John Patrick Higgins’s Teeth captures the journey of his own teeth, from good to bad to great, in one of the year’s funniest books.
Guillermo Stitch wrote of the book:
“I’ve been reading work by John Patrick Higgins for years and it never fails to delight me. Nobody writes funny/sad/sad/funny like Higgins. Nobody. He subjects our culture—high and low—to an endlessly inventive remix; a rinse and spin cycle; a tombola of giddy, gleeful and knowing reference that never neglects the human and never fails to move. And it turns out he’s also a superlative chronicler of dental work.”
In his own words, here is John Patrick Higgins’s Book Notes music playlist for his book Teeth:
I used to write in cafes and libraries. On buses. In art galleries and doctor’s waiting rooms. Anywhere I wouldn’t be immediately slung out of, anywhere I could slip the notebook from my pocket and blacken a page. The pandemic put paid to that. I learned to write at home. I’m now a domesticated writer. You can see me barking at the postman from the front window and raking up the kitty-litter with my hind legs.
It means I’m in charge of the music. Café’s have their own thing going on. Libraries aren’t generally keen on unsolicited musical interludes. Funeral parties can turn violent. But at home I’m the Maestro, the Great Musical Menagerist of the World, the Prospero of Pop.
I’ve written a book about teeth. My teeth. Their decline and fall and costly rebirth. Other teeth are mentioned – those of George Washingtons and St. Apollonia of Alexandria, for example – but mainly it’s my oral odyssey. And that’s a problem musically. My dentist undertook some of his most extreme waterboarding tuned to a station called Cool FM, the most aggressive assaults on my screaming gums being soundtracked by the music of Phil Collins and INXS. The Ludovico Technique works. Every time I hear Clocks by Coldplay, I feel an itchy desire to floss.
What follows is a list of songs I listened to while writing Teeth. They’re not scenes from an imagined soundtrack for a film, nor are they tooth related tunes (off the top of my head I can think of Shoehorn with Teeth by They Might Be Giants, Your Gold Teeth by Steely Dan, er, Cavity Search by Weird Al Yankovic). But they fed into my brain while I was writing it. There may be a link, who knows? My brain’s a great place to visit but I wouldn’t want to live there.
Heart on my Sleeve by Gallagher and Lyle
This is a soppy, accordion-led ballad about being too emotionally available. And certainly, the day I had seven teeth removed in a single sitting, I was wearing my heart on my sleeve, and my granulated tooth enamel on my lapel. This song’s simplicity, its gentleness, it’s flat-capped, beardy softness is its power. They mean it, man. I’ve heard Heart on my Sleeve called a guilty pleasure and cheesy. I refuse both descriptions.
A certain delirium sets in after the third hour lying on your back while a presentable young man in a mask removes bits of your head, for a price. Once you understand you probably won’t drown in a mixture of blood, saliva and dusted bone, and the tiny vacuum cleaner the nurse has introduced—because there’s not enough going on in your mouth—does absolutely nothing, there’s a moment of perfect stillness, of clarity and calm.
But most of the time it feels like We’re Pretty Quick by The Chob.
I’m So Green – Can
This is not a song about my smile. My teeth were never green. At their worst I had a sad clown smile that curved like an aging banana. The green Damo Suzuki is singing about here, is newness, freshness, La Primavera. But there’s another natural green, that of sickness, of mould. Splashes of lichen on rock, John Brown’s body malingering in his grave. Former punk zealot Johnny Rotten, was so named for the greenness of his teeth. These days he’d be Johnny Pristine, or Johnny Zirconium Oxide. But that’s my nickname. Back off, Johnny!
Your teeth are your shining armour. You can hide behind a perfect smile. It will protect you. But teeth are a memento mori too; they’re the skull glimpsed beneath the skin, our bare bones poking through that too too sullied flesh. We see the naked architecture of our bodies, the struts and supports, the scaffold. If they’re in poor condition, yellowing, or failing, or milled to powder, well, how long has the rest of the body got? In this song, New Kingdom are conquistadors bringing disease and gold-hunger to the Americas. It’s a lurching and pestilent dirge, rapper Sebastian drawling like his mouth’s been injected with Lidocaine. I once played this at a party—I’m a fun guy—and people thought it was Foetus. Which I didn’t care for.
