you don't have to cry soundtrack

YOU DON'T HAVE TO CRY/the long run and assorted vignettes/
soundtrack & commentary

I knew before I wrote a word in this universe that it would have a title from either "You Don't Have to Cry" or "49 Bye-Byes," though it took a while sorting through the lyrics of the full CSN album to settle on which and what. It was a little weary and broken, but adamantly full of love and protection for its fellow travelers. When I'm writing, especially something as long and complicated as this story turned out to be, I really need to soundtrack during the outlining phase, because two months later when I'm banging my head against the wall over something, I can come back to the songs, to the lyrics, and I almost always find my way out like that.

I'm not sure how it is that the track list got so heavily weighted with old rock'n'rollers -- maybe it's just that they're more likely to have broken up and gotten back together by now. Classic rock and Sheryl Crow, who just has an old soul and a serial monogamy approach to rockers. I like it when mixes have a slightly more meta layer, too. In this case it's the "You're So Vain" genre, I guess (not that that is on here): songs by singers about other famous people. Also, I'm not yet done writing the last story of the series of vignettes, but the soundtrack is as complete as it can get on one CD.

Originally posted as my response to the story-commentary LJ meme, 1.27.04.

[if you've got iTunes, clicking on the button after each track (those available to buy as of 1/04) will take you directly to the iTunes music store page for the song, which you can then listen to and choose whether you'd like to download. if you don't have iTunes, get it!it's free and works on both macs and pcs. most of these songs are 99¢ and they're all very high quality. when music is as easy to buy online as it is to download, artists get paid and the fans get what they want: more music from folks we love.]

