Ever since I can recall, music has been at the center of my world; I don’t think I’d be able to make anything—not to mention get through life—without it. Faced with the beautiful yet daunting invitation to create this playlist, I had to come up with some kind of organizing principle, to make the task more feasible. In Judaism, a boy celebrates his bar mitzvah at thirteen—the number of chapters in my debut novel Mazeltov. I decided, then, to pick a song for every chapter (and an extra one for next year, as we say in Hebrew on birthdays).
- “The Man I Love,” Sophie Tucker (1928)
In the first chapter, the protagonist, Adam, goes on a nightly walk in the woods with Eleanor, a girl from his scout camp. They don’t really know each other, but they bond around a shared, throbbing sense of longing. I can’t think of a song that captures more poignantly the bittersweetness of their relationship. I discovered it through Pina Bausch’s dance piece Nelken (1982), documented in Chantal Akerman’s bewitching film One Day Pina Asked… (1983).
- “Tilted,” Christine and the Queens (2015)
“But I’m actually good / Can’t help it if we’re tilted,” sings the French electronic pop star Rahim Redcar in this beautiful celebration of our shared weirdness. It might as well have been sung by Adam’s father, Yishai, who, in this chapter, takes his son on an impromptu, biblically inflected trip. Adam and Yishai are, indeed, both tilted (aren’t we all?), although they don’t quite know it yet about each other. Give them a few years.
- “Cha Cha Gitano,” Yma Sumac (1954)
The novel’s third chapter is a love letter to theater kids, which this song by the groundbreaking Peruvian singer and composer weirdly feels like. I first heard Sumac’s music in Elia Suleiman’s Chronicle of a Disappearance (1996). “Cha Cha Gitano” has a rhythm and a joyfulness to it that make me want to dance all night. Like the best of school plays, including the one Adam finds himself in, it is bizarre, over-the-top, and chaotic.
- “Me & Mr Jones,” Amy Winehouse (2006)
My encounter with Winehouse’s music as a kid was life-changing; I remember thinking to myself, “So this is what chutzpah actually means.” She was herself, fully and fabulously—messy, unapologetic, glorious, and proudly Jewish. Abbie, Adam’s best friend and this chapter’s central consciousness, similarly finds in Amy a model of transgression. Sadly, “Me & Mr Jones” doesn’t tend to get much love—it’s often overshadowed by hits like “Valerie” and “Rehab”—but it’s one of my all-time favorites.
- “L’appuntamento,” Ornella Vanoni (1970)
This songrevolves around the leadup to a “strange” date (the eponymous “appuntamento”), but to me, what it’s actually about is rootlessness. This feeling also haunts Mémé, Adam’s Italian grandmother, who leads the book’s fifth chapter. Vanoni, a diva whose voice has captivated Italy since the fifties, is also an actor. Even though she’s somewhat older than Mémé, I wouldn’t be opposed to the idea of her playing the part if Mazeltov becomes a film.
- “Partida,” Carmela and Paco Ibáñez (1960)
Sarah, Adam’s mother and the central figure in this chapter, is undergoing a meltdown—as is Carmela, who laments her parting from her lover. The title of the Hebrew cover of this song is even more appropriate: “I Will Go Crazy.” A more obvious choice for this chapter would be David Bowie’s “Changes” (1971), which literally plays in Sarah’s mind. But what “Partida” beautifully encapsulates is the texture of her consciousness: fuzzy, warm, all-over-the-place, and wild.
- “Naari Shuva Elay,” Margalit Tzan’ani (1986)
The seventh chapter introduces us to Daddy, the outlandish DJ at Adam’s bar mitzvah. This is a classic Israeli party song; it’s so iconic that I had to use it in the short film version of Mazeltov. Tzan’ani, whose music fuses soul, jazz, and her Yemenite roots, is a veteran of Israeli music and somewhat of a queer icon. “Naari Shuva Elay,” in which a woman pines for her long-gone lover, is her breakout hit.
- “Friling,” Chava Alberstein (1994)
This stunning ballad, titled “Spring” in Yiddish, was written by Shmerke Kaczerginski in 1943, following the death of his wife Barbara in the Vilna ghetto. Its tango melody, composed by fellow inmate Avrom Brudno, makes the despair that animates it all the more poignant. The circumstances in Mazeltov, of course, are completely different. Yet, like the speaker in “Friling,” Yishai, who narrates this chapter, is in search of something lost that can never be retrieved.
- “Kedeish Kan Fe Nas,” Fairuz (1973)
Fairuz, a Lebanese vocalist and one of the most celebrated singers in the Arab world, is very popular in Israel. This song is my favorite by her. It’s set at an unnamed crossroad, where a crowd of people are waiting for others in the rain, but none of them is waiting for the speaker. In the book’s ninth chapter, Ben, Adam’s closeted cousin, is similarly standing outside the banquet hall, full of loneliness and yearning. - “Just in Time,” Nina Simone (1968)
Nina Simone is my perpetual Top Artist on Spotify Wrapped; it almost feels like her music is the soundtrack to my life. There’s no shortage of masterpieces in her repertoire, yet this one feels particularly fitting for the book’s tenth chapter, which revolves around an unlikely encounter. The song is infinitely more romantic than the chapter. Nevertheless, the notion they express is similar: nothing can be more life-affirming than a moment of connection, however fleeting.
- “Symphony No. 6 in B Minor, Op. 74 ‘Pathétique’ – I. Adagio – Allegro non troppo,” New York Philharmonic (1987)
Every time I listen to this symphony, I try to challenge myself to do so without tearing up. This recording is a true meeting of titans: composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and conductor Leonard Bernstein. The former called this piece “the best thing I ever composed or shall compose.” Critics have described it as “a musical suicide note.” To me, it’s an emotional rollercoaster which, like the poem in this chapter, veers between hope and heartbreak.
- “We’ll Meet Again,” Vera Lynn (1939)
I picked this song at the risk of being overliteral, as the book’s twelfth and penultimate chapter depicts a re-encounter. But this one is simply too good not to be included, a wartime “anthem of hope through the ages.” I don’t want to say too much about this chapter, so readers can experience it firsthand, if they wish. All I’ll say is that I hope the characters it features actually “meet again some sunny day.”
- “Something’s Coming,” Barbra Streisand (1985)
And finally, another confluence of geniuses: Babs (vocals), Bernstein once again (this time, music), and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics). Like its predecessor on this playlist, this song brims with hope and passion. But there is also, I believe, a good dose of uncertainty, expressed by the recurring, elongated question, “Who knows?” This is where we leave Adam as he stands behind the curtain, filled with anticipation and desire as he finally faces the brokenness of life.
- Bonus track: “Letting Go,” Angie McMahon (2023)
McMahon’s gig was the first I went to at the Glastonbury Festival last summer—and the one that moved me most (I will forever be grateful to my dear friend Gemma who dragged me to it soon after we set up camp). If there is such a thing as true coming of age, the mantra Macmahon repeats in her spellbinding chorus might be one of its greatest lessons: “It’s okay, it’s okay / Make mistakes, makes mistakes.”