In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Matthew Pitt’s novel Tear Here is an engaging tale of outsiders and music, fame and fallout.
Dylan Landis wrote of the book:
“In this ecstatic and burning novel, Matthew Pitt guides us into the serrated world of a Milwaukee cult band where a charismatic drummer holds her musicians in lethal thrall. A master of shattering detail, plying sentences sharp as concertina wire, Pitt plumbs familial yearnings and the creative urge—and delivers up explosive truths”
In his own words, here is Matthew Pitt’s Book Notes music playlist for his debut novel Tear Here:
The sonic quirk started in St. Louis, in my early teens. As the act of stringing sentences together moved beyond pleasure into something earnest, even sacred, it became harder to write without music, whether the songs spun on a turntable, spooled through a tape deck, or rotated around a five-disc CD player. My long-suffering sibling will attest to how rarely her older brother “neighbor” remembered to slip on headphones.
At some point, I started only feeling sure about a project’s progress and groove once it had a groove; after I found the right music to score it. The discovery is often attained in rhythm, but melody, lyrics, tone and genre can also be determining factors. One piece required Stax label releases, while the setting of another leaned into 1970s AM radio. True story about my fiction: I didn’t listen to (or really even enjoy) Jimi Hendrix until a character announced his undying obsession on the page. I bought a box set that week.
My quirk was never on fuller display than while writing Tear Here. Since the novel centers on one band, Some Assault, it’s easy to imagine one style prevails. But in fact their sound shifts as the roster swells, and nosedives into darker terrain, riskier choices. For my entry into the joyous, expansive crate that is Largehearted Boy, I’m offering an official playlist, one I sent in CD form to thank early readers for their critical eyes. The songs are divided into specific phases of the band. For each phase, I’ve singled out a couple tracks to offer sonic context and contours about the mini-eras.
Slacker Phase
Includes: “Street People” (Bobby Charles); “Buddy” (The Lemonheads); “A Common Disaster” (Cowboy Junkies); “Holdin’ On” (The Clean); “Deus” (The Sugarcubes)
Representative Songs: “Street People” and “Holdin’ On”
Some Assault’s initial ambitions rarely rise above acquiring their next hit, high, or gig. The members flail, musical gifts eclipsed by tenuous family and fiscal situations, and a high proclivity for self-sabotage. I first heard of Bobby Charles thanks to working with Oxford American—“Street People” my first taste, included in their acclaimed, annual Music Issue. An obvious playlist opener, it kicks off with a solitary hi-hat, and Some Assault’s drummer, Liddy, definitely drives this narrative. In the opening verse, Charles’s muddy aims are clear as day: “I got a job in a nursery / but they just didn’t like what I grow. / They called the man and they ran me off / and said, ‘Now don’t come back no more.’” “Path” is a dirty four-letter word in this early phase of Some Assault; to stretch out for a goal or dream only leaves you exposed. This group already feels laid low, dismissed by the public. Why let society land a free sucker punch?
Speaking of leadoff tracks, “Holdin’ On” opens the album Getaway, by The Clean. This group hailed from Dunedin, the New Zealand equivalent of Athens, Georgia. My love affair with Kiwi music began with Crowded House, then expanded in short order to The Chills, The Clean, and dozens of other acts. Other playlist tracks offer minimal lyrics, but this is its lone instrumental. The song rides a wave both shambolic and starry-eyed. Listening in, I imagine Some Assault noodling along in bliss, then drifting into a sublime progression. One they understand they really, really ought to chronicle—but that means having to walk all the way to the next room to corral a pen and four-track. So maybe, just skip it?
Bridge lyric to the band’s next phase:
“Deus” by The Sugarcubes gestures to the troubled empire Some Assault will build, even if they’re laying the foundation with batches of pebbles: “To create a universe / you must taste the forbidden fruit.” That line comprises 15 syllables, but my fictional lead singer, T’Pure, shares Bjork’s ability to scat and stretch it into 50.
