In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Eric LeMay’s essay collection The First 649 Days offers breathtaking perspectives on love and loss.
Dinty W. Moore wrote of the book:
“Eric LeMay’s The First 649 Days is a work of breathtaking honesty and heart. LeMay captures life’s singular moments—the birth of a child, unexpected illness, mortality—exquisitely, revealing the precarious beauty of our world through the eyes of his young son Ro. LeMay’s inventive renderings are a brilliant reminder that our lives may harbor threat, disappointment, and grief, yet still shimmer with hope and wild beauty at every turn.”
In his own words, here is Eric LeMay’s Book Notes music playlist for his essay collection The First 649 Days:
“You’re about to get hit by a hurricane.” That’s the best advice I got about what it’s like when a baby makes landfall in your life. The First 649 Days begins there. It ends five years later, with the 649 days I spent with my son during the pandemic. In between, it tries to capture that everyday struggle we all confront: How do we become what life makes of us?
“Crazy” by Gnarls Barkley, CeeLo Green, Danger Mouse
In the dead of winter, still in the womb, my son went from due to overdue. He had no interest in exiting. And who could blame him? Day after day, his mother tried to dance him down the birth canal with “Crazy.” That’s how we felt, playing it again and again. When my son was old enough to talk, I played it for him. Did he remember? Nope.
“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” by Baby Music
For the first years of my son’s life, this little twinkling star was the one constant in his ever-changing bedtime. He had no interest in sleeping. And who could blame him? As he got older, he sang along with us. I don’t remember when we stopped, but I do remember, toward the end, realizing that each time we sang it might be the last, and how hard I loved him.
“Further on Up the Road” by Johnny Cash
Our first singalong. We’d go on long walks. He’d be in this backpack I wore that held him up on my shoulders. I’d sing, “Where the road is…” And he’d sing, “Dark.” And I’d sing, “And the seed is…” And he’d sing, “Sowed.” “Where the gun is…” “Cocked.” “As the bullet’s…” “Cold.” Where the miles are marked in the blood and the gold. I’ll meet you further on up the road.
“Demon Host” by Timbre Timbre
I got cancer when my son was a little over a year old. I can’t capture that in a note. I can say I felt so devastated, so distraught, I couldn’t write. And then one night I started to. I’d kiss my son on the forehead and drag myself out of our bed and into the dark. I’d listen to this song, over and over, until I could write a sentence or two about what it was like knowing I might not live.
“Metamorphosis: One” by Philip Glass
Life with a young child cycles. Every day feels like a repetition of the last one. Meals, naps, walks, baths, repeat, repeat. There’s a deep beauty to it, being on child time. The small variations magnify. Suddenly, avocados are in. Suddenly, he can say the cat’s name. “Sailor! Sailor!” I felt and feel a little of this magic in Glass’s cascading and beautiful loops.
“Ring Around the Rosie” by Toddler Tunes
And then came the pandemic, with its own repetitions, with its isolation and mass death. And amid it all, children like mine went about the work of growing up. It was then I learned the lore around “Ring Around the Rosie.” That its origins are in the bubonic plague. That a red ring was a sign of infection. That people carried posies to mask the stench of death. That all fall down.
“Roll the Woodpile Down” by The Dreadnaughts
In lockdown, sea shanties started trending. My son and I learned this one before I’d quite figured out what its lyrics described. By then, it was too late to be a good parent. Instead, I just enjoyed the oddity of a four-year-old belting out a love for 19th-century prostitutes and the bawdy ways of sailors. I played it for him this morning. “I do remember it,” he said. I do, too.
Eric LeMay is a multimedia artist and writer currently in remission from cancer. He is on the faculty at Ohio University, where he directs the creative writing program. He is also a host on the New Books Network. He is the author of five books, and his work has appeared in The Paris Review, Poetry Daily, the Best Food Writing series, and other venues.