In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Josh Denslow‘s collection Magic Can’t Save Us is filled with stories as surreal as they are imaginatively told.
Sequoia Nagamatsu wrote of the book:
“With the fabulist hand of Aimee Bender and Karen Russell and the humor and irreverence of Steve Almond, Denslow masterfully juggles crumbling relationships and beings of myth in a whirlwind of awkward silences, deceit, and failure to love. Whether these broken characters seek out magic or if magic seeks them, Denslow has proven himself to be a master of holding the unreal to our imperfect hearts, proving that no magic is ever enough to deliver happiness. A tragic, humorous, and wonderfully magical collection from a writer that you should be watching.”
In his own words, here is Josh Denslow‘s Book Notes music playlist for his story collection Magic Can’t Save Us:
Is soundtracker a word? Because I want to use it to describe myself, and I have decided to disregard that my Word program is underlining it in red.
Soundtracker: Someone who feels compelled to add curated music to every moment in life.
I am a soundtracker. My life is full of music and so are my memories. I can remember a song playing in a restaurant twenty years ago because it meshed perfectly with what was going on at the time. I spend my days deciding which album is best for this train ride or this walk to the store or this time spent writing about music for Largehearted Boy.
When you buy my new collection MAGIC CAN’T SAVE US (which hopefully you have either done already or are doing now at Bookshop.org, or even better, you can listen to this soundtrack as you travel to your favorite local bookstore), you will discover that music doesn’t play a large role. Instead the book is full of crumbling relationships and the mythical creatures who somehow make everything even worse.
The music happened behind the scenes when every time I sat down to write a story, I thought long and hard (sometimes for more time than I would eventually spend writing) to find the perfect song to fit the mood of that day and that story. The perfect flow.
As any good soundtracker would do, I have created a playlist, one song for each story, that gives you an aural introduction to my collection. And I have also provided a little bit of context for each song that dives a bit deeper into the themes of the collection, and hopefully, into the mind of a relentless soundtracker.
Magic Can’t Save Us: 18 tales of likely failure
Tea Tea Tea (Ensemb7e Version) – Chapelier Fou (Tale #1: Keening)
Chapelier Fou is an electronic artist who I know nearly nothing about, and I think it’s better that way. The music is mysterious and fun. Here an ensemble reimagines this song with string instruments and percussion, and I think it serves as a great introduction to MAGIC CAN’T SAVE US which takes classical mythological creatures and remixes what you expect. The first tale, Keening, introduces us to a man who is followed every moment of his life by a banshee who predicts his death every morning, and how that sort of makes it hard to get involved in a lasting relationship.
Diablo – ROSALÍA (Tale #2: Bingo)
ROSALÍA has one of the most beautiful voices I ever heard. She kicks off this song with a high, almost ethereal pitch, that creates tension and gives no hints about what is to come. Which I think mimics the world we are thrust into in this tale. Two people meet for the first time while the world plummets into chaos around them. Then one of them is almost eaten.
Checkpoints – billy woods (Tale #3: Infinite Possibilities Outside the Screen)
billy woods is my favorite rapper so I knew he was going to be included. But I found this song and this tale to be a perfect match. In the story, a man is unraveling as his girlfriend spends her days in meetings with someone who the narrator thinks may be a centaur. Thus making him feel a lot less worthy of his girlfriend. This song gels because it’s a little rough around the edges, just like our narrator. The beat feels slow, there’s this laser gun sound effect that goes on a little too long, but it magically comes together into something that really resonates. It sneaks up on you.
Shaolin Mantis – Marina Herlop (Tale #4: Silence)
The Catalonian singer Marina Herlop sounds like she’s from some mystical realm. She’s a perfect match here because the magical element in the story is a little behind the scenes. When our narrator is invited to meet his girlfriend’s parents, he finds out a secret about her father that makes him question reality. It’s unnerving not to know what’s going on, and this song recreates that feeling.
OnOffOn – Los Sara Fontan (Tale #5: Where the Magic Is)
This song starts with quiet hushed strings, almost ambient, but when the drums come in, it’s like the hooves of multiple unicorns coming to reclaim a fallen brother. Spoiler!
La Grande Cascade – René Aubry (Tale #6: Therapy)
The main character in this story feels himself carried along by a relationship that maybe isn’t working anymore. Things get a little out of hand when he agrees to a therapy session led by a poltergeist therapist haunting a suburban house. I like the way this song picks you up and carries you along with it.
Trash Trucks – Graham Reynolds (Tale #7: Remants)
In this story, a man discovers that Bigfoot has been knocking over his trash cans every week to find the things that his girlfriend has discarded. Because, of course, Bigfoot is still in love with her. This song was created for a dance performed by literal trash trucks by the incomparable Graham Reynolds, and it has all the crunchy brass instruments you would expect to accompany clattering cans.
