Behind the Book: The Playlist!

Please read/listen to this one :)

I am so excited to share the playlist for The Come Apart.

It makes me happy to listen to these songs, to sing along with them, to think about why they ended up here together, a weird little music community of their own.

If you don’t get around to reading the book, that’s cool. I get it! I really, really do! Life is short and overfull and there are a lot of books to read, so much media to consume. But if you can at least listen to the playlist, you’ll be doing me a solid, and I am willin’ to bet you’ll find at least one new tune that makes your own heart sing.

So let’s go.

“Dark Turn of Mind,” by Gillian Welch: “You know some girls are bright as the morning / And some girls are blessed with a dark turn of mind.” I’ve felt a powerful connection with this song since its release way back in 2011, and the portrait of a woman that Welch draws here feels like a mirror of TCA’s main character, Maggie Corbin. Like many of Welch’s songs, “Dark Turn of Mind” fools you into thinking it’s got to be a traditional ballad, a cover of a very old, authorless song, but nope. She wrote it. (She channeled it.) I badly wanted to use this lyric as an epigraph (along with the Jack Gilbert quote I went with, and a very short Elliott Smith lyric), and so I went after it. But the cost was in the thousands, and I had to accept that it was not to be. My editor Megan said, consolingly, “You’ll talk about that lyric in interviews instead.” Yep—and put it at the top of the playlist, too.

“American Girl,” by Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: Maggie hears this song on the radio as she’s fleeing Chicago for Nashville, and it reminds her of her dad, who loved him some classic rock. (And Maggie finally has to admit she loves her some classic rock, too.) The scene featuring this song has been part of the book since the very early drafting—right around the time Tom Petty died, in fact. For me, there’s no better song to channel the feeling of cranking the ignition, hitting the gas, and flying onto the highway. Make it last all night!

“Chicago,” by Sufjan Stevens: And perhaps there’s no better song to channel the gloriousness of a perfect blue-sky summer day in Chicago when you’re young, coasting down some avenue on a bike or taking in the city through an El window, achingly alive to its sights and sounds and feeling as if—though you’ve already fucked up plenty—there is so much time left, so much room to grow. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, I’ve made a lot of mistakes…. All things go.”

“End of Beginning,” by Djo: Funny story: So this song comes on Spotify not long ago, and I hear the lyrics and am like, "Whoaaaa! This must go on the TCA playlist!” To wit: “And when I’m back in Chicago, I feel it / Another version of me, I was in it / I wave goodbye to the end of beginning.” The song feels made for TCA, I’m bowled over, and I mention this song to my Gen-Z daughter, like, “Omg have you heard this song?!” and she lets me know that this song has in fact been out since 2022, and don’t I remember how she showed me all those Tiktoks that were using it a few summers ago, when we visited Chicago? Um…ok. My bad. Also: “Djo” is Joe Keery, of Stranger Things. Riiiight.

“Get It Wrong, Get It Right,” by Feist: A big theme of TCA is how failure can lead to success, how you have to get it wrong, often many times, to get it right. Hence this beautiful song on the list. Also, if you ask me what artists I think of when I think of Maggie Corbin, I’ll mention Feist among them. I’m not saying that Maggie was in any way modeled on Feist; she wasn’t modeled on any one artist. But I bet there are similarities. I’d like to think so, at least.

“Drive,” by Marisa Nadler: OK, this one feels a bit spooky. Like, magically aligned with the book. I only discovered this song recently. It’s on Nadler’s 2014 album July. The lyrics I can find online suggest that Nadler’s singing "Child town in the winter,” but I strongly suspect she’s saying “Chi-town in the winter.” And then: “Nothing like the way it feels / to drive / Still remember all the words / To every song you ever heard / Drive / All your things are still in the car / Let it freeze, let them crack/ You slept through the day and the night and the day / You’re never coming back.” If you read the book, I think you’ll see what I mean: Spooky! I wish I could talk to Nadler about this song.

“Skin of Our Teeth,” by Tristen: This is a song about wanting what you have. About choosing the artist’s life, a certain kind of artist’s life, and loving it despite the bullhorns of society and industry blaring at you, selling their version of success. I hear it as the artist talking to herself, coming to terms, waking up and staking claim. “What do you want? This is it!”

“Can’t See Stars,” by Erin Rae (feat. Kevin Morby): Another spooky alignment, discovered very recently! I’d heard this song many times but only caught the lyrics in the past few weeks: “I spoke until I drew in near /A thousand other voices / But among the murmuration found I could not hear my own / Funny, you would think it would be cause for celebration / Lately, though, I'm finding I prefer to be alone.” MIC DROP.

