Jack-Ass – The Bookish Mutant

Sunday Songs: 8/30/26

Posted on August 30, 2026August 31, 2026 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: unfortunately, I’m still in a very ’80s time of my life. Plus, the Apples in Stereo take a break from the robots and take a nice dip in the ocean.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 8/30/26

“Love, Try Not To Let Go” – Julia Jacklin

That soft shade of pink on Julia Jacklin’s face on the album cover of Pre-Pleasure couldn’t fit this track more. Setting aside the association of pink and romance, that blush color feels exactly the hue that “Love, Try Not To Let Go” is shaded in. Easygoing percussion and piano soundtracks Jacklin’s feathery vocals, as she drifts untethered from the Earth, swimming through memories and lust alike. I can’t help but be reminded of Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams” when listening to this track—similar beat and key, for sure. I love all of the subtle touches that Jacklin layers into this track to make the image shine with such clarity, everything from the fact that the harmonies kick in when she starts off the pre-chorus with the word “echo” (it literally makes a kind of echo!) and the swiftness that the chorus rushes from a gentle piano ballad to a quivering burst of electric guitars. At the end of the final chorus, Jacklin’s vocals fizz into static, as though everything keeping her grounded has dissolved, leaving us with her lovelornly murmuring as the track fades. It’s such a memorable indie rock track, and an excellent piece of push-and-pull between rose-colored fantasies and less-than-ideal memories.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Some Girls Do – Jennifer Dugan – “The echo of my hometown/The things I never said/Consumes the space between me/And everyone I left…”

“The Golden Age” – Beck

Beck isn’t somebody I readily associate with slow songs. Pre-Sea Change, even his more meandering songs had a hint of humor to them (see: “Jack-Ass”). His impish spirit was always there, even under layers of acoustic guitars. It’s even more jarring that, other than some EPs and B-side collections, Sea Change came right on the heels of Midnite Vultures, ostensibly his funniest, most deeply unserious album. (I can’t imagine the whiplash of going from “Debra” to something this plainly depressing.) But given the circumstances surrounding Sea Change—his breakup with then-fiancee Leigh Limon—it’s no wonder that he couldn’t summon any humor.

None, maybe, save for the title: “The Golden Age” is the exact opposite of what he’s describing. The chorus is only two lines long: “These days, I barely get by/I don’t even try.” Nevertheless, Beck’s talent translates to every emotion—he’s just as skilled with this wallowing, acoustic lament as he is cracking jokes with a fanfare of saxophones in the background. The plucks of almost country electric guitar, acoustic strums, and keyboards give “The Golden Age” an air of sunshine, but the kind of glaring sunshine that comes from listlessly staring at it, utterly unsure of your direction in life. I think it represents how much of a chameleon Beck could be in his prime—no matter the situation or emotion, he could adapt to it in his own, irreplaceable way.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Here Beside the Rising Tide – Emily Jane – “It’s a treacherous road/With a desolated view/There’s distant lights/But here they’re far and few/And the sun don’t shine/Even when it’s day…”

“How to Be a Millionaire” – ABC

Maybe I’m just not reading the right stuff, but I swear that ABC don’t get credit for being one of the most distinctly ’80s bands to ever ’80s. It’s just so in-your-face ’80s. Sure, some of the cuts from How to Be a Zillionaire are…well, painfully so (if you’re looking for proof, there’s the extended Cold War metaphor on “Between You And Me.” Still a banger, but…it gets to a point). But songs like “How To Be a Millionaire” are just such perfect products of their time. I feel like this song sounds like being inside of a slot machine. This is a very distinctly Reagan/Thatcher-era commentary on consumerism and class inequality, with its synth chorus, and the rapidly looped utterances of “billions and billions and billions of pounds.” (It’s said so fast that it almost starts sounding like “beans.” I can’t unhear it.) But you can’t say that it’s not still relatable today—and not undeniably a genius pop song: “I’ve seen the future, I can’t afford it/Tell you the truth, sir, someone just bought it.” Surely this isn’t applicable to anything today…

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Machinehood – S.B. Divya – “Hardly surprising if you might consider/Loyalties go to the highest of bidders…”

“River Deep, Mountain High” (Ike & Tina Turner cover) – Erasure

Being a musician with an already-established career in the late ’80s must’ve been nuts. At any moment, your song could get sniped and covered by some gay Brits with synths out of nowhere.

