I’d like to think that these songs belong to the characters in the stories, but, of course, they belong to all of us. To me they are all of a piece, and of a mood, like the stories. And I’ve tried to put them together, even sequence them in a manner (though I know at this point everyone shuffles) that creates its own mood and suggests the world in which all these characters live and may at times cross paths without even knowing it.
“Lost Love” – well, I mean, I don’t think I need to explain, though I must admit I wish Percy Mayfield (the great Percy Mayfield: you’ve got to listen to “”Please Send Me Someone to Love” and “River’s Invitation,” not to mention “Hit the Road, Jack”) had thought to mention the words that gave title to the song, and the book.
Nat King Cole (“Gee Baby, Ain’t I Good to You” and Nina Simone (“My Baby Just Cares for Me”), obviously belong to Cassie in “Franny and Zooey,” but so would so many others. And there’s no doubt she would have been thrilled by Joni Mitchell’s return.
“Center Field”? I mean, come on, do I have to say? Here is a case where memoir merges with fiction – so I’ll claim it.
“Grosebeck Blues” is, of course, for Sarah in “Forgiveness” and is one of Lightnin’ (“Sam,” Sarah would correct me) Hopkins’ most emotionally charged pieces of reporting. Both he (and Sarah) deserve a whole set. But if you’re moved to look further, try “Tim Moore’s Farm,” or “Unsuccessful Blues,” or “Death Bells,” or “Penitentiary Blues,” or... so many more.
I’m going to assign “Blue Monk” to Jeannie in “Love and Death,” since she couldn’t have Appalachian Spring and her reggae tastes remain unexplored. But there’s no question that she, as well as Donnie, in “Normie’s Secret Life,” in a very different, far more tongue-tied way, would prize Thelonious Monk for both his simplicity and his profundity. Not to mention how much Jeannie cherished the name. (Would anyone like to speculate whether Jeannie was a fan of early Thomas Pynchon, not least for the role of McClintic Sphere in V, whose mantra was “Keep cool, but care”?)
I’m not sure if “Hard times (No One Knows Better Than I)” was one of Benny’s favorites in “The Gates of Eden”– but it definitely should have been. (I mean, who doesn’t love Ray Charles, but Benny was always ahead of the pack.) And Charles Mingus’ “My Jelly Roll Soul” is unquestionably, and jubilantly, an example of one of the many directions in which Benny, always reaching out for more, was heading.
Kind of Blue is kind of for everyone, but most of all for the Book Worm crowd in “Jackie Wilson Said.” “You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me,” too, suffuses the Book Worm world. As for Van’s title song, “Jackie Wilson Said,” how could I not include this? And if Jackie Wilson is going to be invoked, how could we omit Jackie himself, who makes a walk-on appearance in the story, along with Bobby “Blue” Bland, who plays a more central role. “Lead me on” indeed. Are we not all strangers in an unfriendly land? Or, as Percy Mayfield declared in another of his profoundly moving compositions, “I feel like a stranger in my own hometown.”
Chet Baker’s “I Get Along Without You Very Well (Except Sometimes)” could very well serve as a theme song for Julie, the enigmatic bookstore manager in “Jackie Wilson Said,” although it also belongs to Lenny, the displaced cocktail-lounge piano player in “Piano Man,” who includes “Someone to Watch Over Me” at least once in his melancholy set. Also, it awakens something quietly shared by his companion for the evening, Ellie, But, really, Jimmy Scott’s soaring version, with piano accompaniment by Ray Charles, belongs to us all, doesn’t it?
I don’t know if any of the characters in these stories actually heard Bobby Charles’ “Small Town Talk” – but if they did, they would all have responded to it, probably even J.D. Salinger in his Cornish, New Hampshire aerie.
And “Funny How Time Slips Away” -- well, what can I say? I guess I could say the title says it all, but that would be discounting Al Green’s ineffably daring, almost heartbreakingly voiced contributions.
But in the end, all of the songs belong to all of the characters (I think of Normie, who had no song of his own and yet in the end was so attuned, in his empathetic fashion, to the world of all his other more self-scrutinizing fellow characters. They’re not my songs, honest (Where’s Solomon, where’s Charlie Rich, where are Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf?) – but for me they all fit together into their own particular kind of tapestry. And I hope they do for you, too.