Grace – IDLES (Tale #8: Waves)
In Waves, the narrator is preparing to ask his girlfriend to marry him, but he doesn’t feel ready. There’s a buried sadness, and even anger, in his decision to go to the beach and scream loudly into the waves. Then a mermaid shows up and puts everything in perspective. IDLES normally have a more aggressive vibe, but I love the restraint in this song, which perfectly mimics the tone of this story.
Broken Man – St. Vincent (Tale #9: The Lie)
The narrator in this story lets a lie he told to his girlfriend about his ability to have children continue to rule him even after a water sprite appears and tries to get him back on track. This song by St. Vincent toys with big resolutions, and is a lot of fun along the way.
Crocodile – Amiina (Tale #10: Classified)
A sense of mystery pervades this story. Why has the girl who the narrator broke up with two weeks prior invited him to a weekend at her home? And why does that shadow in the upstairs window have horns? And in the end, can the narrator find a way through an actual labyrinth? Amiina are the perfect purveyors of the mysterious, and all their songs have room for a minotaur.
The One I Love – Blonde Redhead (Tale #11: Luck)
Blonde Redhead have perfected moody pop songs, and this one is nearly hushed. I love it as an accompaniment to a story where the narrator is wondering what his ex-girlfriend might be doing now, and what she would say about this dead leprechaun his dog found in the back garden.
Zeitgeist – Maruja (Tale #12: Court of Common Pleas)
This song is falling apart in the best way possible. A near cacophony of emotions that follow our hapless narrator as he tries to talk his way past a dragon to apologize to his family for making the worst decision of his life. Throughout, he struggles to think of himself as good, and just maybe, he’s not.
Life Is – Jessica Pratt (Tale #13: Rescue Mission)
A harpy yanks the narrator’s girlfriend out through their front window and takes her back to the harpy den. But since they were about to break up, the narrator spends the story wondering if she would want him to rescue her, even as he goes about all the motions of a proper rescue mission. Jessica Pratt’s music feels timeless, as if it could have been created any time within the last few decades, and it nails the vibe of a lowkey rescue mission perfectly.
In My Wires – Other Half (Tale #14: Ache)
The narrator in Ache has been severely hung up on the tooth fairy since childhood. So imagine how thrilled he is when the chance to see her again appears after his son loses his first tooth. But convincing his wife this is a good idea leads to one of the more angsty stories in the collection, and Other Half provide a great soundtrack with their angular guitars and half-shouted vocals.
Always a Stranger – Tindersticks (Tale #15: Blurry)
A couple climbs down to a deserted beach, neither clear if the relationship will continue after this moment. But through the mist they see what may be the Loch Ness Monster, and each of their interpretations reveals the gulf between them. Tindersticks never disappoint when it comes to contemplative songs, and the fact that this one is called Always a Stranger was too much to pass up.
Do Not Disturb – Anna Butterss (Tale #16: Going Peacefully)
For me, this is the most unsettling story in the collection, and bass player Anna Butterss delivers with Do Not Disturb. There’s a dead mother, a coveted child’s outfit, and a relationship that feels strained due to a long undiscussed decision on whether or not to have children.
A Faint New World – envy (Tale #17: Loss)
With a driving beat and shredded vocals, envy introduce us to a narrator with secret divorce paperwork who discovers his daughter is writing a story about a Chupacabra who tries to masquerade as a human. Upon realizing that the story is based on him, the narrator tries to reconcile what went wrong in his relationship as a ravenous animal begins eating raw meat on their back porch.
Johnny and Mary – Robert Palmer (Tale #18: The End)
Recommended by my wife as the perfect end credits song to this collection, I couldn’t agree more. It’s upbeat, but in that way that still sounds sad. And since we are at the end of the collection, the last story is appropriately called The End, and it deals with a world that any of these narrators could find themselves in. A world in which they are the only person left with only their regrets to keep them company.
Final thought: My son has informed me that I need to thank you for reading and listening, and I need to add an additional big thanks if you decide to pick up MAGIC CAN’T SAVE US. He sat with me as I wrote this playlist, and I hope you enjoy it as much as he did!
also at Largehearted Boy:
Josh Denslow’s playlist for his story collection Not Everyone Is Special
Josh Denslow is the author of Not Everyone Is Special (7.13 Books), Super Normal (Stillhouse Press), and the upcoming collection Magic Can’t Save Us (UNO Press). His most recent short stories have appeared in Electric Literature’s The Commuter, The Rumpus, and Okay Donkey, among others. He is the Email Marketing Manager for Bookshop.org, and he has read and edited for SmokeLong Quarterly for over a decade. He currently lives in Barcelona with his family.