A Playlist for Forces of Nature

Mix tapes are my love language. Here's one I made just for you.

In honor of my book’s birthday, I made you a little present.

Music was a constant throughout my childhood, whether it was my dad introducing me to classics like Bob Dylan, my brother Alan shout-singing his favorite Christmas songs, or the albums I dissolved into when it felt like musicians and writers were the only people who could really understand my pain.

I have visceral connections to songs that I listened to on repeat in the wake of Alan’s death in 2016 and later as I wrote Forces of Nature. The list I’ve compiled below is a sample — a soundtrack you can listen to alongside the memoir. (Here's a link to the playlist on Apple Music if you want to add it to your library. Or you can preview the playlist on my website.)

Link to playlist on Apple Music

The Boxer, Simon & Garfunkel

I write about this in the memoir, the vivid memory I have of my dad playing Simon & Garfunkel in his red Volkswagen Rabbit, and how he stopped the tape to tell me the backstory of certain songs. I was probably the only kindergartner who knew what a ballad was. I’m sure I didn’t understand it all, but my dad planted an idea within me, that art could be autobiographical and that the careful arrangement of music and lyrics could heal us.

When I Got Troubles, Bob Dylan

Most stories about my father’s childhood in Hibbing, Minnesota include a mention of Bob Dylan, or Bobbie Zimmerman, as my grandmother called him. Whenever I went to visit my grandparents, we drove by Dylan’s childhood home. "When I Got Troubles" was one of his first commercial songs, recorded in 1959, in Hibbing, at the house of a childhood friend.

Wonder, Natalie Merchant

I was obsessed with Natalie Merchant and 10,000 Maniacs in high school. I even made a pilgrimage with my friend Jennifer to a vintage clothing store that Natalie’s mother Anne owned in South Carolina. We got to meet Anne and bought her a cup of coffee. When Wonder was released in 1995, I remember it became a sort of anthem for kids born with rare conditions or disabilities. I loved that the song was a celebration, so full of joy and amazement.

Half a World Away, R.E.M.

In chapter 24, I describe the first therapist I ever saw and how she tried to connect with me over my love of alternative music like R.E.M., Bauhaus, The Cure, and Morrissey. I remember playing R.E.M.’s Out of Time album on rotation with their earlier work. “Half a World Away” echoed the distance and otherness I often felt being inside a typical high school experience but also feeling so far outside of it, caretaking my mother and brothers. The song is sad and hopeful at the same time: “The storm, it came up strong / It shook the trees and blew away our fear.”

Long Ride Home, Patty Griffin

This song will always remind me of our drive home from Boulder to Phoenix after Alan’s funeral. It was part of a folk playlist I had on my phone, and it played as we were crossing the Continental Divide (a perfect metaphor for the threshold you cross when someone dies, and also crossing from my family of origin to my family of choice). The song is about a widower who has just buried his wife and must now return home alone with his memories and regrets. It’s incredibly sad, of course, but it got me thinking about the things we inherit after a loved one dies — the unfinished business, unanswered questions, unsaid apologies.

Alan, Perfume Genius

Mike Hadreas wrote this song for his longtime partner, Alan, and in recent years it’s helped raise awareness for immigration equality. Yet, what resonates with me the most is the song’s tenderness, the whispers of safety and caregiving and refuge. The lyrics “Did you notice / we sleep through the night? …You need me /Rest easy / I’m here” combined with a hypnotic melody and bassline feel endlessly nurturing to me.

Sleep on the Floor, The Lumineers

This song came out around the time Alan died. I’d often hear it on the radio while driving. On its face, the song is about a young couple running away to a big city to pursue their dreams. But to me it’s about putting space between you and the people and geographies that tried to define you (or maybe harmed you), starting fresh, and creating a family of choice.

Ana Ng, They Might Be Giants

I read somewhere that this song is about digging a hole to China, which is something I tried many times as a kid. At age five, it felt like a novel idea and entirely possible. Now I know it’s an old cliché (with literary roots in Thoreau’s Walden). But it still amazes me that so many of us imagined it could be done. The line "eighty dolls yelling ‘Small girl after all'" is a reference to the “It’s a Small World” Disney ride. When I hear this song now, I think of possibility and how we’re all more alike than we are different.

Life in a Northern Town, The Dream Academy

When I went back to Hibbing in 2017 with my dad to bury his half of Alan’s ashes, the place felt like a ghost town. The population was rapidly declining, businesses were boarded up, and the cemetery was running out of spaces. This song, which is about a collapsing industrial town, echoed in my mind.

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, Neutral Milk Hotel

Another song I kept on repeat in the months after Alan died, it’s about confronting our mortality and embracing the fragile beauty of life. The lyrics are simple and maybe a little too earnest. But I love the sentiment: “What a beautiful face / I have found in this place / That is circling all round the sun / What a beautiful dream / That could flash on the screen / In a blink of an eye and be gone from me”

Slow Show, The National

“You know I dreamed about you / For twenty-nine years before I saw you.” The National is the band I turn to whenever I want to time travel or connect to an emotion — whether that’s love, longing, inhibition, or grief. This song captures the years when I really felt like I’d reclaimed a part of myself lost in childhood and was building something exciting and new with Kris.

Sons and Daughters, Allman Brown

I don’t want to spoil the ending of the book, so I’ll just say this song was playing in my headphones during the final scene, and its bittersweet tone felt appropriate and soothing.

Silent Night, Bing Crosby

No tribute to Alan would be complete without some Bing Crosby. Alan played the White Christmas album on repeat, year-round, and shouted along to every song. Silent Night was one song I never got tired of hearing. It also feels like the right punctuation mark for this playlist. Sleep in heavenly peace.

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Book Tour! Come Say Hello.

I’m so grateful and honored to have

Katherine Sleadd

,

Sally Chaffin Brooks

, and

Nora McInerny

as conversation partners at my events this summer. I can’t wait to see readers and friends in person.