me me, I wanted to write a bit about one of the many bands that I have played in. Once upon a time, I was a part of Masakichi, a sort of expansive, mathy, post-rock band with vocals. There were three of us: Reuben Gotto, Hannah Cartwright and me, and then many drummers depending on who was free. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole writing this. I listened to our EP for the first time in years and it stirred a real longing for the time, place and the people that were such an enormous part of my life when we made it. I loved this band, I still do. Here’s our music video for Spring. (That’s me with red hair.)

I had been friends with Reuben since the heady days of MySpace and I was delighted (and flattered) when he asked me to come and play bass. The moment I met Hannah in our first rehearsal, we fell in friend-love. Our voices fit together so perfectly. As well as being in the band, we lived together in east London for years and it was one of those magical, chaotic friendships that defines a time in your life. We had a lot of fun making music and hanging out with Reuben, smoked thousands of cigarettes, drank an excessive amount of corner shop red wine even on weeknights, and generally had a wonderful time falling apart and putting ourselves (and each other) back together again. It was a really precious moment. There was a lot of heartbreak in the air, but also a lot of love.

Hannah makes music now as Augustus Ghost as well as with Snow Ghosts. She also lives abroad and I miss her. She has an astonishingly good voice as you can hear listening to this acoustic session we did. Reuben, who can apparently do anything and do it brilliantly, is building an empire with his very dreamy Fairlane Guitars and also still makes music. With the exception of playing the piano when no one is home, I am not. Writing books has filled that space in my life. There is, sadly, only so much space.

But on to other people’s music. I mention a lot of bands and songs in my writing because it does a lot of heavy lifting; a one-line mention of a band by a character can do the job of a paragraph in saying something about who they are. I also find that it helps with setting, in that it can root the book in the chronology of the reader’s own life.

So here are some of the songs and artists that either feature in Bitter Sweet, or were essential to creating the feeling of time and place when I was writing it. Everything here fits the era the book is set in, so between 2009 and 2011 for the most part; the end point of what archeologists will (probably) call the late Indie Sleaze period. I hope you find something new that you like, and if not, then I hope something reminds you of a happy time and place in your own life. I’d love to know which songs are most evocative for you personally — stick them in the comments.

Beck

My knock-out-hot smart-girl Icelandic friend Júlía Margrét, who has the exact same taste in music as me, calls Beck ‘sad bastard’ music and I absolutely love this. In the playlist you will find a lot of sad dad/sad bastard music. I love it. Sad bastards forever. Beck forever. I had such a crush on him as a sixteen year-old. Look at him vacuuming outside! All in white, like an actual angel! The string arrangement on this one is absolute perfection.

Leonard Cohen

The late, great(est) Leonard Cohen’s song Famous Blue Raincoat is very important to the story of Bitter Sweet. When I wrote the first scene in the book, in which (protagonist) Charlie meets (antagonist) Richard for the first time in a rain-soaked alleyway outside her office building, she was always wearing a blue raincoat in my imagination. The link was obvious to me. This song was often playing in my house when I was growing up, and like Richard’s relationship with Charlie, it bridges generations.

Neutral Milk Hotel

I touched upon my love for Neutral Milk Hotel in last week’s piece, and how I originally wrote Bitter Sweet under the title Where You’ll Find Me Now. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea is one of my favourite songs. It is just so gorgeous and exis-fuckin-tential that it still blows my mind every time I listen to it. The line ‘can’t believe how strange it is to be anything at all’ appears in Bitter Sweet, when Charlie is having a moment of disassociation. I was so happy when Jeff Mangum gave me permission to use it in the book because it sums something up for me that nothing else can. Eleven words so perfectly placed.

The National

I put seven songs by The National on a playlist of fifty so I think I’ll save my feelings about this band for a solo post. But if you like The National, and you like books, then check out The Sad Dads book club.

Elliott Smith

Like The National, Elliott Smith has travelled with me through the decades and I listened to him a lot while I was writing the book because I am never not listening to him. His music is so sad and so beautiful and I’m incredibly sorry that I didn’t get to see him live because I have heard he was quite something. I’m even sorrier that no one (me? Could it have been me??) was able to save him.

