In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
The poems in Sean Murphy’s collection red, white, and blues brilliantly juxtaposes politics and modern mythology.
Danez Smith wrote of the book:
“A dope set of poems I trust will find their way into readers’ hearts and minds and be useful to their transformation.”
In his own words, here is Sean Murphy’s Book Notes music playlist for his poetry collection red, white, and blues:
red, white, and blues is the fourth installment of a large, ongoing project acclaimed artist Matthew Shipp describes as “a kaleidoscopic, deep, and opulent journey.” Once more, I’m exploring America and its mythology through a series of poems that function as biography, history, and cultural commentary. Where the previous collections interrogated these concerns primarily through the lens of jazz and blues musicians, these poems home in on politics—and key players who have shaped our shared culture. A moral cross-examination covering history, war, religion, and pop spectacle, this collection asks what we worship, what we excuse, and what the stories we tell do to us.
I wrote red, white, and blues because I believe poetry can still tell the truth when other forms have failed us. These poems are not interested in neutrality; they are interested in clarity. They move through history and pop culture because that is where our myths live—where power learns to hide and where harm learns to look inevitable. (I also have come to believe poetry is the best way to mash up history, media, political commentary, and provides a succinct formula for connecting dots in ways Op-Eds, fiction, and social media grandstanding can’t and won’t—see below). I wanted to write a book that names what we worship, what we excuse, and what we leave behind, while still honoring the strange, stubborn beauty that survives in language. If these poems bruise, I hope they also invite conversation. If they provoke, I hope they also connect. Art matters because it reminds us that we are not alone in our witnessing.
These poems are political, name names, and while I don’t have any illusions my modest efforts can affect the type of meaningful change we desperately need, it’s a flag flown in solidarity, and a middle finger to the establishment. As such, I think it’s coming into the world at the right time—and perhaps can inspire some dialogue or instigate something positive.
This playlist attempts to go deep into the rock, blues, and jazz catalog, with some wild cards and surprises as well as some no brainer choices. Overall, I hope the songs chosen help illuminate if not elevate the poems they accompany!
“Eden” by 10,000 Maniacs (for “Adam’s Apple Blues”)
This collection homes in on power and politics in America, but it begins with Adam (and ends with Roy Batty from “Blade Runner”), so we cover ancient myths to futuristic sci-fi, heavy on religious overtones, being that a benevolent Big Guy who created all this and watches over it is the first, most problematic myth of all. Anyway, this is a gorgeous, melancholy meditation from one of the biggest indie bands from what seems like a whole different time and place (which it was–early ‘90s).
“Christopher Columbus” by Burning Spear (for “Christopher Columbus’s Mermaids”)
Burning Spear has all kinds of righteous anthems; this one is topically on point, but also delivered with the moral weight of a reggae and cultural legend.
“A Rush and a Push and the Land Is Ours” by The Smiths (for “Captain Cook’s Chimera”)
If anyone was up for tackling conquest (even if it was only in matters of the blackened, broken heart), Morrissey was up for the task.
“Custer” by Johnny Cash (for “George Custer’s Courage”)
This, coming from Johnny Cash, brings the spiritual weight of one million history books.
“Slave Driver” by Bob Marley (for “King Leopold’s Conquest”)
If I may quote myself (from a previous playlist, no less): I’m not certain any artist has ever consistently combined compassion and censure, mingling the New Testament empathy of Jesus with the Old Testament admonition of Ecclesiastes, quite like the immortal Bob Marley.
“Right Off” by Miles Davis (for “Jack Johnson’s Apostasy”)
Miles, dropping knowledge, and forcing the world to tilt at a more inclusive angle.
“J.J. Gittes” by Jerry Goldsmith (for Jake Gittes’s Nose”)
So many great songs about L.A., but “Chinatown” was more about America, and its protagonist, J.J. Gittes, is a stand-in for all of us. Makes sense to go to the source (one of the all-time movie soundtracks).
“Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads (for “Willy Loman’s Life”)
Same. As. It. Ever. Was.
