During the most intense period of writing Go/No-Go—the period when I completed two wholescale revisions of the manuscript—a very strange thing would happen: every morning, when I woke up, I’d hear a brief clip of music run through my mind. Stepping out of bed, in total darkness, I was greeted by the words “Are you READY?!”
Clearly, I was not.
But my mind wanted to prepare me for the day’s writing, it seems. Which is why those words, growled by the lead singer of Korn, arrived in my head.
The words form the pivot of the song “Blind”—a pivot like a gut-punch, bringing the song to its real beginning. First comes the tension of the opening—fast drumming on the high hat, the guitar sounding the same square sequence of notes, followed by the bass that’s lurking, stalking—then the words “Are you READY?!,” and the song hurls forward.
I came to expect the phrase, a friendly companion to my morning—until, unexpectedly, the phrase changed. Instead of being goaded (serenaded?) by Korn, I awoke to the high-pitched voice of Perry Farrell, the lead singer of Jane’s Addiction. He was speaking inside my brain, saying, “Here we go….!” as he does in the song “Stop!”—a song that invokes the raucous festivities of revolution.
I didn’t consciously think of those clips. They just entered my mind, unbidden—but only during the most difficult months of writing. I find it marvellous, actually: the fact that I subconsciously called up these songs because they were associated (in my muscle, my history) with the energy I needed to enter the ring with the beast of this book—a book that challenged me as a writer, and shook me deeply as a human being. These songs were a rallying cry, urging me toward my task—exhorting me, preparing me to confront the work that lay ahead. And maybe, the songs said: maybe I might even revel in the difficulty, turn it into writing I could share, communicating with others through the work of art.
Given their direct role in the writing of this book, “Blind” and “Stop!” are on my playlist, as is “Real Wild Child” by Iggy Pop and the Stooges. That’s because the Stooges’s music was used as a ‘punishment’ technique inflicted on rodents in a neuroscience study.
Which, to me, is hilarious.
When I discovered this fact (which was tucked amidst highly technical language in the ‘Methods’ section of a study), I barked out laughing. That happened periodically as I wrote this book: I laughed out loud, especially since the methods used in human neuroscience studies—i.e., the psychology tasks that determine the specific ‘dysfunction’ of our neural circuits, or the place where the algorithm of our decision-making is ‘suboptimal’—are equally asinine and sometimes cruel.
Through laughter, I found the absurdity in the research. Otherwise, I think I would’ve gone insane…
And that’s where most of the other songs on my playlist come from: they speak of losing one’s mind—mostly through lustful love, but also through anger at the injustice of this world.
The music gathered here was pulled from a list I started years ago, as I jotted down the names of songs I heard on my favourite radio station—songs I might play at my book launch; I did this even when I wasn’t sure I’d have a book to launch, or a publisher willing to take the manuscript. Nonetheless, I kept that playlist, because I knew that, if I ever finished the book, I’d need to celebrate in the way only music/dancing allows.
Which is to say: if you live in Toronto, come join me at my book launch! The playlist here is just a snippet of the songs we might play. The celebration begins on Thursday, November 13, 7pm, at the Vault Creation Lab, located on the corner of Woodbine and Danforth. Here we go…!
- Jane’s Addiction, “Stop!”
- Prince, “Let’s Go Crazy”
- Obongjayar, “Not in Surrender”
- Stereo MC, “Elevate My Mind”
- The Sprints, “Adore, Adore, Adore”
- Garbage, “I’m Only Happy When It Rains”
- Fontaine’s DC, “Life Ain’t Always Empty”
- The Kills, “Fried My Little Brains”
- Iggy Pop and the Stooges, “Real Wild Child”
- Korn, “Blind”