“Method Acting/Cortez the Killer,” by Dave Rawlings Machine: “We need a record of our failures / We must document our loves…It starts with an ending.” And: “I don’t know what tomorrow brings / It’s alive with such possibility / But I know that I feel better when I sing / Burdens are lifted from me/ That’s my voice rising.” These lines have been with me through the writing of this book. Every time I hear them, I sing them. I know “Method Acting” is a Bright Eyes song, but this version, which flows seamlessly into my man Neil Young’s “Cortez the Killer,” is the superior version, and I will not be taking questions.

“Nothing In This World Ever Stays Still,” by Allegra Krieger: “Everything’s leaving just as it’s coming in / Nothing in this world ever stays still.” This lyric gets to what Maggie’s feeling as she walks slowly around her East side neighborhood at the beginning of a Southern spring (a neighborhood she doesn’t feel is hers; she’s still just a visitor there, it’s Frank’s neighborhood), trying to get to the point where she can start over and make something new.

“Past in Present,” by Feist: “So much past inside my present…Feeling it from dark to bright / When a wrong becomes a right.” Never NOT a lotta past inside our present, right?

“Anything but Me,” by Jesse Welles: I love the way this song playfully gets at the idea that you are who you are, and good luck trying to change that too much. It could come off as maudlin or self-pitying, but Welles keeps it from going there in his playful, folksy way.

“She’s Leaving You,” by MJ Lenderman: This song blew the roof off indie-rock right around the time I was finishing up edits on the manuscript I’d send to my editor. I’d been working on TCA for more than a decade at that point. And here comes Lenderman singing, “It falls apart, we all got work to do.” Excuse me?! Let me, at long last, take the opportunity to tell the world that I have had the last line of TCA firmly in mind for a decade, and it is: “There is work to be done.” I remember writing that line, way back when, and thinking: This is it. This is the last line of the book, no matter what happens. I was on a walk around my neighborhood when I first heard “She’s Leaving You,” andI literally stopped in my tracks. It felt like a sign. It still does.

“Magic Man,” by Heart: This is a bit of an outlier, but I imagine that this is a song Maggie Corbin’s dad would have played for her many times—would have mansplained the craft of to her, too. It is an incredible specimen of classic rock, so dimensional and dynamic and groovy and produced in that crystalline 70s way. I heard this song on the radio countless times growing up (shout out to 103 KDF!), but only recently have I come to appreciate how complex and well-built it is. It’s also about the allure of a not-great dude, written and performed by two of the most gifted women in American rock music.

“Crystalised,” by The xx: Now we’re getting to the “Songs That Would Have Been in The Air During the Time The Come Apart Is Set” part of the playlist. (Late 2009 - 2010). I mean, if you were hanging out in coffee shops in 2010 and didn’t hear this song… I don’t believe you. I also like having this on here because The xx is a boy/girl shared-lead vox duo…

“L.E.S. Artistes,” by Santigold: See above. Setting piece! But also the lyrics… “I can say I hope it will be worth what I give up.”

“You’ll Find a Way,” by Santigold: See above.

“Motor Away,” by Guided By Voices: A number of songs are embedded in the text, Easter-egg like. Hint, hint: This is one of them. Also, just an absolutely iconic driving song. “OH WHY DON’T YOU JUST DRIVE AWAYYYY, C’MON!”

“Truckers Atlas,” by Modest Mouse: See above.

“Last Nite,” by the Strokes: Period piece! Is This It came out long before 2009, of course, but I imagine it was a big influence on Maggie & Co. (In real life, that album broke while I was living in Chicago. I was no longer living there in 2009. So maybe this is a nod to my IRL Chicago milieu.)

“Immigrant Song,” by Led Zeppelin: In the book, Spinning Birds’ bassist Clint has a mixtape of “songs with killer intros” that the band listens to in the van as they’re nearing a venue after a long day of driving, to get everyone amped. This is one of those songs.

“The Song Remains the Same,” by Led Zeppelin: See above.

“Set Out Running,” by Neko Case: One of my favorite Case songs, and an “escape/running away” song, so obviously it is on this list. In the book, Maggie’s old high school friend/bandmate Jacob sends her a ripped CD of Case’s Furnace Room Lullaby.

“Pieces of What,” by MGMT: Period piece!

“Sabotage,” by the Beastie Boys: On Clint’s “Songs with killer intros” mixtape.

“Gimme Shelter,” by the Rolling Stones: See above.

“Return of the Grievous Angel,” by Gram Parsons: This is one of the songs Frank plays in his house on lazy mornings, when he and Maggie are just sitting around, shooting the shit. I imagine him turning her on to old country. He’s her gateway.

