In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Deb Olin Unferth’s Earth 7 is a novel profound, funny, and life-affirming. Unferth’s estimable storytelling skills shine in this necessary work of climate fiction.
Kirkus wrote of the book:
“Unferth’s prodigious worldbuilding unfolds magically. . . . Profound, funny, alarming, and imbued with love and sorrow for our lost world. . . . [A] masterpiece of climate fiction.”
In her own words, here is Deb Olin Unferth’s Book Notes music playlist for her novel Earth 7:
I listened to a lot of goofy anthems as I wrote this book. I was going for retro in the way going to outer space feels a bit retro to me, even as it makes a comeback in the public imagination, for better or worse. In my father’s time, outer space felt like the next frontier for a species that thought of itself as invincible and capable of forever expanding. Now, the renewed interest in outer space feels to me less like we want to soar off on a quest in our new shiny vehicle, and more like we broke the vehicle we have and need to find a new one, which as a bit of a desperate vibe to me. So as I imagined writing this book, I went for comfort listens, feel-good familiar songs, that, when listened to closely, revealed an underlayer of death, destruction, loss. Apocalypse songs.
Free to Be… Me and You (music by Stephen J. Lawrence, lyrics by Bruce Hart)
I grew up with this album. I was three years old when it was released. My parents must have bought it since I don’t remember it ever not being with me. It had one of those bright primary-colored album covers that suggested it was for children, but adults liked it too. It’s strange to read on Wikipedia now that the concept of the album was to encourage “gender neutrality.” I remember as a child thinking that despite how playful and joyful the song was, the lyrics cast a heavy shadow.
There’s a land that I see where the children are free
And I say it ain’t far to this land from where we are.
As a child, I understood the words to mean that I was not free and I likely never would be, but I could still imagine freedom, and that might be some consolation. When I was writing Earth 7, about an apocalyptic future, this song came to me.
Lay My Love (Brian Eno)
I’ve loved Brian Eno for decades, but this song is maybe my favorite of his. Another end-of-the-world vision: a plaintive, almost toneless chant calling out over a simple beat and the smallest line of melody: “I scramble in the dust of a failing nation.” But it ends with a promise that even in the darkness, there will be something beautiful: “I will lay my love around you.”
I Will Always Love You (Dolly Parton)
As crazy as it sounds, I imagined humans singing this song to planet Earth as they left, went pinging off in spaceships and on microchips. I imagined the Earth as a piece of burnt coal, after all humans had done to it, and humans excusing themselves with, “If I stay, I would only be in your way.” I prefer the Dolly Parton version of this song for this book—her version has a note of insouciance and lightness as she tells this man she is leaving for good.
All Kinds of Time (Fountains of Wayne)
Another countdown song: “The clock’s running down, the team’s losing ground…” The story of the song takes place in a few seconds of a football game. As the ball leaves a set of hands, soars over the heads of players, and toward the quarterback, who stands ready to catch it. He daydreams as he waits for it to arrive. The crowds around him are cheering and going wild. It feels like time has paused while the quarterback waits patiently and takes stock of his past and future, the quiet melody contrasting with the energy of the moment, the screaming fans, the other players running toward him. I think I was looking for songs that helped me slow time or speed it up in dramatic narrative ways. But what I also wanted were funny songs: deadly serious, but also a little ridiculous, songs about how every experience is both small and giant.
Waters of March (Art Garfunkel)
Final retro song. I heard this at the end of a Joachim Trier movie and I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten it, it was so perfect. If Fountains of Wayne slowed time down, Garfunkel was speeding it up, carrying me through the process of death becoming life, rebirth. The song is a list piece, a string of nouns, each rooting me to Earth, reminding me of why I call it home.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Deb Olin Unferth’s playlist for her story collection Wait Till You See Me Dance
Deb Olin Unferth’s playlist for her novel Vacation
Deb Olin Unferth is the author of seven books, including Earth 7, Barn 8 and Wait Till You See Me Dance. She has received a Guggenheim Fellowship and four Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist. Her work has appeared in Granta, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, and The Paris Review.