In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Deanne Stillman’s book Twentynine Palms remains powerful and prescient on the 25th anniversary of its publication.
Bookreporter wrote of the book:
“Stillman manages to stray from the cliches and super-emotions of most real-life murder tales. In doing so, she crafts an indelibly poignant story about the whys and wherefores of war and how it truly affects us at home.”
In her own words, here is Deanne Stillman’s Book Notes music playlist for her book Twentynine Palms:
I like to think that I wrote Twentynine Palms: A True Story of Murder, Marines, and the Mojave because of my love of the desert and my urge to tell stories of castaways. It’s about two girls who were killed by a Marine after the Gulf War in Twentynine Palms, California. As I discovered, they both had family legacies of poverty and violence that stretched back for decades, in one case to the Donner Party and the other to a shack in the Philippines. And they shared an inevitable arrival in the Mojave near the world’s largest Marine base, where service jobs are plentiful and many a beleaguered single mom can eke out a living. My book is now having its 25th anniversary, and as I think about it once more, the two things that led me to write it weren’t the only reason for doing so. I love loud music in desert bars, especially on a jukebox, and throughout the ’90s, which was when I worked on this book, such establishments were plentiful. Plus driving to Twentynine Palms from LA afforded yet more time for this kind of listening. If you remember KNAC, the metal station, you know what I’m talking about. If not, see my NY Times coverage. I generally listened until it faded into Christian advice shows, although sometimes Ephesians had its appeal, depending on who was reciting it. And then there were CDs, if you remember those.
So first of all, that leads me to…
“I Can’t Drive 55,” written and recorded by Sammy Hagar in 1984 to protest the nationwide speed limit of 55, apparently after he got a speeding ticket on the way to Lake Placid, New York. It’s on his VOA album and became a monster hit when he joined Van Halen a year later, replacing David Lee Roth, and the band began performing it at shows. This is the chorus – “Go on and write me up for 125/Post my face, wanted dead or alive/Take my license, all that jive/I can’t drive 55, oh no, uh” – and if you’ve never been flying off the freeway while blasting that screamer, I just don’t know what to tell you.
And that leads me to…
“You Really Got Me,” another Van Halen hit, this one released in 1978, and sung by David Lee Roth. It was a cover of the eponymous Kinks hit, already a classic written by Ray Davies, but here put through a heavy rock blender and amped up by Eddie Van Halen’s signature guitar riffs. It’s another song that makes you wanna put pedal to the metal and, well, not drive 55 as you uncork the afterburner and head for who knows where in the desert.
Other mandatory road songs included “Burnin’ for You” and “(Don’t Fear) the Reaper,” both by Blue Oyster Cult. The second has overtaken the first in terms of catchiness and recognition, due to the uproarious SNL sketch in which Christopher Walken plays producer Bruce Dickinson, who keeps demanding that the band add “more cowbell” to its recording of Reaper, and Will Ferrell played a fictional bandmember who bangs on the bell. As Vulture Magazine put it, this became the Mount Rushmore of sketches, to the degree that Christopher Walken later said it ruined his life because every time he walked into a room from then on (the year 2000), everyone would call out “More cowbell.” But the song was released in 1976 and I was already saying “more Reaper” as I headed east into the desert and into the story that I was writing. Incidentally, the song is a Romeo and Juliet tale, with a chorus that tells you Shakespeare rocks:
Come on, baby
(And she had no fear) And she ran to him
(Then they started to fly) They looked backward and said goodbye
(She had become like they are) She had taken his hand
(She had become like they are) Come on, baby
(Don’t fear the Reaper)
My behind-the-wheel soundtrack also included – and still does – pretty much anything by Dick Dale, “king of the surf guitar,” especially “Nitro,” which lives up to its billing and is an explosion of molecule-busting sounds that kind of echo whatever the desert – or ocean – is sending. His music mimics the sound of gigantic waves breaking, cracks open invisible Mojave portals. As it happened, he lived in Twentynine Palms and raised Arabian horses, and in fact was of Lebanese descent. I once visited him at his sprawling ranch, and he spoke of the influence of Middle Eastern folk music on his own. We talked for hours; his verbal riffs were long like what he played on his guitar. I wrote about his repertoire in the NY Times.