“Into the Mystic,” by Van Morrison: One of the vibiest songs ever written, in my opinion. I will never never NEVER not feel the opening notes of this song deep in my heart and gut. In early drafts of TCA, Maggie goes to Red Door to drink alone and hears this song and it soothes her. I ended up taking that scene out. The vibe remains the same.

“Love Like Before,” by Erin Rae: A song about starting over in an old house on the East side. I mean… No further explanation needed.

“To Live Is to Fly,” by Townes Van Zandt: A song Frank plays for Maggie.

“Didn’t It Rain,” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Another song Frank plays for Maggie. Also a lil plot nod.

“You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” by The Byrds: A song Frank plays for Maggie. And yeah, she ain’t goin’ nowhere, not for a while.

“I Am a Pilgrim,” by The Byrds: Another song Frank plays for Maggie.

“Natural Disaster,” by Andrew Bird: I had to put some Andrew Bird on here. Lil plot nod here, too. This is also a song I imagine Maggie listening to on her slow walks around the neighb, taking it all in.

“My Own Way,” by Emily Hines: “I'm in my own way again.”

“Right Now,” by Angel Olsen: Olsen did some Chicago-scene time, and there’s a bit of her character in Maggie’s character, I think. That dark drama. Quiet until she’s absolutely not anymore. This is an epic leaving/breakup song. I absolutely love how in the end the speaker says, with steady ferocity, “I need you to look at me and listen…. I’m telling you right now, right now.”

“I Feel It All,” by Feist: Because Maggie does feel it all. “The wings are wide, the wings are wide / Wild card in sight, wild card in sight / Ooh I’ll be the one who’ll break my heart.” It’s a breakup song—but upbeat, suggesting the exhilaration of freedom.

“My Way,” by Frank Sinatra: Maggie riffs on this song, thinking of the many jobs she’s had.

“My Way,” by The Sex Pistols: Because both versions need to be here, obviously.

“Where You Want to Go,” by Allegra Krieger: “These sheep keep clapping their hands / At the relevancy of some hungry new band / Pumping airwaves with self-obsessed noise / Positioning names to impress the big boys / That could help you make the rent / And they'll take a cut but it’s money well spent / If they take you where you want to go / They could take you where you want to go.”

“Mr. Soul,” by Buffalo Springfield: Maggie gets this song stuck in her hand on a debaucherous visit to the woods with her bandmates in high school…

“Jeremy,” by Pearl Jam: Spinning Birds have a whole inside joke about this song. One of my favorite little moments in the book. ;)

“Stupid Girl,” by Neil Young: Maggie’s dad plays this song for her. That moment is a flashback in the book.

“Stupidity Tries,” by Elliott Smith: I could have put every song by Elliott Smith on the playlist. And yet astonishingly, I forgot to put ANY song by Smith on there until Thalia asked me last night if there’s any Elliott Smith on there. Wtf! Actually, I need to add a second one, which is “Say Yes.” I was hoping to use that line—those two words—as an epigraph along with the Welch lyric, but it didn’t happen.

“The Way Love Goes,” by Wednesday: I had to put this one on because of the Karly / MJ musical-partners-and-lovers-who-break-up story behind it. There are a number of stories like this in rock history.

“Salvage Title,” by Friendship: A song about an old shitty Corolla!

“Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around,” by Stevie Nicks & Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers: It just fits for so many reasons.

“Green Light,” by Lorde: I’m not quite sure what I was thinking when I added this one, but it’s such a powerful, energetic song, I have to leave it on here. I like to imagine Maggie discovering it and loving it.

“Season of the Witch,” by Donovan: See “songs embedded in text.”

“Revelator,” by Gillian Welch: Because time IS the revelator.

“Maggie May,” by Rod Stewart: Maggie’s dad sings this song to her when she’s a kid. Which, if you listen to the lyrics, is kinda weird, but yeah. Classic rock 4EVA.

“Metal Heart,” by Cat Power: One of Maggie’s all-time favorite songs.

“Ragtime,” by Neko Case: “Last night, late, I was watching it snow / It always goes sideways in the city … I'll reveal myself when I'm ready, / I'll reveal myself invincible soon.”

“Passing Afternoon,” by Iron & Wine: For me, this song encapsulates longing for the South.

“Don’t You Worry ‘bout a Thing,” by Stevie Wonder: I almost took this one off, because I couldn’t say why it’s here. But it’s just one of the most joyful songs of all time, and it never fails to make me feel good, and I like to imagine it making Maggie feel good at this weird between-time in her life. Frank would definitely spin it for her. He definitely owns a copy of Innervisions on vinyl.

“Everything is Free,” by Gillian Welch: “Someone hit the big score / They figured it out / That we're gonna do it anyway / Even if it doesn't pay.”

Mic drop.

THE COME APART is out from TriQuarterly Books on June 15! Pre-order here.