“Lady Sings the Blues” by Billie Holiday & “God Bless the Child” by Eric Dolphy (for “Harry Anslinger’s Song”)
On May 31, 1959—as she lay dying at the Metropolitan Hospital in New York, aged 44—Billie Holiday was arrested, handcuffed, and put under police guard for possession of narcotics. Anslinger was the insufferable shitheel who helped hound and harass innocent, fragile, helpless geniuses like Lady Day. He was also, shocker, an absolute hypocrite, on the short list of all-time worst Americans.
“Haitian Fight Song” by Charles Mingus (for “Charles Mingus’s Cry”)
For this, the opening track of his 1957 masterpiece The Clown, the composer wrote “I can’t play it right unless I’m thinking about prejudice and hate and persecution, and how unfair it is. There’s sadness and cries in it, but also determination.” What he said. Mingus!!!
“The Clown” by Charles Mingus (for “Charles Mingus’s Metaphor”)
Charles Mingus made five albums in 1957, and the first one he recorded was The Clown. He called it The Clown because the title track was also a mission statement. He called it The Clown because he knew artists sometimes frighten the people who pay them. He called it The Clown because he cherished the dividends an apt metaphor can provide. He called it The Clown because the only thing heavier than his smile was his sorrow. He called it The Clown because he understood performing tricks often makes the wrong people laugh. He called it The Clown because look at the album cover. He called it The Clown because he knew most of us want to see how the magic works—until we’ve seen it.
“Hackensack” by Thelonious Monk (for “Thelonious Monk’s Movement”)
Monk played piano. Monk wrote some of the best jazz tracks of the 20th Century. Monk would stand up, mid-concert, and dance around the stage. Monk changed the world, permanently, for the better.
“Man oh Man” by The Impressions (for “Curtis Mayfield’s Construction”)
Here comes St. Curtis—not yet Super Fly but actively metamorphosizing into something extra, something beyond what even he might have imagined—obliged to make men’s flesh do indescribable things with the instruments of their invention, a foundation meant to expand after its completion; music’s magic being the fact that it’s never finished.
“The Boss” by James Brown (for “Muhammad Ali’s Induction”)
The older I get and the more I learn—about the ‘60s, America, myself—the deeper my awe of the man who changed his name to Muhammad Ali grows. Is there one figure (don’t say John Lennon) who humanizes, epitomizes, the racial, sociological, human upheaval of the era? Here is the rarest of folks who was the best in the world at what he did, at the height of his ability to make history, and money, willing to sacrifice it on principle. And more: a cause that every year is proven more prescient and unassailable on both moral and military levels. April 28, 1967, a little over a month before Sgt. Pepper initiated the Summer of Love, Ali made a statement as brave, audacious and impactful as any of that—or any—decade. Look: we live in a time where we can boast about our beliefs and have our righteousness measured by likes and follows, all from the safety of an overpriced coffee shop. As such, I’ll continue to be humbled and inspired, as a dude with big hopes and modest abilities, by the icon who stared down doubt, ignorance, security and compliance. Ali is the exception to the way we’re ruled, and how we roll, and like the rest of us mortals, his biggest fight took place outside the ring.
“Symphony of Destruction” by Megadeth (for “Richard Nixon’s Fix”)
If you look at the wars of aggression (both overseas, via the military, and here at home, via the government one party has initiated and overseen, it’s hard to think of three more appropriate words: Symphony of Destruction.
“Politicians In My Eyes” by Death (for “Henry Kissinger’s CV”)
First Ballot Hall of Fame for Most Evil Asshole category. On the Mt. Rushmore of All-Time American Cretins. Good riddance, at long last, to this irredeemable degenerate.
“Charlie Don’t Surf” by The Clash (for Colonel Kilgore’s Concerto”)
This poem doesn’t seek to add to what Joe Strummer and Francis Ford Coppola already did (who could it?), but it enjoys mashing up the spectacle, claiming some space for creative deconstruction.
