In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
The essays in Jodi M. Savagee’s collection The Death of a Jaybird powerfully explore Black American womanhood and family.
Booklist wrote of the book:
“Savage’s writing is honest, nuanced, and thoughtful as she shares her grief and eventual coming to understanding, forgiveness, and peace. In African American lore, a jaybird’s death is a sudden, unexpected, and brutal act; as reinterpreted by Savage’s grandmother, dying the death of a jaybird meant experiencing an ultimate, horrifically embarrassing episode. Savage deftly explores these extremes and other vicissitudes of life with wit and grace.”
In her own words, here is Jodi M. Savagee’s Book Notes music playlist for her essay collection The Death of a Jaybird:
The Death of a Jaybird is an essay collection about my relationships with my mother and grandmother through illness and death, exploring Black womanhood, Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer, caregiving, addiction, and maternal abandonment. It is about grief, what we inherit, and what remains in the aftermath of loss.
I usually write in silence or listen to lo-fi music. If I do listen to music with words, I play the same song on repeat so that I can focus. When I don’t need to concentrate as deeply, like when I’m typing my revision notes, I listen to songs with words. While writing The Death of a Jaybird, I listened to a lot of gospel music. Writing about illness and grief is emotionally demanding. Because I grew up in the church and sang in choirs for years, gospel music feels like home and a warm hug. The songs on this playlist include music I listened to while writing The Death of a Jaybird, as well as other music that reflects the mood and world of my book.
“Say Her Name (Hell You Talmbout)” – Janelle Monáe (featuring Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, Beyoncé, Alicia Keys, Chloe x Halle, Tierra Whack, Isis V, Zoë Kravitz, Brittany Howard, Asiahn, MJ Rodriguez, Jovian Zayne, Angela Rye, Nikole Hannah-Jones, Brittany Packet-Cunningham, and Alicia Garza)
“Say Her Name (Hell You Talmbout)” is a tribute to Black women and girls killed by police. On this nearly 18-minute track, Janelle Monáe, Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw (who coined and developed the theory of “intersectionality” and created the #SayHerName campaign), and other artists, scholars, and activists pay homage to these slain women and girls by chanting their names against the backdrop of drumbeats—women like Yvette Smith, Kyam Livingston, Shelly Frey, Eleanor Bumpurs, Kendra James, Korryn Gaines, Deborah Danner, Sandra Bland, and Breonna Taylor. This song is both a sacred chant of remembrance and an act of defiance against the erasure of these women’s lives and the circumstances of their deaths. “Yvette Smith, say her name / Yvette Smith, say her name / Yvette Smith, say her name / Yvette Smith, won’t you say her name / Say her name / Say her name / Say her name / Won’t you say her name.” “Say Her Name” is the perfect song to kick off this playlist because the first essay in The Death of a Jaybird, “What If: On Black Lives and Mental Health,” highlights stories of Black people with mental illness who were killed by police. Incorporating my and my grandmother’s experiences with the police during her Alzheimer’s journey, I know we do not have to die at the hands of police.
“A Song for Mama” – Boyz II Men
I fell in love with this song years ago when it was featured in the movie Soul Food. It’s such a beautiful rendering and appreciation of a mother’s love. It’s not uncommon to hear it sung at a homegoing service when the deceased is a mother. I think about my Granny, who raised me, whenever I hear this song. It opens with these lyrics: “You taught me everything / And everything you’ve given me / I always keep it inside / You’re the driving force in my life.” I couldn’t have said it better. “And no else can be / what you’ve been to me.” No, they cannot. Boyz II Men’s harmonies and the lyrics will have you rocking from side to side, thinking about your mother, grandmothers, and other maternal figures—the ones still here and the ones who’ve passed on. I am always completely undone by the end of the song: “Mama, I just want you to know, lovin’ you is like food to my soul . . . You are the food to my soul.” I double dare you to try listening to this song without crying.
