August Thompson’s novel Anyone’s Ghost is a brilliant debut, an indelible coming-of-age love story.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“[A] dirtbag Call Me by Your Name . . . Revealing the power of the first flush of romantic and erotic connection . . . A brash and well-turned coming-of-age tale.”
In his own words, here is August Thompson’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel Anyone’s Ghost:
Anyone’s Ghost is very much a book about how the soundtrack of one’s life influences, and is influenced by, love. The main characters are, for much of the book, very young people, and as a once-very young person, I felt it was important to capture that feeling of being defined by one’s taste. For me, the kind of music I loved was long a personality marker.
I made several playlists when writing the book. Some were drone-y, some meant to evoke a specific feeling in a scene, and this one, which features songs highlighted in the book itself or music I felt embodied the different, diegetic music playing in the background of scenes.
Because I have a tremendous amount of time, and because I have spent much of my life trying to make order out of the universe through making playlists, the playlist below reflects the order of the book, which is cut into 3 parts.
1) Escape by Metallica
Metallica is my favorite band and has been since I was thirteen. Escape has the lyric that I view as the guiding principle for the novel: “Life’s for my own to live my own way,” which I was lucky to have as an epigraph. This is kind of the opening credits, if you will, and, in my mind, sets the tone for what the first third of the book is: gritty, sludgy, yet melodic and filled with angst and yearning.
2) The Passenger by Iggy Pop
I know it’s in the title, but this song really captures what it’s like to be in the passenger seat. I love how laidback it is with a ferocity buried underneath—the Iggy Pop special. The perfect windows-down, driving in summer song.
3) The Writ by Black Sabbath
Very plainly a headbanger. This is one of Sabbath’s most triumphant songs—just everything you want from the band. Long, shifting, writhing, with Ozzy’s vocals just slaying. An absolutely killer drop in. One of those songs I could listen to on repeat, at max volume, for hours without realizing, killing off the last of my good hearing.
4) Sophomore Slump or Comeback of the Year by Fall Out Boy
When I turned thirty, I threw a Fall Out Boy themed party. The concept was that I was finally becoming a Fall Out Man. I don’t know if it worked, but few bands capture the feelings that have haunted me so perfectly since my adolescence. If you’re too cool for early Fall Out Boy, you are denying yourself one of life’s great pleasures: singing as loud as you can to some good-old-fashioned emo/pop. Sophomore Slump has some of the best FOB lyrics, “‘Cause I swear I’d burn the city down to show you the light.” Wasn’t that what being young and in love felt like?
5) Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide by David Bowie
David Bowie is one of the artists I look up to most. So ardently himself. So gorgeous and talented. So varied. This song perfectly captures the death drive that many sensitive types have: smoke that cigarette, stay out a little longer, live a little fuller. And, god, doesn’t he just say what we all want to hear? “Oh no love, you’re not alone.”
6) Over My Head (Single Version) by Fleetwood Mac
I’m not a picky person when it comes to certain renditions of great songs, and I’ve never been a person who buys the eight-CD version of a record with every single demo version of songs I love. But sometimes it’s good to be particular. There’s something about this version of Fleetwood Mac’s song—one of their many, many classics—that is perfectly attuned to being lost and not really caring. It’s an end of summer feeling to me.
7) (This Is) The Dream of Evan and Chan by Dntel
I probably listened to The Postal Service more than anyone else while writing this book. This song was the genesis of The Postal Service and its scuzzy, tragic sound is so perfectly early 2000s. It’s a song I turn to most often in grief, but also one I write to very easily (a therapist would have a field day with that connection.) It’s a bittersweet track and marks the end of part 1 of the book.
8) Hit The Lights by Metallica
Kill ‘Em All was my intro to Metallica and this song is just a relentless head-bash of perfect riffs, indulgent drums, and scream-along lyrics. Part 2 of the book is, coincidentally, called Hit The Lights and takes place in a Manhattan blackout during Hurricane Sandy. The song, and the section of the book, feel as if they’re very much on the verge of the loss of control. Only forward motion is keeping things alive. Only the present is free from consequence.
9) Nothing Better by The Postal Service
The ultimate break up song? A fantasy of rebuilding, of reclaiming, a dream of recapturing something gone. With some absolutely beautiful lyrics and vocals. There are songs that feel like they are outside of time itself, that let you leave the narrative of your life for a few minutes. This is one of my favorites.
