Summary: Team Soundcheck talks to hundreds of musicians each year about music. But it turns out—gasp!—that non-musicians like music, too! So we also make time to talk to our favorite authors, to crawl inside the musical worlds that inspire their variously strange, uplifting, funny, foul, and perceptive fictions. It's a feature we call "Pick Three," wherein writers bring us a short playlist of music that somehow figures in their lives, either real or imagined. To mark the start of the new year, we decided to go back through our favorite author interviews from 2014, highlighting music selected by four literary-types who made a big impact over the last 12 months: David Mitchell, Marlon James, Emma Straub, and B.J. Novak. Listen to the audio above to hear their musical musings, click on the links below to hear their full interviews, read reviews of their 2014 books, and see their playlist picks. And there's lots more where this comes from. Visit the Pick Three series page for a complete list of our musical conversations with non-musicians, including Jonathan Lethem, Billy Collins, Francine Prose, Amy Tan, and many, many more. David Mitchell [click on name to listen to full author interview]Author, The Bone Clocks (read a review here) Playlist: Talking Heads, "Heaven" Until I met this record, I didn’t realize that music could do what books also invite you to do: To think, and to take you on a kind of story, or a journey. And do more than that — if literature could do exactly what music does, then you wouldn’t need music. Duke Pearson, "After the Rain" It makes me smell a garden after the rain. It’s a rare piece of music. It actually triggers that part of my brain that’s sensitive to smell and to fragrance. Especially when the flute starts, I’m in a garden all wet with rain. Patrick Watson, "The Great Escape" His voice is just one of those immediately arresting, distinctive voices. It’s truffles, it’s dark coffee, it’s velvety. It’s just a beautiful, divine gift of a voice. Marlon JamesAuthor, A Brief History of Seven Killings (read a review here) Playlist: Bob Marley & The Wailers, "Ambush In The Night" It was an unwritten rule: Nobody touches [Bob Marley]. The great thing about his house was that, people who only a day before had been trying to kill each other, would be hanging out, breaking bread, discussing music and so on. The Prime Minister used to drive down and chill. The idea that the one neutral ground in Kingston could be shot up was unheard of, it was such a turning point, and this song speaks to it pretty directly. Bunny Wailer, "Crucial" He's sometimes considered the most Jamaican-y of the Wailers -- which is funny, because he has the best pop instincts. (Them's fighting words.) Wailer was the one who was most successful at listening to the street. Tenor Saw, "Ring The Alarm" He was one of the first major post-Marley figures to emerge, but not from the roots-reggae camp -- he was from the street, dancehall. It was a major turning point in the early '80s, especially since this song is about soundsystems, a dancehall song about dancehall culture. Both dancehall and hip-hop have the same genesis in a way; reggae, for all its merits, was still the music of people who could afford their instruments. Dancehall's instrument was flipping over the reggae B-side, which was usually instrumental, and rapping on top of that. Damian Marley, "Welcome To Jamrock" This was a song that sort of summed up how far we've come...and it wasn't very far. It's such a vital and explosive and brilliant song, but it's also a pretty depressing song. Some of the stuff you hear in [Bob Marley's] "Ambush In The Night," especially about suffering and the desperation that suffering leads to, Damian Marley's saying, "It's still there." Some of the troubles are new, some of the old problems we just give new names. So it's kind of a summing up of how far we've come since his dad. B.J. NovakAuthor, One More Thing: Stories, And Other Stories (read a review here) Playlist: Elvis Presley, "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" Elvis Presley covers Bob Dylan, late in life -- there was a time when that actually happened. And he has a cover of one of my favorite songs of all time, 'Don't think twice, it's all right," and again, he seems to fundamentally misunderstand it. He does it in a very rollicking, upbeat way, messes up some of the lyrics and keeps going. He has no understanding, it seems, of the subtle pessimism and sadness of this song. It's just like a popular song that he was just going to do a version of, and yet his spirit is still in there. The positive spirit of Elvis is shining through. Courtney Barnett, "Avant Gardener" I love her. I play her all the time. This is my favorite song, but I love this whole album, I love everything she's put out. It's so spare and cool -- it reminds me of Nirvana, or Hole -- it reminds me of that early era. But the lyrics are a very modern way of writing lyrics.... The lack of boundaries between the way you would text, the way you would talk to a friend, the way you would write a novel -- it feels like it's all one voice to her. And I feel like that's very modern. Niagara, "Pendant que les champs brûlent" I don't understand a word, but I love it. I love not being able to understand it, because to me that is the mystery that we need in our lives. There needs to be something that you don't understand at all, but you wish you could be in that world. And for me that is everything classically French. The fashion, the literary glamour, all these things, and I -- oh god -- I went to Paris and didn't talk to a soul, didn't understand anything, just kind of looked at everybody and felt like, "Oh this is cool, this is cool." You need something like that in your life. Emma StraubAuthor, The Vacationers (read a review here) Playlist: The Magnetic Fields, "Desert Island" I chose a few lines from this song as an epigraph for my book [The Vacationers]. "I'll be the desert island where you can be free, I'll be the vulture you can catch and eat." It's beautiful, slightly sinister, typical Stephin and I think it sets the tone nicely. Beyonce, "Flawless" I had a baby recently, and I've been thinking a lot about working women and how they make it all happen. When I hear this song, I think about a woman who works really really hard and who is aware that she is supposed to wake up feeling a certain way and looking a certain way and maybe she doesn't and maybe she does, maybe she can be this tough and support her family and just do her thing. Nashville Cast, "Don't Put Dirt On My Grave" I love this song so much! I am a huge fan of the TV show Nashville starring Connie Britton, personal goddess. What I love most about Nashville the city and Nashville the show, is that the songwriters really are the stars. If you drive down music row in Nashville, which is this street where there are all these little bungalows filled with songwriters and producers and publishing houses, they have enormous posters up celebrating this songwriter who's just written this hit for somebody -- but they don't even say, "Emma Straub wrote this song for Taylor Swift," they just say "Emma Straub wrote this song! Hooray! It's a hit!"