“The Church I Grew Up In” – Tasha Cobbs Leonard
In “The Church I Grew Up In,” Leonard pays homage to the church she grew up in and its impact on her life. She sings about her childhood church’s rituals, the music, the people, and its sacredness. This song takes me back to the church of my own childhood. As Leonard sings, “If you wanna know where my history began / If you wanna know why I am the way I am / It’s the church I grew up in.” My upbringing in the Black church has influenced me in so many ways. I was raised in a Pentecostal church in Jamaica, Queens in NYC and attended Baptist churches when I visited my family in Florida. Not only was I raised in the church, but my grandmother was an evangelist and prophet, which meant she also preached at other churches. We spent so much time in church that it felt like a full-time job. In my essay “Searching for Salvation at Antioch,” I talk about my complicated relationship with the Black church. I haven’t been to church in years, but the church doesn’t leave you. The church gave me my love of gospel music, my expert tambourine playing skills, and my deep respect for many of its rituals, such as homegoing services and foot-washing after communion. The church also gave me my belief in healing and faith in the unseen. As Leonard sings, “You couldn’t tell me / There wasn’t healing in those walls / You couldn’t tell me / Angels didn’t walk those halls.”
“Church Girl” – Beyoncé
Whenever this song comes on, I can’t help but get up and start twerking! “Church Girl” is about dualities—embracing our faith and role as a church girl while also living life on our own terms. It’s about women breaking out of boxes others have put us in and letting go of expectations and judgement. “Church girls acting loose / Bad girls acting snotty / Let it go girl / Let it out girl.” While growing up in the Pentecostal church, there were so many rules that restricted women and girls—covering our heads while in church, no makeup, no fingernail polish, no braids, no pants, no skirts with splits, no earrings or other jewelry, and no dancing or moving your body in ways that suggest you enjoy or are comfortable in your body. Beyoncé reminds us to inhabit our bodies when she sings, “I ain’t tryna hurt nobody / Trying to bring life up in your body.” In college, I started questioning my faith and whether my feminism was consistent with the church’s rules and culture. I had to sift through my experiences and all I’d been taught. I had to decide what I would keep, what I would leave, and what I would create in the void. Beyoncé offers us a powerful and validating reminder about embracing our agency: “I’m gonna love on me / Nobody can judge me / but me / I was born free.”
“His Eye Is on the Sparrow” – Keke Wyatt
As I write in the essay “How to Attend a Black Funeral,” music is an important part of Black funerals. “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”is commonly sung at Black funerals, also called homegoings or homegoing services. As soon as the singer belts out the first words, “Why should I feel discouraged,” the audience erupts in “Hallelujah” and “Yes, Lord” and “Glory!” It’s a song of comfort and encouragement. It opens with these lyrics: “Why should I feel discouraged? / Why should the shadows come? / Why should my heart be lonely / And long for heaven and home?” It is an expression of faith that, just as God protects a creature as small as the sparrow, He also protects us. “His eye is on the sparrow / And I know He watches me.” Wyatt’s a cappella rendition allows you to feel all the meaning and power of this song. She brings the house down!
“Fall Into My Arms” – Ngaiire
I first heard this song on an episode of the TV show Queen Sugar. When we think of caregiving, we often talk about the labor performed by the caregiver. But Ngaiire reminds us that caring for others requires the person receiving care to know that it’s safe for them to be vulnerable and to ask for help: “When it seemed impossible / That you could just be this low / When ya, when ya feel you just wanna leave this world / When no words can suffice to say what you feel inside / I’ll be right here but you decide, yeah you decide when you wanna / Fall into my arms.” Throughout The Death of a Jaybird, including the essay “I’m Not a Slut in the Street,” which explores medical racism and mental illness, I talk about my experience caring for Granny after she developed Alzheimer’s disease. When she experienced hallucinations, my goal wasn’t to convince her that what she was seeing wasn’t real. Instead, I needed to make her feel safe. I had to encourage her to “fall into my arms.” “Fall Into My Arms” reminds us how powerful it is to let someone know you are a soft place for them to land; how affirming it is to just be present and bear witness.
“Grandma’s Hands” – Bill Withers
“Grandma’s Hands” is a tribute to Withers’ grandmother. In the song, he recalls his favorite memories of her hands and how she showed love with her hands. Memories like: “Grandma’s hands / Clapped in church on Sunday morning / Grandma’s hands / Played a tambourine so well” and “Grandma’s hands / Used to hand me a piece of candy / Grandma’s hands / Picked me up each time I fell.” During a concert on May 11, 1974, as a prelude to “Grandma’s Hands,” Withers said, “Most of us, at some point in our lives, have somebody that means more to us than anybody else has ever meant before or will ever mean again.” Like Withers, that “somebody” is my grandmother. In the essay “A Laying On of Hands,” I discuss various types of touch and uses of hands, such as nurturing and the rituals of prayer and healing. Similar to Withers, my grandmother’s hands hold powerful memories—how hot they felt on my forehead as she prayed for me; how she’d pat my back whenever she hugged me; how fast her hands moved across the page when she “wrote in the spirit;” the way she balled up her fists and pumped them through the air to the beat of whatever song she was singing in church. Like Withers, “If I get to heaven, I’ll look for Grandma’s hands.”