10) No Tomorrow by Chief Keef
I find this song very hypnotic. The beat is masterful and Keef’s rapping is, as always, a kind of alluring and beguiling thing of beauty. He’s one of the most influential artists of our timie, even if most people don’t realize it. Like all of the songs on this record—his debut album, Finally Rich—there’s a sense of undeniable urgency. A fatalism that feels earned and produces something singular.
11) Should I by Rich Gang/ Young Thug
Some complicated mixtape-to-streaming legalese will have you believe this song is either by Rich Homie Quan or his super-group team up with Young Thug, Rich Gang. But this song is pure Young Thug and is, in my opinion, one of the greatest records ever made. Achingly strange, fun, and deeply melancholic, right before it turns back to an irrefutable confidence and power. If you’re not listening to Young Thug, you’re missing out on our generation’s David Bowie.
12) The Other Shoe by Fucked Up
There’s a scene in the novel set at a concert by a band based on Fucked Up where things get beautiful and messy, as all concerts should facilitate. This song is from Fucked Up’s concept album, David Comes To Life, which tells a winding love story as well as any novel. A cannon shot to the chest.
13) Close To You by Frank Ocean
God, if only I’d had a Frank Ocean when I was a teenager. Blonde is a north star for me on how to write about sexuality, sensuality, thrill, longing, pain—all of it. I listened to it over and over as I wrote, trying to tap into even 1% of Frank’s powers. I could’ve put the whole album on this playlist, but that felt like cheating.
14) Die Fun by Kacey Musgraves
The perfect lament to youth. Another ode to holding on just a little bit longer to the freedom of being young. Kacey Musgraves is, I think, a person who understands the importance of pleasure and indulgence—god bless her for that. “Let’s put a little more in your glass, walk around and spend all of our cash.”
15) Anyone’s Ghost by The National
Well, this one was a given, wasn’t it? I stole this title from the band and assumed I’d think of a better one. The more I wrote, the more I edited, the more I told people about the novel, the clearer it became that it was the perfect title. As I worked on the book, I thought a lot about ownership and its relationship to grief. How much of a person do we own once they’re gone? Is every love story a ghost story, even when it doesn’t end in death? Few songs are so haunting and so beautiful. Thank you to The National for saving me a lot of hard work. This marks the start of Part 3 of the book.
16) Badfish by Sublime
OK, I get made fun about this a lot, but I’m just going to say it: Sublime fucking rocks! And this song is a good day at the beach while you know everything else is a mess. Driving down a long boulevard with your friends, chain-smoking, everyone a little buzzed except the very responsible driver, knowing that there might be some darkness to face when you get home. A reprieve.
17) Nothing Else Matters by Metallica
Elton John recently praised this as one of the most beautiful songs ever written. James Hetfield, lead singer of Metallica, proceeded to tear up. I think that kind of says it all. Masculinity, that awful, mutated thing, showing in different forms, rendered to tears by something so beautiful, so vulnerable.
18) Lemonworld by The National
In a perfect world, I’d be able to write, and publish, a novel called Lemonworld. Unfortunately, it’s not a great title on the shelf. But the song itself is perfect: a ghost world unto itself. I don’t think The National’s drummer touches the snare once on this entire song and the result is phantasmic. This was another loop-it-til-you-lose-your-mind songs I played as I wrote.
19) Jolene by Ray Lamongtagne
This song plays at the end of the movie The Town, and the first time I saw it I burst out laughing because I thought it was such a corny and insane way to end a movie. I then started a bit where I would play the song at the end of any of my favorite movies to see if it worked. But then, as is so often true, irony became sincerity, and I fell deeply in love with the song. The song itself reminds me of Denis Johnson and Gus Van Sant—two artists of immense grit and power.
20) Orion by Metallica
My favorite song. The greatest song ever written. An eight and a half minute instrumental odyssey that moves through heart-stomping thrash to transcendent, symphonic beauty featuring some absolutely god-tier bass playing by the much-missed Cliff Burton. I’ve seen Metallica five times in my life and only at this most recent show, on my birthday eve, where lightning was striking above the ocean ahead of me, did they play it. I cried like a baby. The coda to this book, to these boys’ lives, to the experience of writing it, to years of my life.
August Thompson was born and raised in the middle of nowhere, New Hampshire. He studied in New York and Berlin, wasted all of his good hearing at metal shows, taught English in Spain for two years, and spent another two on couches across three continents. He returned to New York as a Goldwater Fellow at NYU’s Creative Writing Program. Anyone’s Ghost is his first novel.