Lit Riffs
Authors: Matthew Miele
POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“From Maggie May, 1981” copyright © 1987 by The Estate of Lester Bangs
“The National Anthem” copyright © 2004 by Jonathan Lethem
“Blue Guitar” copyright © 2004 by Amanda Davis
“Untitled” copyright © 2004 by JT LeRoy
“Dirty Mouth” copyright © 2004 by Tom Perrotta
“Hallelujah” copyright © 2004 by Tanker Dane
“Why Go” copyright © 2004 by Lisa Tucker
“All the Security Guards By Name” copyright © 2004 by Aimee Bender
“She Once Had Me” copyright © 2004 by Anthony DeCurtis
“Milestones” copyright © 2004 by Hannah Tinti
“Death in the Alt-Country” copyright © 2004 by Neal Pollack
“I Shot the Sheriff” copyright © 2004 by Toure
“A Simple Explanation of the Afterlife” copyright © 2004 by Victor LaValle
“The Eternal Helen” copyright © 2004 by Heidi Julavits
“Swampthroat” copyright © 2004 by Arthur Bradford
“Bouncing” copyright © 2004 by Jennifer Belle
“Graffiti Monk” copyright © 2004 by Ernesto Quinonez
“Smoking Inside” copyright © 2004 by Darin Strauss
“The System” copyright © 2004 by Judy Budnitz
“Four Last Songs” copyright © 2004 by David Ebershoff
“Dying on the Vine” copyright © 2004 by Elissa Shappell
“Rio” copyright © 2004 by Zev Borow
“King Heroin” copyright © 2004 by Nelson George
“The Bodies of Boys” copyright © 2004 by Julianna Baggott
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“Blue Guitar” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Blue Guitar” by the Cowboy Junkies
“Unfitted” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters
“Dirty Mouth” inspired by the music and lyrics from “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty
“Why Go” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Why Go” by Pearl Jam
“All the Security Guards By Name” inspired by the music and lyrics from “The Lobby” by Jane Siberry
“Milestones” inspired by the music from “Milestones” by Miles Davis
“Death in the Alt-Country” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Mama Tried” by Merle Haggard
“I Shot the Sheriff” inspired by the music and lyrics from “I Shot the Sheriff” by Bob Marley
“Swampthroat” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Highway to Hell” by AC/DC
“Bouncing” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Graceland” by Paul Simon
“Smoking Inside” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Remedy” by the Black Crowes
“The System” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Way Down in the Hole” by Tom Waits
“Dying on the Vine” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Dying on the Vine” by John Cale
“Rio” inspired by the music and lyrics from “Rio” by Duran Duran
“King Heroin” inspired by the music and lyrics from “King Heroin” by James Brown
neil strauss
T
here is a beautiful album from the ’60s called
Odessey and Oracle
. Recorded by the Zombies, it is one of the most meticulously arranged and stunningly executed albums of the rock era. It unfolds like a paper rose, each song twisted together by themes of memory, loss, love, and the changing of the seasons.
For years, I wondered what wondrous tale held all the songs together, what feat of conceptual derring-do lay behind the music. And then, one day, my chance to unravel the mysteries of the album came: I would be interviewing the Zombies for
The New York Times
. And so I asked the question: “What ties all these songs together?” The band’s answer: nothing. They are just songs, the members said, unrelated in any way.
I was stunned. I grappled with their answer for days afterward, until I came to a conclusion: They were wrong. Sure, they may have written and recorded the songs. But I had listened to them. I had the pictures in my head. They were mine now. And so, as I continued to listen to the songs, I wove them together into a fifty-page musical, a tale of murder and intrigue, heartbreak and betrayal. Zombies be damned.
There are some songwriters who don’t like to discuss the meanings of their lyrics or the intention behind them. They don’t want to interfere with the interpretations their fans have imposed on the music, they say. When I heard this answer in interviews, I used to think that it was a cop-out. But the beauty of music is that it is, as Marshall McLuhan would say, a hot medium. It occupies only the ears, leaving the imagination free to wander (unlike films or the Internet). The closest equivalent is literature, which occupies only the eyes. The intent may belong to the artist, but the significance is the property of the beholder.
