Zachary Pace’s Book Notes essay collection I Sing to Use the Waiting is a stunning testament to the effects music (and musicians) have on our lives.
A true playlist, to my mind, will forever contain fourteen to sixteen tracks—the average number that would fit on a sixty-minute blank cassette. My book, I Sing to Use the Waiting: A Collection of Essays About the Women Singers Who’ve Made Me Who I Am, is more like a playlist on a streaming service; the queue of songs mentioned throughout the book would compose a playlist several hours long. Here, I’ve decided not to include any songs by the artists mentioned in the essays and instead, I’ve compiled a sixty-three-minute-long playlist of songs by artists who played a silent part in shaping the book.
1. Trisha Yearwood, “She’s in Love with the Boy”
When I started writing poems at the age of eight, I already knew that I was attracted to “him”—and that I couldn’t yet communicate it in writing or speaking. In this song, Trisha Yearwood narrates a romance between Katie and Tommy; the singer projects a romantic drama onto external characters, expressing what the singer knows and wonders about love and attraction without directly implicating the self. I realized that I could do the same—at least until the day I’d be able to speak and write freely and openly about loving “him.”
2. Belinda Carlisle, “Heaven Is a Place on Earth”
Back then, I’d study Belinda Carlisle’s glamor shot on the insert booklet of the Heaven on Earth cassette—she gorgeously wears a leather jacket loosely falling off one bare shoulder—and I’d try to imitate her, awkwardly wearing my jackets off the shoulder and singing along to the cassette playing in my pink Walkman.
3. Aretha Franklin, “(Sweet Sweet Baby) Since You’ve Been Gone”
I remember my mother being so happy when she found the CD of Aretha’s Gold at the local indie music store. Recently, she got me the album on vinyl—a special edition manufactured for Walmart.
4. Indigo Girls, “Power of Two”
During long drives, my mother and I would sing along to this song on the soundtrack to the movie Boys on the Side, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Barrymore, and Mary Louise Parker. This entire soundtrack is essential listening—a playlist within the playlist.
5. Etta James, “Security”
This cover song on Tell Mama is as important to me as Otis Redding’s original recording on Pain in My Heart. Once, as a child, I asked my mother if she loved me or my father more, and she said, “I love you both differently.” That’s how I feel about the renditions of “Security” by Etta James and Otis Redding.
6. Tracy Chapman, “Telling Stories”
My love of telling stories drove me to write prose instead of poems. For whatever reason, I could only tell one kind of story in poems, and I wanted to tell another. Telling the stories about the artists in my book allowed me to project what I know and wonder about myself onto external characters, to narrate their dramas, while also implicating mine. The title of this song, which I’ve loved for more than two decades, gave me the phrase to describe that drive.
7. Sheryl Crow, “Members Only”
I also used to imitate Sheryl Crow’s facial expression in a photo on the insert foldout of The Globe Sessions CD, where this song appears, and it remains one of my “resting faces” to this day.
8. Thao with the Get Down Stay Down, “Beat (Health, Life and Fire)”
During my undergrad years at Purchase College, amazing musicians came to play on campus several times a month—my friends and I would see a show at the Student Center, or “Stood,” and become obsessed with the band, and vice versa: we’d become obsessed with a band, then coincidentally they’d come to play. Thao with the Get Down Stay Down played at the Stood one night in 2008, and I’ve had certain tracks from We Brave Bee Stings and All stuck in my head ever since.
9. Yeah Yeah Yeahs, “Turn Into”
Every time I use the phrase “turn into,” it’s an allusion to this song.
10. Rilo Kiley, “A Better Son/Daughter”
A friend of mine reminded me about this song long after I chose the title for my book: a title that has been difficult to say aloud to strangers, as it’s a bit of a mouthful, and the meaning takes a minute to register. This song gave me a punchier title that I sometimes wish I could’ve used: “real good listener.”
11. SZA, “Snooze”
When writing about certain artists, I made it a rule to listen exclusively to their music, but I allowed myself an occasional palate cleanser. This song was my palate cleanser while writing about/listening to Frances Quinlan/Hop Along.
12. Mazzy Star, “Fade into You”
I’ve heard this song in many memorable places over time, but it will always take me back to one night in Key West.
13. Cardi B, “I Like It”
Likewise, this song will always take me back to one weekend in Provincetown.
14. Sade, “When Am I Going to Make a Living”
It’s a question that most of the people I know have had to ask themselves.
15. NICO TURNER, “LIGHTER”
I’m grateful to my friend Nico Turner for a lot, including the gift of this achingly beautiful song.
16. Alice Coltrane, “Jai Ramachandra”
This track on the 2021 reissue of Turiya Sings helped me embrace the bittersweetness of two breakups. I hope to write something about Alice Coltrane someday.