Ben Miller has a playlist for his memoir, River Bend Chronicle, up at Largehearted boy, a music blog that also has interest in the literary world. Here are some of our personal favorites from the list:
“Carry On Wayward Son” – composed by Kerry Livgren – performed by Kansas
Sudlow Junior High lunch room. Again I’ve beaten the rest of the losers to our table because I don’t push my flab through the line anymore. I bring an apple only. The words of this, my latest eating theme, runs over and over in my aching head. There will be peace when you are done. That is, finish what I am starting.
“Moonshadow” – composed by Cat Stevens – performed by Cat Stevens
When the anger bubble bursts there’s the quiet of this hymn – blue bringing blue out of black and black bringing black out of blue. Prayer prowling in a pulp grotto. Melody configuring my sensation of being shipped through weeks like a box not sealed, stuff spilling out…phosphorescence of spent emotion behind the postman, eyes calmly rolling on a sidewalk, mouth a tired rubber band draped over a curb.
“Free Man in Paris” – composed by Joni Mitchell – performed by Joni Mitchell
In her I heard the ire of my sisters reborn as direction, heard a mother’s keen reformed or resolved – ebullient demise of conflicted voices and the paralysis. “Alive,” she sang to my head on a pillow of notebooks. “Alive and unfettered.”
