Deep Voices 139

A Rise Above book playlist

Deep Voices 139 on Spotify
Deep Voices 139 on Apple Music

There were two other titles I considered for my book, Rise Above, all three song titles. “Rise Above” is a Black Flag song, and then there was “You Must Believe in Spring” by Bill Evans (though he did not write the song) and “Insanely Alive” by Wolfgang Tillmans. All three songs ended up in the book, along with many others. I could have imagined calling the book after any number of them, “Levitating” or “Blue Crush Angel.” I joked (was it a joke?) that I’d call it Blonde 2, an unauthorized sequel to the Frank Ocean album I loved so much I found it too overwhelming to listen to for some time after my son’s sudden death.

But “Insanely Alive” was the runner up. The song, “Insanely Alive” plays a big part in the book, as it did in my life. Though he is a musician, Tillmans is primarily known as a photographer. I’ve long admired his work, as have many people. He’s pretty famous. He’s a voracious artist, who seems interested in photographing anyone and everything, with the unifying theme between his work being a tactile passion, the zest of an amateur with the skill of a pro.

I got into his music, loosely categorizable as techno with singing, because of his photography and was delighted to find that it was strange and heartfelt. A decade ago, I wrote about his song “Angered Son,” an acapella protest against the Pulse night club shooter. His voice is deep and bellowing, not necessarily “good” in a traditional sense but very “good” in the way that I prefer: desperately honest.

The lyrics to “Insanely Alive” are very sweet. “You are insanely alive / You light me up.” A tribute. Here’s what I wrote about listening to the song in Rise Above: “Eventually Allegra and I were both saying it around the house, an inside joke masquerading as a profession of love. Or vice versa. Insanely alive. … What a lovely compliment it is. You are brimming with aliveness. Your aliveness lights me up. This is what I meant when I sang it to Renzo, what I meant when I sang it to Allegra, and what I believe she means when she sang it to him and to me. I couldn’t listen to that song again after Renzo died.”

I can now. It’s not pure sweetness the way it was, but I don’t think anything is. Still, I have regained the ability to enjoy it for what it is at its core, a man using his love of music to relay a feeling. If I made music, I believe and I hope it would sound like this.

This Deep Voices is made up of all songs, like “Insanely Alive” that factor into Rise Above. Black Flag’s “No More” contains the lyrics that make up the epigraph: “I need to live / I need it now.” Rollins Band. I loved that hunger and wanted, in a book inarguably about death, for its readers to go in knowing it was also arguably about life. Elliott Smith shows up when I talk about the physical pain I went through as a young teenager; Mr. Fingers is the music we played at our wedding after we said our vows. “Blue Crush Angel” was the song I found to be most unexpectedly wise. I listened to it on repeat, circling JFK airport, waiting for a friend. “I put a window in a wall,” says Bladee. I discovered I wanted to too.

There are a few songs discussed the book I still can’t listen to, so they are not on this playlist. Feel free to make your own. It’s not the songs’ fault.

I hope you’ll consider picking up a copy of Rise Above. Writing it was a labor of love.