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 Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s collection Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus Is Alive! are eerily surreal and always hilarious.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“Lozada-Oliva shines in this scintillating collection of stories about young women navigating desperate situations . . . [She] effectively uses body horror and the uncanny to spotlight the monstrous forms her characters’ insecurities can take. Readers will be enthralled.”
In her own words, here is Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s Book Notes music playlist for her story collection Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus Is Alive!:
Let’s start with three songs that are about religion.
“It’s a Sin” by Petshop Boys
I think this is the kind of song that is impossible to dance off-beat to. Or maybe you can and you do, and if that’s the case, wow! You’re remarkable. I didn’t know that could happen but nobody will ever stop you, on the dance floor or in this life. This song, with its delicious beat and proclamations about all the sins of one’s life, is the vibe I want this collection with Jesus in the title to have. It’s for all of us sinners as we search for salvation, thrashing the blues out on the dance floor.
“Like a Prayer” by Madonna
Part of me wonders if we took for granted how salacious and insane this song was when it came out. Have you seen this video? Madonna looks hot as hell and she’s Jesus’s girlfriend. The song is about the holiness of making love and perhaps, if we are reading into lyrics, a blow job. I want this collection to show the holiness of our animalistic desires and relationships: romantic and familial.
“Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum
This is unlike the other songs because it’s earnestly excited about Jesus and Heaven. It’s also so groovy and fun and I like that. I like when we’re tricked into bopping and singing along to something that we don’t necessarily agree with. It’s like, damn. They got me. That’s also what this collection is about.
Now, a song for every story of the collection:
“Be My Baby” by the Ronettes – BEYOND ALL REASONABLE DOUBT, JESUS IS ALIVE!
This song is featured in the title story, but there was some question about whether or not I should mention it by name because of copyright reasons. It turns out I totally could’ve but still, I looked up the instruments involved to describe the song instead of calling it by name. While researching (going on Wikipedia) I saw that Brian Wilson had a lifelong obsession with the song, and even wrote “Don’t Worry Baby” in response to it. In “Beyond All Reasonable Doubt, Jesus is Alive!” Andy, an adrift dancer, finds herself spending the night with a very dangerous man. They put the Dirty Dancing soundtrack on the record player. This song has an eternal feeling to it. Like you could always be someone who’s never been kissed before. The pleading and the adolescent boom-clap. At the same time, there’s something a little sinister to it. As if it captured that innocent feeling and shut inside a metal box. Maybe feelings should get to grow up.
“NYC by Interpol” Pobrecito
The protagonist in this story is a lonely dude who’s resentful of his girlfriend, telling a horror story from childhood at a party. I just feel like he loves Interpol and works in tech. I say “feel like” because characters are people I visit, not people I invent. He’s angsty because he didn’t get to be an artist because, in his mind, he’s fixated on making money. Really, he just lacked the curiosity.
“Head over Heels” by Tears for Fears Heads
The story is called “Heads” because this girl keeps finding the heads of neighborhood pets in this post-apocalyptic world where there’s no police. This world is peaceful and better than the one we’re in right now, but still not right. In this world, there’s still bicycles, adolescence, and mystery., which brings to mind movies like Donnie Darko, where this song features prominently. I can hear it as Marisol cycles through her district, the wind blowing in her hair, danger at the edges of the woods.
“Age of Consent” by New Order – The Heiress
A character hears a New Order song on the Staten Island Ferry. This is the one.
“Touch the Sky” by Kanye West – Tails
God, I love this song despite the problematic person behind it and so does this character and her sentient tail.
“In Dreams” by Ray Orbison Dream Man
-This story is about a man who travels through dreams.
“Goin’ Against Your Mind” by Built to Spill – Something Loving
I tried soooo hard to get a line from this as my epigraph. It would’ve been “When I was a kid I saw a light/Flying high above the trees one night/thought it was an alien/turned out to be just god.” This story is about a girl trying to find her way through the world after her dad was maybe abducted by aliens. It’s also about the stretchy space of childhood, where you have to accept rules that you don’t understand. I think this song shows that.
“El Rey” by Vicente Fernandez – But I’m Still The King
In Guatemala, a young woman starts to wonder if her uncle is the devil. This story is a little spooky but it’s also full of jokes — jokes on the reader, jokes on the character. Jokes are the only way to remember you’re still here and that the darkness hasn’t over taking you. “El Rey” by Vicente Fernandez is a drunk’s song. The character of the song is a loser: he’s got no money, he’s got no lady, nobody understands what he’s saying, he’s most likely not allowed back inside his house because he’s wasted. Despite all this, he wails and proclaims, triumphantly, that he’s still the king. It’s a slightly existential song about accepting your circumstances, perhaps even being proud of them. Perhaps he’s fully in the darkness but the crown’s on his head.
“Fix You” by Coldplay Community Hole
This somber pop song, written for Gwenyth Paltrow by Chris Martin after her father died (I’m always haunted by her reaction to this. She said something like, ‘That’s really nice.’) was really important to a story about a cancelled musician hiding in a haunted punk house. Farah sings this song at her father’s funeral as an adolescent, but I like to think that it stays with her as she gets older. Like the rest of us, she’s trying to figure out what will fix her, what will save her, what will guide her home. I imagine, in a scene at the end, where she falls through the titular hole, that this song is playing.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Melissa Lozada-Oliva’s playlist for her novel Candelaria