Peep Show soundtrack
The task was to put together a compilation of music that represented my novel, Peep Show. The man at my publisher would mail the music to his associates, along with a copy of my book. For texture, I assumed. So I did it and then another person at my publisher said you’ve been invited to write about the compilation for a music blog so would you mind writing about your decisions to choose these songs. So I wrote this:
Why these songs, you ask? The novel, my second, is called Peep Show. It’s about a family from the suburbs of northern New Jersey in the 1970’s and a place called Times Square that no longer exists the way it once did. A concentrated circus of sin, smut, sex and stench that all heated up in the sweaty-humid New York summers into a cocktail of everything your parents ever warned you about. I lived in Hell’s Kitchen for a year, 43rd and 10th Ave, while I attended NYU in 1989. Times Square would soon be Disney-fide but while I was there it was still breathing smut-fire. I brought a lot of my memories of my time there into Peep Show. So, let’s go through it.
The E Street Shuffle: Bruce Springsteen
How do you start a compilation of songs about a family from New Jersey without Bruce? He’s featured three times on this list, partly because he’s New Jersey’s Allen Ginsburg and partly because of his ability to write short stories in the time it takes to sing a song. The poetry and pathos and grit of a Springsteen song is all you need for a successful tale of love and loss and all that ends up under your fingernails when you’re firing up your Chevy and heading out on that lonesome highway, under that Jersey sunrise, thinkin’ of a girl, while runnin’ from mistakes. Character plus story plus texture plus the ever-present “teenage tramps in skin-tight pants do the E Street dance…” Gotta love the Boss.
Life on Mars: David Bowie.
My book begins with a splash of Bowie who was also known in the 70’s as Ziggy Stardust. There’s a poster of him in full Ziggy lipstick above my protag’s bed. I have always loved this song and all that Bowie represents in the history of rock. In my mind he flew his freak-flag with amazing dignity and always kept his shoulders back, knowing that everything he was saying was true and right and just – even though he was a walking nightmare for any conservative parent, teacher or lawmaker. I will never tire of that sweeping chorus – “Sail-ors fighting in the dance hall – Oh man! Look at those cavemen go – It’s the freakiest show – Take a look at the Lawman, beating up the wrong guy – Oh Man! Wonder if he’ll ever know – He’s in the best selling show – Is there life on Mars?” God bless Bowie.
Sing A Simple Song: Sly & the Family Stone
You cannot crank this song on any stereo and not move some section of your body in a repeated, gyrating motion. It’s one of those tunes that captures the era and the religion of funk and soul in its first few notes and never, ever lets go. All that with lyrics that encompass the words Talkin’ and Walkin’ about a hundred and eight times. When you play it, play it loud! And remember, always dance as if no one is watching. Especially to this funky arse tune.
Blondie: One Way Or Another
I get the sense that true Blondie fans would disagree that “One Way Or Another” was her best tune. I admit I remember it most from the radio and it was overplayed like all classic hits of their time. I have found that it’s one of those songs that’s held up beautifully and the guitar riff is just awesome and has traces of raw punk-rock in it. When really sitting down with the lyrics, I see it’s about a girl who is oh so disappointed with her man. I think she wants to feed him rat poison and just get him off her mind. She’s gonna find ya, win ya, get ya, meet ya, lose ya, and then, “Lead you to the supermarket checkout, some specials and rat food, get lost in the crowd.” Yikes. Sexy, pissed-off and super dangerous. My kind of girl.
Hot Stuff: Donna Summer
Donna never had any trepidation telling the radio listening world that she was as horny as a jackrabbit in late May. “Gotta have some hot love baby this evenin’.” And we knew she meant THIS evening, like time’s a wastin’, I need some hot (not chilled, not vanilla) but some hot hot hot lovin’ this damn evening, like within the half-hour would be ideal. “Hot, hot, hot, hot stuff.” In truth, the girl scared and enthralled me. There was a sense that if you were the luckiest pizza delivery boy on this God’s earth, you’d end up at Donna Summer’s house and she’d be ready. Oh, trust, me she’d be ready. But would you?
