In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Alicia Jo Rabins’s When We’re Born We Forget Everything is a magnificently engaging memoir of spirituality, feminism, and queerness.
Matthew Gavin Frank wrote of the book:
“Raucous, entertaining, and always authentic, When We’re Born We Forget Everything filters the pilgrimage narrative through a punk aesthetic, and what emerges on the other side gloriously upends the received strictures and obligations of that which we’ve deemed ‘holy,’ and uncovers along the way a beguiling treatise on love. Throughout, When We’re Born We Forget Everything had me plotzing with joy.”
In her own words, here is Alicia Jo Rabins’s Book Notes music playlist for her memoir When We’re Born We Forget Everything:
When We’re Born We Forget Everything is primarily a spiritual memoir (of the feminist Jewish variety) but it’s also a musical coming-of-age story, since I’m a musician as well as a writer. Music is woven throughout the book, as it is woven through my life; I started off playing classical violin, then fell in love with fiddle music, indie rock, and songwriting, and have been combining those ever since. As an artist, no matter what form I’m working in, I’m generally most interested in vulnerability, rawness, emotion.What happens when we combine serious practice and craft with those elementally uncomfortable and transformative parts of the human experience? Music, I think, is the purest example of this. I’m just endlessly moved by the power of human expression, whether it’s a poem, a story, a string quartet or a single human voice whose rough edges haven’t been smoothed off. In this playlist I’ll gratefully collect some of the tracks in various genres that inspire me with their unapologetic, straightforward emotionality. They’re not particularly obscure, but they mean a lot to me; all of these are touchstones I listened to repeatedly during the writing of this book as a reminder to go deep, be honest, and (even in the tenth revision) let it be raw, personal, and real.
“Spiegel im Spiegel” by Arvo Part
This piece, by the Estonian composer Arvo Part, is my desert island music. I just don’t think I’ve ever heard a more beautiful piece of music. It’s used in a lot of films because it has the quality of bringing a sacred attention to what is happening while it plays, whether in one’s own life (like the cafe where I am typing this as the sun sets in Portland) or whatever’s onscreen in a movie. It captures the poignancy of being alive. Listening to this helps me from a craft perspective, too; the slow tempo reminds me to make bold creative decisions and stick with them; the repetitive structure reminds me of the power of simplicity.
“Goldberg Variations” by J.S. Bach (played by Glenn Gould)
I consider counterpoint, the art of creating musical “conversations” between different voices in a composition, a musical expression of the spiritual practice of holding opposite truths at the same time. Multiple voices interact, overlapping, sometimes speaking at the same time, and weaving something greater in their collaboration. My brain gets some sort of intense dopamine from counterpoint, the tension and resolution and ongoing complexity of it, and the Goldberg Variations are a prime example of this. I love both of the recordings Glenn Gould made of this piece: the one in 1956, which launched his career with his joyful, high-octane performance, and the one from 1981, shortly before his death, an incredibly slow and meditative rendition of the same piece. That in itself is a lesson in the way that art can accompany us through our lives. I love to write about ancient myths and how they intersect with contemporary life (retellings of Biblical women’s stories are woven through my memoir) and I think the act of interpreting a composition, or a folksong, is part of that same human process: receiving the treasure, speaking it in our own voices, and then passing it on.
“Sail Away Ladies” (trad) – John L. “Uncle Bunt” Stevens
This is one of the recordings that made me fall in love with fiddle music, and a tune I still play today. I love this recording, which was clearly collected in the field. It’s a banger! His boot stomping on the ground is the perfect drum, and the open string drones give a slightly eerie tonality to the otherwise simple tune. I love the way it whips itself a little faster as it goes on. I love the accessibility of old-time fiddle music and the way it reliably makes people smile and shimmy, even if it’s the first time they’ve heard it (I’ve played it in a lot of different countries!). In my writing, I’m often trying to thread the needle between complexity and accessibility, and coming back to fiddle tunes keeps me grounded in the simple joy of notes arranged in time, words on a page. Nothing fancy, per se, but it doesn’t get that kind of groove without many, many hours of practice, and that’s what makes it so good. (Also, I write about busking in the book, and I definitely played this tune many, many times on the street!)
“Baym Rebns Sude” by Alicia Svigals
In my memoir, I write about buying this album at a music store in downtown Northampton, MA in 2005, and beginning to fall in love with klezmer music. I ended up taking a couple lessons from Alicia Svigals, this violinist, and she ended up getting me a gig that changed my life….so this album is both in the book, and something I listened to while writing the book. In klezmer music, they say, the violin laughs and cries at the same time. I’m in awe of the power of the ornamentation in the way Svigals plays. It’s so evocative. When I think about “tone” in writing, I think about this piece and how it builds a world without any words. It’s not about what’s happening, it’s about the vibe, the approach, the flavor, the presence of that voice and the way it cries and laughs.
“Pretty Bird” by Hazel Dickens
Oh my goodness, I love the way Hazel Dickens sings. The little dips and leans in her phrasing, the directness, the way she plays with her vocal break when she jumps up to the high notes. Every single note is so pure and authentic. It perfectly matches the simplicity and directness of the lyrics, with their slightly ominous sense that something is threatening the beloved pretty bird, which seems to be a young woman–the danger, hope and possibility of being young, and the hard-earned wisdom of the speaker/singer of these words. The fact that she sings this unaccompanied makes it feel like a poem to me, with so much space and silence around the single notes.