YOU DON'T HAVE TO CRY

YOU DON'T HAVE TO CRY Crosby, Stills & Nash / I have practically written a story for every single song on this album. These are guys who knew what it was like to be in a band, to be famous and have it fall apart, before they ever found each other. And they still sat on a porch and made music together because it's what they do, it's the way they make that and everything else in their lives make sense. Before Lance has ever walked in the door of Chris' bar, Chris would be singing this in his direction: You are living a reality I left years ago / It quite nearly killed me.
CAN'T FIND MY WAY HOME (LIVE) Eric Clapton / This is sadder than "Cocaine," somehow, and yet just as reckless. This is Lance and his wet, sorry face pressed against Justin's shoulderblades after stumbling into bed. You are the reason I've been waiting all these years.
LONELIEST STAR Seal / This is Justin thinking LA and what it's done to him and Lance is still somehow and sometimes romantic. Maybe this isn't meant to be as misguided as I interpret it here, but I think it hovers on the edge of a great miscommunication. I worked hard not to make Justin a villain, and I think what I see now when I go back is that he's more tragic than all the rest of them put together. This song fit the feel of the CD a little more closely than anything off Counting Crows' Recovering the Satellites, but that was a huge influence in the same vein.
MY FAVORITE MISTAKE Sheryl Crow / This might be a part of every sad story I ever write about the love that goes on too long. The love and the stories. Also it's rumored to be about Eric Clapton, so let the self-referential songlist continue. Maybe nothing lasts forever / Even when you stay together.
EVERY LITTLE BIT Patty Griffin / This song is wounded and angry and bitter in the way that only someone who's loved you and known you and shared your bed for years can truly be. This could be Justin thinking he owes it all to Lance in back rent, or Lance not giving him any more time, or Chris flat on his back with busted knees and only JC to hold his hand. It's funny how a morning turns the love to shame. And also, There's nothing here but the shadow / and now you know.
OVER YOU Sheryl Crow / I wanna get over you / And you just won't let me get away. This could go anywhere on the tape, in the story, be from anybody's POV. It's a bitch, falling in love with a star. But I appreciate that this isn't a Hollywood song, it could be about anybody you can't get out of your head. It's just worse when they're on the radio every time you get in the car, too. One funny thing that happened as I was writing this and the follow-ups is that, I think after I posted the main story and "The Last Word," when Justin was doing press for Justified, he kept saying almost exactly the same things about Britney and the breakup that I'd had him say about Lance.
BABY, I CAN'T PLEASE YOU Sam Phillips / Sam Phillips sings with this tone to her voice that I can only describe as a raised eyebrow. She and Lance just don't do stupid things. Except of course when they do. But even then they figure it out eventually, and then they call it for what it is. And then they don't give it any more of their time.
ANSWERING MACHINE (LIVE) Matt Nathanson / This song reminds me of a scene from a Cameron Crowe movie, somebody listening to lyrics on a message and realizing they may have been left long ago but the person's really gone for good now. If there was a scene where Justin came home one day and there was a message from Lance and it didn't break him back in two, this song would be playing. And maybe, maybe I don't need saving after all. [I got this off Matt's official site a few years ago, but it doesn't seem to still be there. There are, however, links to tape-trading sites here, or info about ordering the studio version of this here.]
LOVE THE ONE YOU'RE WITH Crosby, Stills & Nash / This just makes me want to laugh out loud. Because about when they can get up on a stage and sing this to each other is when I knew for real it was going to work out. It takes them 40-odd more pages to kiss, but that was the moment -- before they get in the car, before they've barely even told each other the barest bones of why they're there together -- that Lance lets go and slings an arm around Chris' shoulder and lets harmony fix the rest.
MISSISSIPPI Sheryl Crow / Who does this chick think she is, David Crosby? (Actually in this case I think the answer is Bob Dylan.) I'd been sitting on this for a LancePOV story for a long, long time. I was raised in the country, been working in the town, I been in trouble since I set my suitcase down. This is the song you sing as you walk out the door. The second time. The time when you know where you're going and why and what it means, even if you won't admit that part now, and when Lance comes back after Christmas at his mom's, he knows he's not gonna leave again.
PINK MOON Nick Drake / In the car on the way to Pennsylvania, Chris tells a story about an African violet and when he finally shuts up and stops being so scared of the silence, this is what's playing on the radio. Lance folds a sweater under his head and drifts in and out and between the rain and the loud engine he can just barely hear the singer's voice.
CAREY Joni Mitchell / Every time I hear this song I think of Chris singing it through the bar's intercom system. Lance does not at all miss his fancy French cologne, it turns out. Also I like the echoes of Hemingway's Africa (which I imagine must be quite different from Joni's, but all the same). Let's have another round for the bright red devil who keeps me in this tourist town. Chris is not quite that famous Blue heartbreaker, but he's got this magical hold on Lance there in Chicago that neither of them understand. No one's going anywhere, or not without each other or for long.
YOU OWE ME NOTHING IN RETURN Alanis Morissette / Not just because I giggle every time she says And there are no strings attached. This is a grown-up love song. It's straight-forward, nothing is vague, nothing is not true. The repetition isn't her trying to talk herself into it, it's to hammer down your fear that it's too good a deal to be true. This is the only kind of love, as I understand it, that there really is.
OUR HOUSE Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young / Finally, an unrelentingly happy song. I choose to take this at its sincere word that now everything is easy 'cause of you. Also it's absolutely domestic, with the yard and the fireplace and the vase and the pets, even if they are cats. And somebody said Chris and Lance were like middle-aged lesbians. At least they don't have cats. They have dogs! They're so gay!
MOSES (LIVE) Coldplay / So this is supposedly about Gwyneth Paltrow, and all those famous song references seem appropriate. But I love the sweet simplicity of So you've got a power over me. Maybe Lance doesn't need the love of his life to be a shooting star. Maybe it's enough to change the force of gravity, to pull him home. Also: You're my golden opportunity. Because I believe Lance makes a cost/benefit analysis to everything, almost every moment of his life. And he knows that Chris is the best second chance a guy could ever ask for.
THE CHAIN Fleetwood Mac / The best concerts I saw in 2003 were all folks in their 40s and 50s, who all played for close to or more than three hours. Maybe the minutes are more precious when you've been doing it that long, or maybe they just have had more to say and think enough of it is worth saying still. If anybody knows what it's like to make an art of falling in love with your bandmates, it's Fleetwood Mac, and when we saw them this summer, Lindsey sat on the edge of the stage with a huge smile and watched everybody's solo songs, and it clearly had been long enough for all of them that they were able to just enjoy each other's company.
CARRY ON Crosby, Stills & Nash / Hearing CSNY at the Bridge School concert was what made me finally start putting together the reunion story. Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice / but to carry on. You can't spend that kind of time with people under those kind of circumstances and ever just walk away. Now witness / the quickness / with which we get along. And just remember, love is coming to us all.
FAVORITE ADVENTURE (WEDDING SONG) K's Choice / There's a certain hypnotic, lyrical repetition to the melody, around and around like a wedding ring. One day I'd like to be in love forever, and I'd like to have some friends in a band write me a song a tenth as beautiful and intense as this for my afterparty. And then maybe I'd believe in happily ever after.