Boogie Shoes: KC & the Sunshine Band
If you’re talking the 70’s and music, you have to include KC and his bellbottom-wearin’ Sunshine Band. Plus, I mention this song in Peep Show. It’s on the radio while my characters are on their way into “the city.” In the same way that Martin Scorsese uses great late 70’s and early 80’s tunes in Good Fellas and other films to evoke the texture of the time, this song is one of those that everyone seems to know and can sing immediately when prodded. While men were getting their hair blown back with hairdryers in an attempt to get their wings just perfect, KC was always pouring from the radio, still years away from getting bloated on fame and trying to outlive the death of disco. I hear he still tours and does so with authority.
Tiny Dancer: Elton John
Oh my God I love this song. Who doesn’t love this song? Somehow tragic, somehow life affirming. “Blue jean baby, L.A. lady, seamstress for the band. Pretty eyes, pirate smile, you’ll marry a music man.” This girl he builds in this epic song is a person I’ve written about often in my career. She is sometimes a girl, sometimes a teenager and she’s always got way more going on for herself than anyone gives her credit for. But it’s also important to note that she is also a classic example of the unreliable narrator which means she’s capable of bullshitting even you, the reader. I grew up with lots of “tiny dancers” it seems, and as a young teenager some of them flashed their pirate smiles at me, even with their boyfriend’s right around the corner. I attribute a great deal of my “oat sewing” to this wonderful breed of Jersey girl. The girl named “Beth” in my first novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, is my quintessential “seamstress for the band.”
Walk On The Wild Side: Lou Reed
There was a time during writing Peep Show that I had the opportunity to talk to Lou Reed about his life in Times Square during the 70’s. It never happened, I can’t remember why, but he is the ultimate person to discuss such matters with and all that he writes about in this song is exactly drawn from the textures I was attempting. His character’s names are, Holly, Candy, Little Joe, Jackie and the Sugar Plum Fairy. They give head, take Valium, hustle, hitch-hike and pluck their eyebrows, all while “taking a walk on the wild side.” What else is there to say. Lou Reed really got it. And still gets it. Did you see him rocking out with Metallica on that Rock N’ Roll Hall of Fame show? He’s a great icon.
Candy’s Room: Bruce Springsteen
“There’s a sadness hidden in that pretty face, a sadness all her own from which no man can keep Candy safe.” Yeah, that’s all I’ve ever tried to evoke in fiction. An established character’s hidden emotions, the things she cannot and will not let herself or anyone else see, touch, kiss, assuage. Springsteen’s gift lies in the intricacies of the human condition. Capturing it and then fitting it into a four minute song is a whole other animal. He’s special and the world never has to stop hearing his work, his voice.
I Want To Be Sedated: The Ramones
On the topic of more diluted pathos, we have the Ramones who true-blue punk and rock lovers swear by and will tell you so with their fist in your face. Yes, it’s very true in rock that derives from punk – less is often so much more. I wholeheartedly agree that bare bones simple riffs and steady-eddie drumbeats can make for some very important music. The Ramones are New York. The Ramones are punk rock. The Ramones are important and should not be forgotten when discussing the growth of the tree that is rock n’ roll. “Ba-ba-baba, baba-ba-baba, I wanna be sedated.” God do I know how that feels. I wish I was sedated this second. Back to work.
Tangled Up In Blue: Bob Dylan
Wow. These lyrics could melt steel. Dylan. The story is so rich, the music somehow as tender and familiar as a prayer you’ve been singing since birth. Again, a girl who once wore her hair this way and then time passes with high, tumultuous winds so she ends up in that place, you know, that place that you ended up too, and then. “She was standing there in back of my chair, said to me, ‘don’t I know your name?’ She studied the lines on my face. I must admit I felt a little uneasy, when she bent down to tie the laces of my shoe. Tangled up in Blue.” A side note, the working title of my first novel, The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green, was Tangled Up In Jew. It was meant to remind me to keep the book light, funny, to be careful of the murky murk.
