I’m always listening to music when I write. Sometimes it’s just to get me into a mood, sometimes it’s to serve as a defacto soundtrack for the scene I’m writing, sometimes it’s just white noise. But it’s always on, much to my wife’s dismay. These songs were on heavy rotation for a variety of reasons…as you shall learn…

Still D.R.E by Dr. Dre.  This is where I start and where I finish. Literally. Before I started writing all four of the books in the Gangsterland trilogy (I count The Low Desert in this…so maybe trilogy and a half?), I would blast this song at a level that likely made my neighbors worried. Why? Because I knew I’d be representing for the gangsters all across the world. And then whenever something good happens — a great review for instance — Wendy gets a little forewarning when she hears the opening bars of this. And then when I’m done, usually at three am sometime in the middle of the summer, I put this on again and I dance around the house. Right back in your motherfucking ass, as a wise-man once said.

Meeting Across the River by Bruce Springsteen. This song was the mood I was aiming for with the opening prologue of the book (which also appears in The Low Desert as “The Spare”). The inevitable is coming around the corner — or across the river — and you wish the characters wouldn’t make the mistakes you know they’re about to make.

Rescue Blues by Craig Finn. This song gets me in the mood to write the kinds of stories and books I write. “I make mistakes sometimes/owe some money to some other guys/it’s safest if I stay inside” could describe half of my novels. There are some days when I would listen to this song for an hour. Which I get is a little obsessive. Have you met me?

California by Bonny Light Horseman. Another mood song for me, I would often listen to this before I wrote Kristy’s scenes. There’s something wistful and lost in this song that would get me right to approach this character.

100 Degrees by Kyuss. This is what you play when it’s 3am and you’re in the desert and the heat just won’t stop. It’s some “burying a motherfucker in the desert” music…and I have a need for that.

Modern Times by Sadler Vaden. I love the Tom Petty-vibe to this great Sadler Vaden song. I love the idea that in these modern times, it’s impossible to really know yourself, nor who you used to be. A thesis statement if there ever was one.

How I Could Just Kill A Man by Cypress Hill. All family business gets settled in this novel — I think it’s the most violent of the novels — and this is my murder jam.

Fast Ones by The Codefendants & The DOC. “Fuck around and catch a bad one.” You’re goddamn right. This is my do-crime song.

Anti-Hero by Taylor Swift. Look, I’m a secret Swifty, okay? I played this song a lot while writing Jennifer’s early chapters.

Excursions by A Tribe Called Quest. When I’m writing dialog, a lot of it is about rhythm and tone and for some reason, when I’m having a hard time getting that gangster parlance going, this jazzy cut by Tribe always gets me back to the write speed of language in my head, if that makes sense. Plus? “We gotta make moves, never ever gonna fake moves.”

Desperate Man by Ray Wylie Hubbard. The song sounds like a gunfight in the desert. This was the soundtrack for a chapter late in the book where a couple gangsters have a standoff in the desert.

Suffering by Satchel. This song is one of my all-time favorites — may Shawn Smith rest in peace — and I played it about 500 times while writing this novel. It could play behind half of this book and work…but this could run over the epilogue and it would be in perfect time. Put on your old fur coat, it’s 1973…

Goddamn Lonely Love (live) by Jason Isbell, Patterson Hood, and Mike Cooley. I love this version of the old DBT song by Isbell — I’ve always loved it, but it’s actually a better song now that Isbell has a better voice and has lived a longer life; there’s new depth in every line — but for the purposes of this playlist, put this on when Jennifer is in Loon Lake with William, trying to figure out how they’ll ever get out of town.

I’m Through by Jason Isbell. This is actually a Vic Chesnutt song, but my god Jason sings the living fuck out of it. There’s a chapter toward the end of this book at the Bagel Cafe — you’ll know it when you get to it — and this song got me into the mood each day to write the complex emotional tug-of-war that happens there. I’m through carrying you on my shoulders…

Salt by Lori McKenna. When you reach a chapter where Jennifer is at a BnB, put this on.

Something in the Orange by Zach Bryan. I love this haunting song — it’s like it got left off of Springsteen’s “Nebraska” — and when I wrote a chapter with Matthew Drew in the desert, this got me where I needed to go.

Snow White Knuckles by Jaimee Harris. I first heard this song when Jaimee did it live on Facebook one afternoon during the pandemic and I’ve probably listened to it three times a week since. I love the confessional nature of it and the descent into faith. A kind of faith that I’m familiar with. That my characters are familiar with. In another dimension, this song is a big hit. This song is a Kristy Levine chapter song.

Problem With It by Plains. This song was on heavy rotation to get me ready to write — when I go for a drive to think about the story, this gets played first.

Get Down by Nas. The title of this book is in this song — “gangsters don’t die/he’s living proof” — but it’s also one of those songs that is the sort of thing you listen to when you’re rollin’ and there’s a lot of rollin’ in this book. I feel like Peaches and Lonzo would have this on their stereo as they rolled into California.