It’s Monday evening, and I’m listening to Leonard Cohen sing So Long, Marianne. We just walked in the front door after hours on the road, hours spent talking everything from travel plans for the coming year (my heart is set on Morocco, Persia, and Vietnam), renting an apartment and splitting our time between Tennessee and Georgia because the new Brash Coffee shop is about to open in Atlanta (which means there’ll be a disturbing amount of nights spent apart or commuting if we don’t), and reframing the book I’ve been trying to write for two years (he’s the best sounding board in the world). We walked in the door to two mewling kittens, and I chopped an avocado, shredded some tofu, threw mushrooms in the oven to roast, and experimented with an umeboshi paste vinaigrette. And then I put a pot of farro on to boil. I have it on repeat lately, the farro. It’s nothing novel, but I always come back to it. Novel is overrated these days. And then I put this playlist on. Mondays are henceforth devoted to music & a few random moments from the past week. This playlist is a small sample of my favorite storytellers in music from Nick Cave to Leonard Cohen to Tom Waits. Click through the jump for a track list & link.
01 monday milktape | storytellers – click here to get the playlist!
Every single artist on this playlist is dear to me. They’ve gotten me through hungover mornings in the Bywater when I wasn’t even twenty-one, through falling in love and so thoroughly out, through cooking dinner on a Tuesday night. These songs are more than songs. As Voltaire once said, “anything too stupid to be spoken is sung”…but in the case of these artists, that isn’t true. These are short stories, poems, art. Wordless to word craft, they are all beautiful artifacts.
01 : So Long, Marianne | Leonard Cohen
02 : Communist Daughter | Neutral Milk Hotel
03 : Monti:Csårdås | played by Edgar Moreau
04 : Jolene | Dolly Parton
05 : The Piano Has Been Drinking (Not Me) | Tom Waits
06 : The Ship Song | Nick Cave
07 : Waves of Fear | Lou Reed
08 : Fast Car | Tracy Chapman
09 : Father and Son | Cat Stevens
10 : Come Back From San Francisco | The Magnetic Fields
11 : April Skies | The Jesus and Mary Chain