Mother’s Little Helper: The Rolling Stones
I have a music-freak-friend who swears that all things rock n’ roll start with The Rolling Stones. There are so many good songs, so many epic riffs and in every tune a blatant understanding of what rock is and was and should be. They are so true to their amazing work. Peep Show, to some extent, is about figuring out how you’re going to live your life and how those that raised you will assist you in this effort. This song is about a little pill that makes things easier for a time. And we all use this pill, in its many varied forms. And then…”Doctor please, some more of these, outside the door, she took four more. What a drag it is getting old.”
The Sounds of Silence: Simon and Garfunkel
Can’t leave these boys out, no way, not in a novel about New York. They are so important in the scheme of things. Important for song writers, poets, those that construct music, and story tellers. Lonely, lonely New York City, so huge and crowded and still my thoughts and fears are unheard. I see I’ve written the word “important” twice already and writers are supposed to avoid repeating words. But Simon and Garfunkel have always, I mean from very early on, been important to me. Just having their albums in vinyl in my house makes me feel…right. No story writer should go without. “And in the naked light I saw, ten thousand people, maybe more. People talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, People writing songs that voices never share, and no one dare, disturb the sound of silence.”
New York City Serenade: Bruce Springsteen
Some randomly plucked words from the lyrics:
“Railroad tracks, Cadillac, boogaloo, Broadway, Manhattan, midnight, promenade, cornerboys, money, mama, baby, vibes man, jazz man, junk man, trash can, serenade, deeper blue, in your grave, save your notes, hook it up, Singin’, singin, singin’, singin’.” Nuff said.
–Joshua Braff, 5/10/2010
May 17th, 2010 at 5:41 pm
Josh, this sounds like great stuff – both the book and the complilation.
While you’re all the way out East, why don’t you come up to Boston and read? There are a bunch of bookish types up here. Regardless, I’m eager to read it. I’m sure Jack & Bob are brimming with pride.
May 24th, 2010 at 8:50 am
The compilation sounds great Josh. How do I get one?
Btw, Allen Ginsberg is New Jersey’s Allen Ginsberg. He was born in Newark, and grew up in Paterson where he was mentored by Paterson’s own William Carlos Williams. (He also attended Montclair State for a brief while before Columbia).
Will see you Wed at B&N.
May 31st, 2010 at 5:31 pm
hey,just observed your web-site when i google something and wonder what web hosting do you use for your wordpress,the speed is more faster than my web site, i really need to know it.will back to check it out,thanks!
June 5th, 2010 at 5:00 pm
Hot Stuff: I’m not a big Donna Summer fan, but that’s a solid song…with one of the freakiest guitar solos I’ve ever heard. Played by Jeff “Skunk” Baxter (Doobie Bros, Steely Dan), purportedly when he was (in his words): “drunk on my ass”.
Enjoyed your interview on Dennis Miller’s radio show.
June 5th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
hey, I added ur site to my RSS reader. the posts are awesome!
June 11th, 2010 at 5:43 am
I wish I had seen this before I read Peep Show this week! It is a great book and I hope you will be swinging through NYC soon.
June 27th, 2010 at 5:01 am
[...] Saint John talks with: writer Joshua Braff about his new novel “Peep Show;” Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry about their book “Write That Book Already;” [...]
June 27th, 2010 at 6:00 am
[...] Saint John talks with: writer Joshua Braff about his new novel “Peep Show;” Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry about their book “Write That Book Already;” [...]
June 27th, 2010 at 6:02 am
[...] Saint John talks with: writer Joshua Braff about his new novel “Peep Show;” Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry about their book “Write That Book Already;” [...]
June 27th, 2010 at 7:02 am
[...] Saint John talks with: writer Joshua Braff about his new novel “Peep Show;” Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry about their book “Write That Book Already;” [...]