A Country Boy Can Surmise

My new novel is largely populated by people who are running away with something.  Some of them are running from love, others from hate.  Some are trying to outrun their grief while others are in self-exile because of past mistakes.  All of them have had the urge for going that is so perfectly articulated in one of Joni Mitchell's best songs, and one of the cornerstones for my novel's soundtrack.  I encourage everyone to create a soundtrack for any long piece of writing they're doing.  My novel soundtracks usually have about 75 or 80 songs.  Some of the pieces show up in the actual piece of work but others simply inform scenes.  All of them help me to get to the emotional truths of my characters and even sometimes reveal things about my characters that I wouldn't have known had I not tried to understand the music with which they identify.  In this particular video it is not only the words and music that are important, but the images, too.  I...

These are the albums I listened to most, in no real order. These are the records that are good for just about any situation, in particular the situations in which I most love music: while driving, writing, working, or dancing. Helplessness Blues-Fleet Foxes. The stand-out here is "Bedouin Dress" but every single track is stellar. Queen of the Minor Key-Eilen Jewell. One of the most underrated artists out there. "Santa Fe" is one of the best songs I've ever heard. Circuital-My Morning Jacket. A masterpiece. My favorites: "Wonderful (The Way I Feel)", the title track, and "Black Metal." Layered, profound, and beautiful. If I was forced to pick the album of the year, this would be it. In the Cool of the Day-Daniel Martin Moore. This album is like church in all the best ways. A sort of gospel record without any of the dogma, this is DMM at his smooth-voiced, tight-songwriting, and guitar-picking, piano-playing best. Inclusions-Ben ...

There is so much good music happening today that I just cannot contain my list to a Top 10 or even a Top 20. I had to go with 21. And I love all of the albums so much that I couldn't rank them. So here they are in no particular order, all of them great pieces of art that gave me hours of listening pleasure. I’m sure I’ve forgotten some other great records, so feel free to point them out. But these were the ones that stuck with me the most, and I hope that you’ll check them out… A perfect Sunday morning record. Patty Griffin’s voice is church. Come Around Sundown-Kings of Leon Here’s another one I loved to drive to. The songs “Back Down South” and “Mary” are just as good on the five hundredth play as the first, and I ought to know. Both of these are the kinds of songs that go on my permanent “to-write-to” playlist. In fact, "Back Down South" became one of the central songs on the soundtrack to the novel I'm working on, Evona Darling . Infinit...

There is so much good music right now that it awaits us like a feast. Here are some of my current favorites. After the jump you'll find embedded videos of some of the songs. Let me know what songs you're listening to these days. Playlist (in no particular order) 1. Old Before Your Time-Ray LaMontagne 2. Save Some Time To Dream-John Mellencamp 3. Wise Woman-Caroline Herring 4. Evening Kitchen-Band of Horses 5. Golden-My Morning Jacket 6. Sweet Marie-Daniel Martin Moore and Ben Sollee 7. Whispering Sea-Eilen Jewell 8. Holding On-David Gray 9. I Miss You-Courtyard Hounds 10. The Cave-Mumford & Sons 11. Kind-Cheyenne Marie 12. Still-Great Lake Swimmers 13. Smoking From Shooting-My Morning Jacket 14. Swept Away-Avett Brothers 15. Lantern-Josh Ritter 16. Broken-Chely Wright 17. Easy in the Summertime-Allison Moorer 18. Cindy Gal-Carolina Chocolate Drops 19. For the Summer-Ray LaMontagne 20. All Creatures Of Our God and King-Patty Griffin

There are so many mediocre (or downright bad) books, movies, television, and music that it's sometimes hard to remember that there is so much great art being produced these days. So, a list of things I've enjoyed very much recently. Books Little Bee by Chris Cleave. This is the most powerful book that I've read in a long while. The plot is so intricate and wonderful that I hate to even describe it for fear of giving something away, so I'll describe it as being about a young Nigerian refugee who is living with a British journalist and the way their relationship is formed and how it blooms into a profound friendship. The novel is about much more than that, and opened my eyes to atrocities being committed around the world that I had absolutely no idea about. I loved Little Bee especially because it is that rare thing: a literary page-turner. The language is precise and beautiful and the pages fly by due to the feverish plot-driven pacing. I can't recommend th...

Once again, I have two albums as my top album of the year because they are both so masterful that I cannot choose between them: Golden Apples of the Sun by Caroline Herring and Give Up the Ghost by Brandi Carlile. These are the two albums of 2009 that anyone who really loves great music (read: that which is most likely not on contemporary mainstream radio) must buy right now. Last year Caroline Herring topped my list (in a tie with Ben Sollee’s Learning to Bend ) with her album Lantana , a record that I believe to be as packed with as many keen observations about humanity and the Gothic South as the best of Flannery O’Connor or Lucinda Williams. The standout track on that album, “Paper Gown,” a modern murder ballad about Susan Smith, is among the best songs I’ve ever heard in my life . I didn’t think she’d ever be able to outdo herself, but then she goes and records the best album of 2009, and a modern masterpiece: Golden Apples of the Sun . If there was any justice ...

I never understand people who say “There’s just no good music these days.” Obviously they’re not looking in the right place, because there is a wealth of great music. The thing is that the vast majority of it is not being played on the radio, and certainly not on any of the cable music channels like MTV, VH1, or CMT. My college roommate, with whom I have stayed in touch although we hardly ever see each other any more, was telling me the other day that he still listens to Nirvana, U2, and Pearl Jam all the time mainly because he hasn’t grown—musically, at least—since we left college way back in the Gulf War era. Now there’s not a thing wrong with any of those groups, but I quickly went about the business of educating him that there was another way, that there was too much great music out there, just waiting for a listen. In my job as a writer, I travel all over the country, and everywhere I go people ask me things like who my favorite author is (too many to pick, but right now I’d have ...