“Machine Gun” by Jimi Hendrix (for “Sergeant Elias’s Sacrifice”)
Jimi Hendrix’s guitar says more (about Vietnam, about war, about the senselessness of violence, about everything) than any poem or movie could manage.
“Ball of Fire” by Israel Vibration (for “Pol Pot’s Purgatory”)
Where ya gonna run—when this fire start to burn?
“Pricilla’s Theme” by Roy Ayers (for “Pam Grier’s Perm”)
A perm. A permanent statement. Or purposeful state of mind. Which is what the ‘70s were: a decade where black was not only beautiful, but exploited as such, and if soul could sell we got on that train and danced.
“Nobody’s Fault But Mine” by Led Zeppelin (for “Evel Knievel’s Nuts”)
On one hand, they made a toy out of him that made millions of dollars. On the other hand, attacked a man with an aluminum baseball bat, did time, went bankrupt. Like the most iconic Americans, dude contained multitudes. Are we not entertained?
“Glamour Profession” by Steely Dan (for “Chuck Barris’s Blow”)
It got to the point where even cocaine was embarrassed to be seen with Chuck Barris. Okay, I made that up but if you lived through the ‘70s, you get it. If you know, you know.
“The Message” by Grandmaster Flash (for “Ronald Reagan’s Revolution”)
Just Say No to drugs, except the one we’re selling to terrorists, for profit. Don’t hate the player, hate the game. And vice versa.
“Hole in the Sky” by Black Sabbath (for “Gordon Gekko’s Greed”)
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works.” When Gordon Gekko became an ironic hero to the types of bros who treat America like a chop shop to be broken up for parts and sold to the highest bidder, something irretrievable died, and it ain’t coming back.
“The Game” by Motorhead (for “Roy Cohn’s Clients”)
In America, the more shameless and out in the open you are, the less likely you are to be caught or even questioned. It doesn’t compensate for the damage he did to know he died, miserable, scared, and alone. But it helps.
“Play the Game” by Queen (for “Freddie Mercury’s Magic”)
I want it all, each of us declared in our own style, hoping Freddie had taken one for the team, a dirty saint made to suffer so we could sin on, lip synching his songs as we drove blind toward whatever destiny had designed.
“Shut Em Down” by Public Enemy (for “Rodney King’s Cameo”)
Video, we say, or it didn’t happen. It happened, and we have video. A video that proved it happened, and that it was happening, everywhere, all the time. Always was, and still is. Don’t Believe the Hype & Fight The Power.
“Every Day I Have the Blues” by B.B. King (for B.B. King’s Blues”)
It’s all there in the music, but not everyone is born to sing and some of the best songs die, unheard in darkness, which is why the blues is a symptom and a cause and a cure and also something that can never be explained; the blues describe the unspeakable and somehow make you dance and sing and cry. The blues means you can forgive but you will not forget, and a declaration that becoming a saint does not make you less human and dying only means the suffering stops for all the wrong reasons. The blues tells a never-ending story about what the race line means and why we’ll never be a colorblind society. The blues offers anyone who neither has nor understands the blues an abiding invitation to kindly shut the fuck up. And mostly the blues means white people should never stop listening whenever a black person talks about the blues.
“I Need a Roof” by The Mighty Diamonds (for “Rudy Giuliani’s Reward”)
As soon as the least of our brothers are seen as something less than human, the floodgates of evil open wide.
“Hypnotize” by The Notorious B.I.G. (for “Allen Iverson’s Answer”)
We’re (not) talking about practice. Every baller knows: the real thugs in this world wear suits and strafe locker rooms w/ friendly fire, their diet a steady buffet of black & broken hearts.
“Campaigner” by Neil Young (for “Howard Dean’s Scream”)
“I am a lonely visitor / I came too late to cause a stir.”
“World Leader Pretend” by R.E.M. (for “The Decider’s Decision”)
They did not, in fact, greet us as liberators.