Whatevershebringswesing – Kevin Ayers
This lovely, lowing, lugubrious song is like an eight-minute sigh of relief. It’s an exhalation, the sound of pressure delivered from weary bones. Beyond Kevin’s droll delivery, Robert Wyatt pops up for a lighter-than-air harmony vocal. His voice is a uniquely mournful instrument, while Ayers can never not be funny, and it’s this happy/sad quality I play with in Teeth and in, well, everything I writereally.
The song features three consecutive guitar solos by Mike Oldfield, but don’t let that put you off.
It also contains the line: “I’m looking round madly for something to find, that might give me a front to put something behind.” Which is a very neat explanation as to why I had to get my teeth fixed.
Into Dust – Mazzy Star
Yes, this one is about grinding my teeth. Only Hope Sandoval and a cello can express my profound sorrow on receiving my dentist’s bill.
Looking For You – Nino Ferrer and Radiah Frye
This slow, sexy groove starts with car noises. Nino’s not wasting his time looking for you on foot. It’s a song that acknowledges it’s a song, like Baccaras’ Yes sir, I can boogie, but there’s nothing arch or smart arse about it, the song is a vehicle as much as the revving autos that growl over the Hammond organ solo. The message I’m looking for you is riding shotgun, tapping the roof as Nino cruises the small-town streets in his Citroën DS. If this has anything to do with my teeth, then it’s the soundtrack to my partner, Susan, driving me home in the dark, while I shiver, a blood-wadded tissue pressed to my mouth, red as a stop sign. Looking for soup.
Chanson Pour Que Tu M’Aimes Un Peau – France Gall
A song which makes me look out the window, hoping for a rainy day. Luckily, I live in Ireland. I’m one of those Francophiles with barely enough French to successfully order house wine in a bistro, but the title means something like “Song that you might love me a bit,” which breaks my heart. It’s hopeful and upbeat and shot through with minor chords, which makes it pathetic in the true sense of the word, and sadder than, say, 24 by Red House Painters.
I Want Your Love – Transvision Vamp
While I was lying there, the furniture of my mouth being hauled about The Three Stooges, the radio played a station that insisted no new music had been recorded since the turn of the century. You’d think I’d be pleased, given the songs I’ve listed here, but this was the music of INXS, of Coldplay, Oasis and Take That. And Transvision Vamp. I’ll give an honourable mention to Transvision Vamp, as repeated prostrate exposure to the band has given me a fresh perspective on their charms. I’m quite fond of their clumsiness, their cack-handedness. There’s a certain naïve charm to calling your album Pop Art. They’re not subtle. Snide fellow-travellers like The Smiths would bury their T-rex rip-offs, but TV were brazen in their pilfering. Their singer couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but that didn’t matter—it was the 80s. Voices were as low and flat as the hair was high and bouffant. Wendy James was the voice of my dental surgery. So, thanks, Wendy.
Spirit of Eden/Laughing Stock – Talk Talk
Yeah, so this is a cheat, but I can’t separate the songs on these albums, nor the records themselves. I can’t—record companies play by different rules. I listened to this perfect suite of songs back-to-back during the writing of Teeth – and my novel Fine, for that matter – as this may be my favourite music of all, its metronomic constancy a balm for a skittering heart. And while the guitar solo on After the Flood could be reminiscent of a dentist’s drill playing merry hell with your molars, I’m pleased to say I can listen to this record even today without Marathon Man morbidities bubbling up again. Is it safe? Is anything?
John Patrick Higgins is a writer, film maker and illustrator. He writes short stories and long stories, either humour or horror or a magical twist of the two. His first book is “Teeth”, published by Sagging Meniscus Press. His second “Fine”, will also be published by that company. Some day he hopes to write a book with two words in the title.
He lives in Belfast, goes for long walks in the rain, and sings in the post rock band, Ebbing House.