One of my favourite (and all-time most Big Feelings) of his songs is A Fond Farewell, which appears on ‘From On A Basement On The Hill’. It is the emotional equivalent of slamming your finger in a cutlery drawer, in that it can really tip you over the edge if you’re having a bad day. It was released after his death at 34, and it is so devastating that I can’t actually listen to it unless I am alone and have the headspace to let go a little. And it’s not even the saddest Elliot Smith song! I think that might be I Didn’t Understand, or Twilight, or The Last Hour, or Between The Bars, or even Pitseleh, but there are many contenders.

I also chose the more cheerful (on the surface only!!) Bottle Up And Explode for the playlist. It’s a really magical song and I love this live version; the false start, his nervous smile. . . what a songwriter. What a voice. Oh, Elliott. 💔

The Shins

Ever since Natalie Portman put her big headphones on Zach Braff in that doctor’s waiting room in the 2004 movie Garden State, played him New Slang and told him that the song would change his life, I have loved The Shins. Look how cool she looks with her feet curled under her on the chair! Doesn’t she fear being told off?! I’d never even thought about how to look cool when sitting down until I saw this. Also, so much dead mum stuff — I felt very seen and comforted. I love the idea of Charlie listening to The Shins and having that otherworldly feeling you get sometimes (more when you are very young) that maybe you yourself are in a film. Truman Show Dilusion.

John Grant

‘The Queen of Denmark’, which came out in 2010, is such a favourite that it had to go in the book. John Grant’s lyrics are so comic and clever and vulnerable and true and he is one of my most beloved artists. His voice is like whiskey and honey, silk and gravel, all at once. This album features in the holiday chapters of the book as a record that is listened to on repeat by the group. I love those kinds of intense friend holidays, and how a single song or album can become inseparable to your recollection of them for the rest of your lifetime.

Bon Iver

When Bon Iver’s For Emma, Forever Ago was released in 2008, a whole generation of women dressed in Urban Outfitters cut-offs melted like Wisconsin snow in spring. Images of this very dreamy American man in a sort of shed, playing his guitar (wearing a red plaid shirt? No idea why this is so specific) splitting logs and wringing his bleeding heart out into these deeply, deeply romantic love songs lived rent free in our heads for years. Beth/Rest really fits the mood of the epilogue in Bitter Sweet.

Bright Eyes

Bright Eyes occupies a similar space to Bon Iver in that the music is very romantic. If you were born 1980-1990 and like guitars, you’ve probably been a bit in love with Connor Oberst at some point in your life. All of his lyrics suggest that he would be a total hot mess of a boyfriend, so exactly Charlie’s (and my) type; Supremely talented, supremely depressed, supremely emotionally unavailable. Bright Eyes soundtracked so much of my twenties. Watching Oberst live in any of his musical guises is a cultish, nostalgic experience to be seized at any opportunity (unless it means travelling to west London. There has to be a line.)

Blonde Redhead

‘23’ was released in 2007 and was, for me at least, a defining record of the late-noughties. I have always felt sure that lead singer Kazu Makino is one of the coolest people on the planet and I’m sure Charlie (who you might have noticed listens to mostly men, with the exception of a few bands like Mazzy Star, Florence + The Machine, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, PJ Harvey) would think the same.

Wintersleep

I’m ending this list with gift for you, in the shape of Wintersleep. They are one of my favourite bands and not enough people have heard of them. Whenever I introduce people to Wintersleep they love them, it’s hard not to. I was playing bass in the support for their first UK show in maybe 2006 and despite it being one show and not a tour, close to twenty years of friendship has followed. They are Canadian and brilliant and every single album is a total gem. Charlie would love them as much as I do.

If you liked this, then you might want to pre-order my debut novel Bitter Sweet which is out on July 3rd in the UK and Commonwealth/July 8th in the US. You can find out more about it and me HERE. Pre-ordering is the single biggest way you can support an author. I will be eternally grateful!

BIG FEELINGS/BIG RECOMMENDS

This week I am having BIG FEELINGS about THE LAST OF US and deciding if I can bear to continue (I think it’s a no), missing the outrageously cheerful Cornish poppies from PETALON that my sweet friend Gill sent me (and saving the seeds for next year), listening to a lot of Nanci Griffith, eating the early strawberries starting to land in an attempt to quit refined sugar, and ironically listening to Sarah Moss’s stunner of a memoir MY GOOD BRIGHT WOLF which explores the childhood roots of an extremely destructive relationship with food. I’m picky about audio books but it is read beautifully by Morven Christie. Next Tuesday I’ll be sharing an extract from Bitter Sweet so please subscribe so you don’t miss it.

Poppies! Such happy things!