“I Won’t Complain” – Reverend Paul Jones
This song is about being grateful to God for the blessings bestowed on us, despite life’s challenges and heartbreaks. It’s been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Someone sings “I Won’t Complain” at almost every homegoing service I attend. The combination of the organist’s improvisations, the audience’s rapturous energy, and the solemn occasion make me tear up whenever I hear the lyrics, “He dried all of my tears away / Turned my midnights into day / So I’ll just say thank you Lord.” But this song is particularly special because my mother sang it to me on the telephone several weeks before she passed away. As I recount in “I’m Too Pretty to Die Tonight,” an essay about our relationship and simultaneous breast cancer journeys during the last six months of her life, she was too tired to talk so I asked her to sing. In her beautiful soprano voice, she graced me with the opening verse: “I’ve had some good days / I’ve had some hills to climb / I’ve had some weary days / And some sleepless nights / But when I look around / And I think things over / All of my good days / Outweigh my bad days / I won’t complain.” We were hundreds of miles away from each other, she in Florida and I in New York, but distance disappeared and time stopped in that moment. “I Won’t Complain” acknowledges life’s trials, while also expressing gratitude for past blessings and faith that things will get better.
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” – Barbara Hendricks (from the Ave Maria album)
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” is an African American spiritual that dates back to slavery. Hendricks’ clear soprano voice in this a cappella rendition embodies the despair our enslaved ancestors felt, comparing their feelings to the common and forced practice of a child being separated from their mother. “Sometimes I feel like a motherless child / Sometimes I feel like a motherless child / Sometimes I feel like a motherless child / A long way from home / A long way from my home.” The essays “Running Out of Time” and “The Ties That Bind” explore my estranged relationship with my mother and my family’s legacy of maternal abandonment. My grandmother, mother, and I spent a lifetime trying to escape feeling like a motherless child. After the loss of my mother and grandmother, I am truly a motherless child. “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” captures this pain so well.
“Bag Lady” – Erykah Badu
Badu’s voice may be sweet like honey, but her message hit me in the gut. “Bag Lady” is a reminder that holding onto more than we need is an expensive endeavor that slows us down, preventing us from fully living: “Bag lady, you gon’ miss your bus / You can’t hurry up ‘cause you got too much stuff.” In the essay “The Things She Left Behind,” I write about my struggle with hoarding and letting go of my grandmother’s belongings after she passed away. Her things represented memories but were also a physical representation of her—a monument to her existence. Badu understands the struggle: “Girl, I know sometimes it’s hard / And we can’t let go.” As I work to let go of physical and emotional baggage, Badu drops this gem: “I guess nobody ever told you / All you must hold on to / Is you, is you, is you.”
“Count on Me” – Whitney Houston and CeCe Winans (from the Waiting to Exhale soundtrack)
I first heard “Count on Me” in the movie Waiting to Exhale. Like the movie, “Count on Me” celebrates women’s friendship and friends being there for each other during hard times. The song opens with gospel singer CeCe Winans and the late Whitney Houston singing, “Count on me through thick and thin / A friendship that will never end / When you are weak, I will be strong / Helping you to carry on.” My friends have been my rock during some of my biggest challenges. In the essay “Some Useful Advice for Going to Meet Your Dead Loved One and Other Tragedies,” I write about how my friendships with other women sustained me during my breast cancer, caregiving, and grief journeys after the deaths of my grandmother and mother. Because I’d been a caregiver since I was a child, I was hyperindependent and found it difficult to ask for help. Winans and Houston remind us that we shouldn’t be afraid to ask our friends for support: “Call on me, I will be there / Don’t be afraid / Please believe me when I say / Count on me.” What Winans and Houston say is true: “With good friends, you’re not alone.” Go listen to this song and give thanks for the wonderful friends in your life. This song is also great for a group karaoke performance!
Jodi M. Savage’s essays have appeared in The Massachusetts Review, The Offing, Oprah Daily, HuffPost, Kweli Journal, Women’s Studies Quarterly, and other publications. Jodi is a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee. Her essays have also been nominated for Best of the Net and listed as a notable essay in The Best American Essays 2019. She obtained her MFA in creative nonfiction from New York University, where she was a Goldwater Fellow. The Death of a Jaybird is her first book.