Lit Riffs
then are the synesthetic experience that occurs when the senses cross, when sound becomes text. The converse experience is far from a rarity: books have led to countless classic songs and albums. Some of the best work of David Bowie and Pink Floyd was inspired by George Orwell; Bruce Springsteen based a song on Jim Thompson’s
The Killer Inside Me;
U2 brought Salman Rushdie to musical life with “The Ground Beneath Her Feet”; the Cure made Albert Camus a goth icon with “Killing a Stranger”; Metallica brought “One” into focus with Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun. Cribbing from everything from the Bible to Yeats is a time-honored tradition among songwriters, as much a staple of the art as coffee and cigarettes.
Though there are exceptions (from Haruki Murakami to James Joyce), far fewer writers look to music as the jumping-off point for a story or novel. Yet the simple act of listening to most songs, even nonnarrative ones, triggers a narrative or imaginary video in the mind. For example, many can’t help but imagine a fist connecting with Britney Spears when she sings “Hit Me Baby One More Time,” even though that’s not even what the song’s about. It’s simply their personal interpretation (or perhaps, for some, it’s wish fulfillment).
Thus, twenty-four writers—from leading novelists to top music critics—were asked to riff on a piece of music. The authors included here were instructed only to choose a song, write a story inspired by it, and provide an explanation of their choice. They were free to choose whatever music they wanted—even if, as in the case of Darin Strauss’s Black Crowes-derived be-careful-what-you-wish-for tale, it wasn’t a song they necessarily loved. And they were free to interpret in any way they saw fit, even if, as in the case of Victor Lavalle’s story, a droning, lyric-less song by the White Stripes reminded him of Iceland, which made him think of ice cubes, leading to a haunting fable of death and decomposition that is far from simple White Stripes homage.
Some stories here, like the Lester Bangs piece that begins (and in fact inspired) this collection, and Neal Pollack’s dissection of alt-country posers, are music criticism disguised as narrative. Others, like Toure’s Biblical Bob Marley parable, take the lyrics literally and tell the story of a song in prose form. Many, like Elissa Shappell’s John Cale tale, riff on the metaphor, mood, and message of a song. Tom Perrotta mixes both the Tom Petty original and the Johnny Cash cover of “I Won’t Back Down” into a vignette capturing the strange, mixed-up feelings that arise in grade school when social and parental pressures collide.
In her wonderful tale of Vietnam vets and the misfit obsessed with them, Lisa Tucker takes not just a song—“Why Go” by Pearl Jam—but also the album, the genre, and the period of the music, and rolls it all into one memorable story. In the process, her tale manages to capture the reason why a sad song can actually be uplifting to listen to—because it lets listeners know that they are not alone in their feelings, that there is someone else in this world who understands them.
Elsewhere, Anthony DeCurtis places the music of the Beatles squarely in his story, as a backdrop to the narrative. Julianna Baggott flips the script on Bruce Springsteen, exploring the point of view of one of the female characters, Crazy Janie, who tramps through his songs. Jennifer Belle writes a prequel to Paul Simon’s “Graceland.” Tanker Dane finds his “Hallelujah” not just in the version by Jeff Buckley, but in his tragic death. And Ernesto Quiñonez finds his inspiration the furthest afield, basing his elegy to the heyday of tagging on the aura of the video for “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
While rock fans tend to be obsessed with lyrics, basing their stories on words, Hannah Tinti looked to the music—the modal interplay, the harmonic innovation, the high-flying solos—of a Miles Davis composition in order to structure a poignant moment intertwining a man falling with a man ascending.
Taken together, all these stories, interpretations, and points of view make up the greatest compilation album you can’t listen to. Of course, all of the above story analysis is my own, and has nothing to do with the actual intent of the author (just as their interpretations have nothing to do with the intent of the actual songwriter or performer). Perhaps I would have been better off writing a song based on these lit riffs and completing the circle.
Of course, due to greedy music publishers, the lyrics to each song could not be printed in their entirety, which is an advantage in many ways because you should be experiencing the original inspiration as music (instead of text) anyway. In fact, just download the songs and, if so inspired, come up with your own lit riff. And if you ever happen to run into a former member of the Zombies, remember to tell him that he was wrong. Those songs do mean something.