Joyous Misfit Phase
Includes: “After Hours” (The Velvet Underground); “Time to Pretend” (MGMT); “Heavy Metal Drummer” (Wilco); “Blown a Wish” (My Bloody Valentine); “Next to Normal” (Lucius)
Representative Songs: “Time to Pretend” and “Next to Normal”
Not far into Tear Here, Some Assault loses their algebra teacher: the only “grownup” whose presence wasn’t merely tolerated by the band, but cherished. When Charles Shales meets them, his health is already in deep decline. Despite this, he invests his last energy on these ne’er-do-wells, caring enough to scream at them. The days after his loss ought to be dour, but an ebullience sweeps over Some Assault. They’ve been dared, sparked. Led by Liddy (who faces her own health jeopardies), they expand their vision and enlist new members. The new recruits also suffer shortages of confidence and short-circuited home lives. In Liddy’s judgment—one made by many charismatics and guru figures—the desperate make the best disciples.
In short, the survival crouch shifts to brash chest-thumping. While MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” mocks rocker attitudes and lifestyles, they make the case with such propulsive elation, cycling through rock ‘n roll tropes and declarations (“I’ll move to Paris, shoot some heroin, fuck with the stars / You man the island, and the cocaine, and the elegant cars.”), you have to squint hard to snag the satire. Besides, if fame is ordained, does any Option B even exist (“Get jobs in offices and wake up for the morning commute”)?
Some Assault isn’t just building a bigger band. They’re populating their island with invited guests, every bit as driven and misaligned with the mainstream as the original crew. They claim squatter rights at a donut shop abandoned after a major crime; new tenants whose only currency is creative flexing and matching attitudes. This conviction is central to “Next to Normal” a Lucius track that marries disco glam with fuzz guitar, soaring on harmonies that sound blissful, and more than a bit haunted: “When I’m close to you, I’m next to normal / I feel immortal, I’m high without the paranoia.”
Bridge lyric to the band’s next phase:
On My Bloody Valentine’s “Blown a Wish”, Bilinda Butcher sings of a new runaway romance with such dreamy wooziness, it’s easy to overlook the last verse’s dark turn—a roadmap of where Some Assault’s early, unswerving devotion will lead: “Fall apart my beating heart, nothing left to do / Once in love, I’ll be the death of you.”
Intensive Labor Phase
Includes: “Work” (John Cale & Lou Reed); “The Room Got Heavy” (Yo La Tengo); “Pills” (St. Vincent)
Representative Songs: “Work” and “Pills”
Some Assault may hit purpose, stride, and prime. But they never hit pause. Their fixation creates a vast volume of songs. Stock and myth soaring, they move out of the donut shop, and purchase a tract of farmland to raise their own food and livestock. This land abuts a shuttered women’s prison that they convert into a massive recording studio. I imagined Andy Warhol’s Factory in the upper Midwest, crossing wires with compounds gone wrong in Waco, Guyana, or the Manson Family’s sequestered, Death Valley H.Q. at Barker Ranch. My band dubs their compound The Hive. In sonic homage to Warhol’s Factory and Some Assault’s unceasing labor, my Tear Here track list includes “Work” from Songs for ‘Drella, an album made after John Cale and Lou Reed buried their Velvet Underground bad blood long enough (and reportedly, not one hour longer) to record 15 tracks charting the life and recent loss of Warhol, their friend and former impresario. A record industry player named Stir stakes his claim to Some Assault, making a move to ride their wake and encourage their edge, as Warhol did for the VU. Andy’s forecast of a time when “everyone will be famous for 15 minutes” reverberated during my writing. The book’s revision dovetailed with the rise of viral posts and videos. This validated Andy’s prediction in part, but made me wonder if the quarter-hour figure would be a wild overestimate.
Some Assault wonders too. So they refuse to assess and savor. Their teacher’s voice stands on their collective shoulder, admonishing them for so much as tapping the snooze button. Some Assault has swapped carefree dime bags for the litany of pills St. Vincent pops off on in her song from Masseduction. Each swallow takes a toll, sure. But pills are a conduit for the band to remain active and relevant (“From the chains to the reins to the vein to the brain…”). So down the hatch they go. The catalog of counselors St. Vincent describes seeking matches my band’s, too: “From healers to dealers and then back again / From guru to voodoo and voodoo to Zen”.