Once in Twentynine Palms, the jukebox at the Oasis was overflowing with desert treasure. There was “Dirty White Boy” by Foreigner, which not only rocked hard and heavy but had a refrain that characterized cowboys and outlaws, not unlike some of the men I knew and also some who were involved in the story I was writing:
I’ve been in trouble since I don’t know when
I’m in trouble now and I know somehow I’ll find trouble again
I’m a loner, but I’m never alone
Every night I get one step closer to the danger zone
In that vein, there was also “Turn the Page” by Bob Seger, later covered by Metallica. Not sure which one I like better; the original by Seger is perhaps more engaging as it’s one guy singing about hitting the road after a gig – Here I am, on the road again/There I am, up on the stage/There I go playin’ the star again/There I go, turn the page – and the anguish is apparent, though it certainly applies to any guy fleeing his past or current obligations, remaining front and center as he disappears. The Metallica version of course amps up the saga and it’s not for nothing that it’s on their Garage Inc cover anthology. I remember a couple of guys in town who would punch this repeatedly on the jukebox and sing along as they downed another shot, then headed into the night.
Which leads me to…
George Thorogood and “One Bourbon, One Shot, One Beer” and “I Drink Alone.” Both are tributes to the drinking life – and what that means – and both are bar classics. There are a lot of beverages under the bridge in these songs, especially “I Drink Alone” with its lines “me and my good Buddy Weiser” and “Yeah, the other night I laid sleeping/
And I woke from a terrible dream/So I caught up my pal Jack Daniel’s/And his partner Jimmy Beam.” Thorogood is so embedded in our culture that while working on my book Desert Reckoning, also set in the Mojave (this time, north of LA), I remember walking into a convenience store one day and hearing a woman’s ringtone going off; it was “I Drink Alone.” All I could do was raise an imaginary glass and give her a toast. Bar culture is lol, let’s face it.
Speaking of Twentynine Palms (the town), there’s a Robert Plant song called “Twentynine Palms” and it’s beautiful and haunting and I’d say you can dance to it, but you can’t. You can however drive to it, but that doesn’t quite work. Best to just sit down and just listen. He released this in 1993 on his Fate of Nations album. It’s about a love affair with, well, someone he was said to have been involved with at the time (several names have been put forth, and sounds like another musician, as per this chorus), but like any love song, the exact name of the other person doesn’t matter, because there’s a lot going on here:
It comes kinda hard
When I hear your voice on the radio
(When I hear your voice on the radio)
Taking me back down the road that leads back to you
Oh, oh, oh
29 Palms
I feel the heat of your desert heart
(Feel the heat of your desert heart)
Taking me back down the road that leads back to you
And finally, there’s this. I couldn’t listen to it at the time I was writing Twentynine Palms, because it wasn’t written yet. It’s a song that the great singer-songwriter Tony Gilkyson (X, Dave Alvin, Lone Justice, and his own repertoire) and I wrote, based on my book. It’s called “Mirage,” about two girls fantasizing about getting out of town and heading for the ocean – water! Thanks to Tony, it’s a breathtaking song and has gone way beyond anything I imagined. Here it is, from one of his gigs a few years ago, performed with another great singer-songwriter, Rick Shea, who is also on the recording. Please take a moment to listen.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Deanne Stillman’s playlist for her book “American Confidential”
Deanne Stillman’s previous books include American Confidential (see playlist here), Blood Brothers, which was named a “best of the year” in the millions and True West Magazine and was excerpted in Newsweek, for which she listened to pow-wow music and cowboy songs, and the same goes for her book Mustang, with hard rock and heavy metal and surf music part of the mix. Her book Desert Reckoning opens with the lyrics from “Renegade” by Styx, and they drive this story about a 21st century manhunt; the book is based on a Rolling Stone article and won the Spur and LA Press Club Awards.