“Martha” by Tom Waits
I’ve been listening to this song for decades and when I’m feeling particularly vulnerable, it still makes me cry. I love the slightly out of tune piano, the unabashed sentimentality of the ballad, and of course Tom Waits’ voice, which, while it will get much rougher and edgier from this point on, is already fairly unvarnished in its beauty, occasionally opening up into vibrato. The storytelling of this song feels like a high-wire act, coming so close to cheesiness but never crossing the line. It’s a short-story-song; you get a strong sense that it’s not really Tom Waits singing to someone named Martha, but a beautiful, classic tale. I draw on this song for the combination of intimacy and craft, the way he jumps back and forth in time, the ending image from the past. It’s a perfect ballad.
“Into My Arms” by Nick Cave
Here’s another perfect ballad, in my opinion. I love the wryness and the combination of humor, irony, and sincerity; this song begins with a profession of atheism, or something close to it, in the face of a beloved’s faith, and by the first chorus, it’s basically praying to that exact force the “speaker” doesn’t believe in. I love how it’s structured around counterfactuals, sort of a prayerful thought experiment inspired by love. As with so many of the songs on this playlist, there are very few chords, and none of them are fancy, but the combination feels perfect. This song is also intimately related to the subject of my book: spiritual seeking, the doubt and passion and certainty and complexity and paradoxical nature of it. I feel lucky that I got to see Nick Cave perform this song live last year when he came through Portland on tour!
“Steep Hills of Vicodin Tears” by A Winged Victory for the Sullen
This is in the Spiegel im Spiegel corner of my world – a track that brings me into an awareness of the sacred, calms me, snaps me out of drudgery, and reminds me that pleasure exists (sometimes I forget!) I listen to this on repeat while revising to remind me about simple beauty, set the bar high for what I would dream someone might feel like when reading my work. It has a way of transforming everything around it, I find, and it inspires me. (I do have to be careful that writing to this type of music doesn’t trick me into thinking my words are making the beauty I’m hearing, when it’s really the soundtrack, so I always reread it later without music just in case.)
“Sisters of Mercy” – Leonard Cohen
I’m always interested in how the sacred intersects with the body, and there’s a decent amount of sex in my memoir, which makes me think of Leonard Cohen. It’s not in the book, but I remember a particular boyfriend in 10th grade (at art camp) who taught me the meaning of erogenous zone, as in, I literally had never heard that word and he physically taught me what it meant while this song played in the background. Ha! The relationship with the boyfriend didn’t last, but the relationship with Leonard Cohen did; he’s my favorite songwriter. I love that his voice is not a trained instrument – it’s moderated, it’s slightly ironic, it’s often very pleasing, but it’s also quite earnest in its directness. And I love how he brings complexity to the simplest love songs, like the way he ends this one: “We weren’t lovers like that, and besides it would still be all right.” It’s an expansive view of love, of human relationships, of holding loosely, and sort of looking at the world with a sideways grin. Reassurance, humor, sensuality, spirituality, affection, liberation, all in one song.
“Sweet Lil’ Duck” – Kathleen Edwards
Kathleen Edwards’ voice is one of my very favorites. This is one of those tracks that feels like a B-side, not the radio friendly hit on the album, but the one I return to over and over. It’s another touchstone for me about simplicity, the power of slowness, taking the risk of diving fully into a particular mood or vibe without worrying about whether it’s “too much”. The piano is slightly out of tune, sometimes the harmony gets louder than the melody, and to my ears that just makes it more beautiful.
“Jim’s Room” Nina Nastasia
The way Nina Nastasia uses her voice is a tremendous inspiration; it’s so direct, almost guileless, and it moves me deeply. I want to write the way she sings, and I return to her over and over again, trying to learn from her how to write and sing from my own center. I love the mystery and darkness of this song, the inscrutability of the lyrics, the subtle surprise of the structure, and the unusual arrangements: overlaid string harmonics and sort of deconstructed percussion sounds. And then there are the implied stories of relationships in her songs: not as literal as the ballads I wrote about above, but more impressionistic, poetic, leaving a lot of space for imagination but still sparking very specific associations for me. I feel I’ve learned so much from listening to Nina Nastasia, I almost feel shy thinking about the intimacy of her albums.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Alicia Jo Rabins’ playlist for her poetry collection Fruit Geode
Diana Spechler interviews Alicia Jo Rabins of Girls in Trouble
Sana Krasikov interviews Alicia Jo Rabins of Girls in Trouble
ALICIA JO RABINS is an award-winning writer, musician, and Jewish educator. She is the author of Divinity School (winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize) and Fruit Geode (finalist for the National Jewish Book Award), and the creator of Girls in Trouble, a feminist indie-folk song cycle about biblical women. Her feature film A Kaddish for Bernie Madoff was called “a blessing” by The Atlantic. Rabins holds an MFA in poetry and an MA in Jewish women’s studies. She tours internationally as a performer and teacher.