Unhinged Emotion Phase
Includes: “Creature Comfort” (Arcade Fire); “Killing Him” (Amy LaVere); “Hold On, Hold On” (Neko Case); “Johnny Feelgood” (Liz Phair); “Young Lover” (St. Vincent)
Representative Songs: “Creature Comfort”, “Hold On, Hold On” and “Killing Him”
My inner group of St. Louis pals made short films. Lots of them. Many of us wound up in L.A. after college. After I relocated to New York, one pal flew me back to SoCal, to cameo in his final MFA film. His shooting location was a closed correctional facility for women (one infamous former inmate was a member of the Manson Family; her confession to a cellmate gave rise to the cult leader’s arrest). I had no novel in mind then, even an idea for one. But my small part offered plenty of time to tour corridors and cells. Turns out I was scouting the same location. It took upwards of a decade to connect it, but centering Tear Here in a setting mingling creativity with surveillance landed for me. Many elements are drawn from the real prison—unremoved graffiti on laundry machines, for instance, or a catwalk above the dining area where armed guards patrolled at chowtime.
Not long after my novel sprouted, Amy LaVere’s “Killing Him” came on my radar. I love the canny way her song reimagines Appalachian murder ballads by keeping the fiddles, but reversing gender. The narrator’s been done wrong by her beau. It’s nothing a blade can’t make right, but now, sealed up “in this 8 by 8 room”, she must admit: “Killing him didn’t make the love go away.” She’s left “blowing kisses through the concrete sky”. Oversized emotions churn through my characters: love, lust, envy. The members can’t stop guzzling, though this hardly slakes the thirst.
Neko Case also buries the typical country ballad with “Hold On, Hold On”. There’s intensity in the song’s brevity, and power in hearing structure fly off its axis. The track’s unrepentant tone also strikes a chord. The intoxication I feel for it is no different than scenes I cherish in fiction: experiencing them leaves me initially dizzy, and then, drums up the same giddy imbalance if I reread the passage minutes later. I could listen to this tune twenty times straight, and not love the last play any less.
Same goes for Arcade Fire’s “Creature Comfort”. I was many drafts deep into the book, chronicling the steady creep of violence and despair filling The Hive corridors, when I found this revelatory song. For my roster of the damaged and desperate, a burning to be famous doesn’t necessarily contradict a drive to burn to cinder. Hive members are plagued by doubt, impostor syndrome, and suicidal ideation. They grapple with this turbulence as they “stand in the mirror and wait for the feedback. / Saying, ‘God make me famous. / If you can’t, just make it painless.’”
Paranoiac Phase
Includes: “Highly Suspicious” (My Morning Jacket); “So Paranoid” (The Warlocks); “Scarecrow” (Beck); “Lost in Place” (Gram Rabbit); “Laminated Cat” (Loose Fur)
Representative Songs: “Lost in Place” and “Laminated Cat”
The drive compelling Some Assault to remain in spotlight illuminates members—and leaves them exposed and exhausted. This shows in fraying songs and thoughts. They come out for third encores, but ought to be icing wrists and fingertips in green rooms. Tear Here’s 24 chapters speak to a day’s hours. While a lot of bee imagery and social habits float through the pages, it’s the brief life story of Mayflies that mirrored my musician. One member acknowledges his shelf life is near expiration, but insists the band “will be the best of what I leave behind.” This provokes a smoldering rebuke from a once-meek member: “Jesus, do we really crave the world’s gaze that much? That we have…zero discretion on what we’ll do to hold that gaze?”
Fear in The Hive is reflected in the playlist. Does MMJ have a weirder tune than “Highly Suspicious”? The Warlocks’ track doesn’t end so much as it empties. “Laminated Cat” is a stowaway that didn’t quite get a seat on Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (retitled from “Not for the Season”). Reincarnated with supergroup Loose Fur, Jeff Tweedy recounts a year spent in wary isolation: “Springtime comes and the leaves are back on the trees again / Snipers are harder to see my friends.” Then there’s Gram Rabbit, a Joshua Tree-based band whose entire debut, Music to Start a Cult To, conjures the trippy menace I explore in Tear Here. When Gram’s vocalist Jesika von Rabbit—who first hailed from Some Assault’s home of Wisconsin—provides both sides of an edgy dialogue on “Lost in Place”, it’s as if she’s sung Some Assault towards a last, hard sunset: “Open your eyes (Make me) / It’s no surprise (Shake me) / Why are we here (Nowhere)? This is my life (I’m scared).”
Matthew Pitt is the author of the novella The Be-Everything! Brothers and two collections of short fiction: These Are Our Demands and Attention Please Now. Individual works appear in Cincinnati Review, Conjunctions, EPOCH, Michigan Quarterly Review, New Letters, Oxford American, Story, and The Southern Review. Raised in St. Louis, he now operates out of Fort Worth, where he is an associate professor of English at Texas Christian University.