“The Known Unknown” by Khan Jamal & “Known Unknown” by Vernon Reid (for “Donald Rumsfeld’s Romp”)
When Iago whispers in Othello’s ear, it leads to tragedy that reads like reality. When Rumsfeld whispers to Bush, it leads to tragedy that reads like fiction.
“Everybody Knows” by Concrete Blonde (for Mitch McConnell’s Mini-Stroke”)
Guy woke up on the right side of the bed every day for decades, eager to inflict damage. He hurt as many people as possible and savored every second of it. There’s no hell hot enough.
“Official Silence” by Henry Threadgill (for “Clarence Thomas’s Conscience”)
Sometimes there are no words.
“Mental Slavery” by Mikey Dread (for “Rupert Murdoch’s Mutation”)
Some men, if you’ll pardon the cliché, just want to watch the world burn.
“The Great Deceiver” by King Crimson (for “Joel Osteen’s Soul”)
“In the night he’s a star in the Milky Way / He’s a man of the world by the light of day / A golden smile and a proposition / And the breath of God smells of sweet sedition.”
“Nowhere Man” by The Beatles (for “Donald Trump’s Stakes”)
He’s a real nowhere man. Sitting in his nowhere land. Making all his nowhere plans for nobody.
“Atlantic City” by Bruce Springsteen (for “St. James’s Place”)
Fun fact: The properties in the board game Monopoly are named after streets in Atlantic City, N.J., famous in the early 20th Century for its beach and boardwalk. The tourist town eventually declined, and gambling was legalized in 1976, followed by high rises and casinos, several owned by real estate tycoon Donald Trump, who declared A.C. the eighth wonder of the world.
Less fun fact: The rise and fall of Atlantic City serves as another reminder of how wealthy people invariably set the world on fire, for profit, and leave countless lives in a smoldering, ignored heap. Also, if American journalism hadn’t sadly become access-only exercise for clicks (capitalism, again) and InfoTainment hadn’t had whatever was left of its soul exorcised for reality TV empire tilting, the embarrassment of Donald Trump would have been relegated to the ash heap of history as a punchline and cautionary tale decades before he descended that faux-gold escalator to carry America into the sewage from which he sprung
“Slipstream” by Jethro Tull (for “Elon Musk’s Assets”)
In Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man is Hard to Find” The Misfit, a sociopath driven to nihilism, claims “it’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the few minutes you got left the best way you can — by killing somebody or burning down his house or doing some other meanness to him. No pleasure but meanness…”
“Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears (for “Jeff Bezos’s Billions”)
Whether my modest efforts make the slightest difference matters less to me than the fact that this poem will be relevant and applicable one year, ten years, one hundred years from now. When this buffoon who’s helping wreck the planet is a gross footnote to an era when America was at its worst, and some of the sickest people who ever shared oxygen with other human beings ruled the world. Like Ozymandias, their time was brief, the damage significant, and their example used as cautionary tale.
“Here Comes the Flood” by Peter Gabriel (for “Roy Batty’s Tears”)
More human than human. Because in America, it takes a replicant to show us what it means to be an authentic human being.
Or, as Peter Gabriel, in full-on God Mode, sings—equal parts prayer and prophecy:
Lord, here comes the flood
We’ll say goodbye to flesh and blood
If again the seas are silent in any still alive
It’ll be those who gave their island to survive.
CODA: “Memory Hole” by Bobby Previte
William Carlos Williams:
It is difficult to get the news from poems, yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.
Bertolt Brecht:
In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.
Without empathy there can be no art. Without art there is silence. Silence is apathy, which is how power does its damage with impunity. This is what poetry fights against, bearing witness and singing in the dark, trying to find the things even poetry doesn’t provide.
also at Largehearted Boy:
Sean Murphy’s playlist for his story collection This Kind of Man
Sean Murphy’s playlist for his graphic novel Punk Rock Jesus
Jake Skeets is the author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, selected by the National Poetry Series and winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and an American Book Award. A Whiting Award recipient, Skeets is from the Navajo Nation and was appointed the Nation’s third Poet Laureate. He is an assistant professor of English at the University of Oklahoma.