In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
The stories in Hayden Casey’s collection Show Me Where the Hurt Is are surreal, compelling, and filled with surprises.
Tatiana Ryckman wrote of the book:
“Haunting, affecting, troubling, honest. These are the inevitable words of book jackets. But this is no hyperbole. Hayden Casey has written a masterful collection that hits every note. For an assortment of stories about people who don’t know where they belong—they hit awfully close to home.”
In his own words, here is Hayden Casey‘s Book Notes music playlist for his story collection Show Me Where the Hurt Is:
Back in my earliest days of serious writing, just shy of high school, music was a way for me to cancel out the distracting noise of the TV, when football or cable news was always on in the living room. Over time, it evolved into a way to hone in on and cultivate the precise vibe of a scene or character—historically, I’ve listened to ambient tracks with field recordings when writing outdoor scenes, and clubby songs when writing scenes occurring at clubs (and I’ve even been known to open up a session of Logic and throw some reverb effects on a song to make it sound like it’s actually playing in a large space. “Redbone playing from another room” vibes). But more often than not, it’s ambient/drone music, and the specific tones evoke certain moods in me that guide me closer to the emotional core of the moment.
I wrote the stories in Show Me Where the Hurt Is over nearly five years, which makes memory of those early writing days difficult; luckily, I took note of lots of pivotal writing songs along the way, which I’ve gathered below. (Also sometimes, the stories were quite literally born from song titles, which makes things easier.) There are thirteen stories in the collection; I’ve assembled thirteen songs here.
“Death with Dignity” by Sufjan Stevens
To kick us off, a joyful tune. (Kidding: there’ll be no joy here.) I write a lot about grief, as one of the many flavors of “hurt” in the book’s title, and I love Sufjan’s ability in this song (and many other songs) to weave so much wonder together: his stunning mythic imagery; his lump-in-the-throat vulnerability; his deceptively sprightly fingerpicking; and those beautiful melodic turns. Carrie & Lowell is my favorite album of all time, and really, this whole playlist could just be made up of its songs. It isn’t, but it could be.
“All I Want” by Joni Mitchell
Again, another artist I could pull twenty songs from—and I’m tempted!—but “All I Want” takes the cake. (Runner-up: “The Last Time I Saw Richard”; second runner-up: “Amelia.”) It’s served me really well in writing the upsides of longing—the rushes of feeling, the sunnier moments. It’s got a little melancholy to it, but it’s one of the brightest spots on Blue, relatively speaking. It makes me think of a sunny winding highway drive—“I am on a lonely road, and I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling . . .” It plops me right in the passenger seat.
“Pretty Things” by Big Thief
I love the album this song is on (Capacity) beyond compare—I borrowed (thieved?) “Pretty Things” as a title for one of the stories in this collection. It’s particularly understated as an album opener, leaving a lot of room for the lyrics to take center stage. Their ominous, sensuous tone lined up really well with what I was going for in the story—an increasingly unhinged, white-hot obsession—and I remember looping this and the careening “Shark Smile” as I started writing.
“Golden Hair” by Slowdive
This song—oh, this song. How many times and in how many different ways can I possibly say “This song sets my nerve endings on fire”? Not enough—apologies for redundancy. But this song, really. One of those cover songs that renders the original virtually unrecognizable, that an artist brings into their own world so completely you have to wonder how it didn’t start there. Those guitars that roll in like clouds. Those vocals: Rachel Goswell, be still my heart.
“Who Knows Where the Time Goes (Live at Philharmonic Hall)” by Nina Simone
I heard this version of the song before I knew the original Fairport Convention version existed—a very fun discovery years later! But I’ve always loved Nina’s voice; I’d listen to her sing anything. I turned to this song often while writing characters who were looking back on their pasts, as it has that sort of old-timey haze—and the little pick-it-up jam section at the end is so fun.
“Driving” by Grouper
Another song that evokes incredible wistfulness in me (it doesn’t help that the first line is “I am a child”). Musically simple, but it hits me in that very direct way. The aural cascade of harmonies on the “how much I love you” just past the halfway point is one of the most breathtaking moments I’ve ever experienced in music. I have fond memories of listening to this song on walks, on those rare gray Arizona days, while trying to solve plot or character problems.
“Murmurations” by Marcus Fischer
Loss is probably the most pivotal ambient album of my life—it really incited my investigation into and love for the genre. (An earlier novel of mine—which will never see the light of day, God willing—borrowed the titles of each of its seven parts from this album’s seven track titles.) Marcus is so, so good at evoking complex mood through sound collage and layering. This song is my favorite (and, again, a story in my book is named after it).
“Evergreen” by Ben Howard
Yet again, I borrowed the title of this song for one of my stories, and I remember listening to it (and “Time Is Dancing,” back to back) while writing it in early 2021. My story centers on the dissolution of a relationship as one of the partners falls in love with someone (or something) else, and I challenged myself to write it entirely in fragments—the 9-page story is made up of 15 quick scenes. This song was perfect to sink into while writing those brief moments; Ben Howard conjures such lovely, textured atmospheres around his gorgeous toplines on this album, and I really do think it led to more complex, textured prose.
“Many Nights” by Beach House
It was tough to pick just one song from this album, because it took over my life when it came out, but “Many Nights” has a very simple, sweet charm that I think applied to a lot of fictional scenarios—new love, lost love, looking back, looking forward. Very “Twin Peaks”–flavored.
“Shadow” by Chromatics
I typed “Twin Peaks” just now and immediately remembered the most Twin Peaks–y song of all time that fueled a ton of my creative work and absolutely needed to be here. Again, so musically simple, but the climb to that synth breakdown hits me where it hurts. We may not have ever gotten Dear Tommy, but at least we got this.
“Nebula” by Julianna Barwick
Another artist I could pull quite a bit from—I’m also very fond of her more widescreen choral moments on Nepenthe and The Magic Place—but “Nebula” has an eerie synth element that I remember tapping into while writing some of the book’s darker parts. There’s an old story of mine that didn’t make it into this book, for various reasons—“Look at Me Now,” you will not be forgotten!—but one of its more chaotic scenes was born from this song on loop.
“Headache” by Grouper
Toward the end of the playlist, but definitely, definitely not least: one of my favorite songs of all time. Maybe the #1. I literally wrote a story called “Headache” so I had an excuse to loop this while I wrote it, and immortalize a little nod to Grouper. I nearly got some of its lyrics tattooed—it still might happen someday. But this song always prostrates me emotionally; it’s served me well in tapping into the emotional soft center of many a story.
“re:stacks” by Bon Iver
Last up, a coda of sorts: another song that I find so emotionally rich and nuanced, I can apply it to pretty much any writing scenario, any sort of mood. I love this song musically: lots of very colorful chords, most of its phrases unresolved, so when we finally do get resolution at the end of the verse pattern, it feels warm and homey; JV’s typically abstruse lyrics that could mean pretty much anything under the sun if I look at them in different lights. One of those songs for me—like many here—that never, ever gets old.
Hayden Casey (he/him) is a writer and musician who lives and teaches in Phoenix, AZ. He holds an MFA in Fiction from Arizona State University. His short story collection, Show Me Where the Hurt Is, is forthcoming from Split/Lip Press in spring 2025. His short fiction has appeared in Witness, West Branch, Bat City Review, and elsewhere, and his long-form work has been shortlisted for the Dzanc Books Prize for Fiction and longlisted for the Palette Chapbook prize for poetry. Find him at haydencasey.co.