In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Hanif Abdurraqib, Andrew Sean Greer, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Nephi Craig’s memoir Our Knives Will Save Us brilliantly melds his own history and the culinary heritage of First Nations people.
Booklist wrote of the book:
“Our Knives Will Save Us shines with Craig’s admiration for Native people as he carves out a place for himself in the world of haute cuisine without sacrificing his connection with his heritage and community.”
In his own words, here is Nephi Craig’s Book Notes music playlist for his memoir Our Knives Will Save Us:
Songs of Survivance
Song: Can It Be All So Simple|
Artist: Wu-Tang Clan
Album: Enter the Wu-Tang 36 Chambers
This song paints a vivid picture and back in 1994, I could relate to wanting more from life and dreaming about how to get it. This song reminds me of riding my skateboard in search of freedom, identity, power and purpose as a lost young kid.
Song: Liquid Swords|
Artist: The GZA
Album: Liquid Swords
The opening of the song reminded me of my late father Vincent Craig, him being a famous singer/songwriter and how my dad fought oppression through his music, humor and how I watched him growing up. I identified then, and now, with the lyric, “I’m on a mission that ppl say is impossible, but when I swing my swords, they all choppable!” The entire song is a classic and it empowered me during all my best and worst moments in my journey to sobriety.
Song: Under The Bridge
Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Album: Blood Sugar Sex Magic
This song is the anthem of my youth. It came out the hear we moved from Apache land to Navajo land. I remember all of us young Apache kids would sing the chorus when it came on the radio or someone blasted it on a boombox. My home, my Rez, my family is “take me to the place I love, take me all the way, I don’t ever want to feel like I did that day.” Still a favorite song and matches many moments of returning home to find safety in sobriety.
Song: Heaven and Hell
Artist: Raekwon the Chef
Album: Only Built for a Cuban Linx
This song has been inspirational at every moment of my life. I often say that for indigenous peoples, the world ended once. We live on the other side of the apocalypse. This song articulates the hope and despair of this post-apocalyptic indigenous reality. From a recovery standpoint it also reminds me to “create heaven” in the here and now, because there is no guarantee that there is anything after this. This song brings me hope.
Song: Burn Out
Artist: Get Dead
Album: Bad News
To me the lyrics, “We’re all tangled up in the barbed wire, out of bullets, out of time. The rain was horrendous, the locusts and the fire”, describe what the last days of active addiction felt like for me just before entering recovery. I found Get Dead in 2024 and Codefendants in 2025, and I mention singer Sam King in my acknowledgements.
Song: Venice Queen
Artist: Red Hot Chili Peppers
Album: Stadium Arcadium
This is one of my favorite driving songs for both me and my oldest son. In almost all my travels in the book, this song was playing in a car, stereo, on a phone and in my earphones. From the long drives across Arizona and the American southwest, it brings vivid memories of Washington State and the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Here’s a huge shout out to PNW, Seattle & PDX!
Song: Angel’s Wings
Artist: Social Distortion
Album: Sex, Love, and Rock & Roll
Social Distortion has long been a part of my life and I appreciate it because singer Mike Ness is also a person in recovery, so I can hear the themes and messages woven into the songs. These lyrics capture what it feel like to be sober for many years, “I triumphed in the face of adversity, and I became the man I never thought Id be, and now my biggest challenge?…a thing called love. I guess I’m not as tough as I thought I was.”
Song: The Death of John Smith
Artist: NOFX
Album: The Longest Line
This song was blasting when I got into a car accident that changed my life. I often don’t like to hear this song because of the vivid memory, and other times this song brings back many fond memories of being young and hungry to start my own life. It helped me to believe in myself a little bit more.
Song: Time Tonight
Artist: John Frusciante (of the Red Hot Chili Peppers)
Solo Album: Curtains
This song by John Frusciante encapsulates the emotion, hope, optimism, pain, clarity and love that I felt after becoming a father to my two younger children when I was about 6 years sober. My oldest son Ari and I had grown in recovery together and this song represented a new way of life, while reflecting on the life left behind. I feel deep gratitude for sobriety with this song. I would play this song as I drove my baby daughter to her daycare, and later her little brother too. John Frusciante is also in recovery, and I hear the recovery messages loud and clear.
Song: Point of No Return
Artist: Immortal Technique
Album: Revolutionary Vol. 2
I heard this song when I was struggling with constant relapse toward the end of my addiction. The angst, rage, resistance, and flow of the truth in the lyrics affirmed my right to feel legitimate indigenous rage. Later when I got sober, hearing this song also affirmed that I had passed a point of no return because I had changed, only because of the power of surrender and truth. When I gave up the need to control everything in life, I gained control over me.
Nephi Craig is the executive chef of Café Gozhóó in Whiteriver, Arizona, on the White Mountain Apache Tribe, and an advanced certified relapse prevention specialist (ACRPS) and behavioral health technician (BHT) currently serving as the nutritional recovery program coordinator at the Rainbow Treatment Center. Craig is the founder of the Native American Culinary Association (NACA), an organization that is dedicated to the research, refinement, and development of Native American cuisine. His work has been recognized in national and international publications such as Newsweek, Forbes, Food & Wine, and The Guardian.