Of course, “Always On My Mind/In My House” is the obvious example because it surpassed the original by miles. Ike & Tina Turner’s original version of “River Deep – Mountain High,” on the other hand, couldn’t possibly be touched by any cover—it’s just that good. But though it doesn’t reach nearly the same heights, boy, Erasure’s cover is loads of fun. I think I’ll eternally have a soft spot for it just because it’s the first version of the song that I ever heard, especially during my big Erasure phase when I was in elementary school. (And yet it took me until I was about 14 to realize that I was queer…”the closet is glass” doesn’t even begin to cover it 😭) Nothing could ever rip the synths away from Erasure, but here, they work both for and against the effectiveness of the cover—they’re gleeful, sure, but I feel like the exclusively electronic sound makes it feel slightly colder than the original, unintentionally. But “River Deep, Mountain High” isn’t cold by any means—you just need to listen to the original and hear how overwhelmingly exuberant it is. Nothing can reach the staggering heights of Tina Tuner’s joy on that song—Andy Bell and Vince Clarke came close, though. With an extended dance mix that revels in the translation of the organic to juddering synths, it’s clear that the same kind of exuberance that Ike & Tina imbued the original with was ever-present here, with Bell’s vocals soaring with every successive declaration of everlasting love. OH I LOVE YOU, BABY! BABY, BABY, BABY!

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Like a Love Story – Abdi Nazemian – I promise that I’m not pairing this book with every queer ’80s bop. You can’t say that it isn’t fitting…

“Submarine Dream” – The Apples in Stereo

The Apples in Stereo have such a knack for creating an atmosphere. Most of the time, that atmosphere evokes a distant retro-future full of cartoonish robots and sleek spaceships, a world flung into the furthest corners of outer space. They’ve never been ones to have their feet planted on the dull ground of planet Earth. But if there’s anywhere here on this planet that’s just as wondrous and unknown as space, it’s the ocean—so it’s no wonder that Robert Schneider and co. wrote a song about it.

“Submarine Dream” feels like their tribute of sorts to “Octopus’s Garden,” in both its imagery and its ’60s-indebted sound. I feel like Ringo would be proud. Though it’s much slower than the former, it has that same carefree joy that comes from the freedom of the sea. The sparkling synths that they usually liken to robots have now translated to the glimmer of sunlight on the waves and the shimmer of pearls under the ocean’s surface. Gently flowing at a dreamy, lazy pace, Robert Schneider’s mixture of acoustic and electric guitars, as well as their synths, vibrant as the varied colors of a coral reef, drifts along. Weightless and starry-eyed, it makes you feel all the ease and awe of the mermaid-like protagonist as she watches the delicate wonders of the ocean: “The time slips through her hands/Just like the ocean sand/And everybody knows/That’s the way it goes.”

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

A Letter to the Luminous Deep – Sylvia Cathrall – “She likes the ocean caves/The world beneath the waves/Where everything is strange…”

BONUS DOUBLE FEATURE, BECAUSE THIS WEEK HAS BEEN HELL:

Admittedly, I didn’t have as strong of a connection to Dolly Parton’s music as many people did. But I’d be hard-pressed to think of somebody who has done the sheer amount of good in the world that she has. What a guiding light for so many, someone who shared her wealth and talent to make sure that the COVID vaccine was funded, that thousands of children in underserved communities could have books, that the LGBTQ+ and Black communities could feel accepted and welcome, and that people like her—who came from unassuming, working class roots—could be stars.

I picked this clip in particular because I remember seeing it floating around on Instagram sometime in high school. There was a tweet that went around that likened her fingerpicking the guitar with her signature acrylic nails to playing tennis in heels—and it’s spot on. Without knowing much about her, I saw that clip and thought to myself, there’s somebody who knows her stuff. Among everything, I hope we don’t pass over just how singularly talented she was. Rest easy, Dolly, knowing that you’ve done an insurmountable service to our country—and the world.

And then, as if this week wasn’t bad enough…

God. Even now, I’m struggling to find the words. Just looking at these clips is making me tear up. The Rocky Horror Picture Show is my main point of reference for the genius of Tim Curry. When my parents introduced it to me when I was 17, it was during the mire of COVID; I’d been out for about two years, but a global pandemic made it so that I hadn’t been able to engage much with a larger queer community (outside of my friends), socially and, to an extent, culturally. Something instantly clicked when I saw this film—here was a radically queer touchstone that, 50 years on, was a thing of transgressive beauty, a madcap, anything-goes film that retained a message of freedom and unconventional self-expression.

And that message applies to the rest of Curry’s long career, playing a variety of characters with an insatiable appetite for the villainous and unusual. His work created a sacred space for all of the freaks. I’m just glad that I can count myself among them. What a gift it’s been to have been moved so deeply by his art. Rest easy.

Don’t dream it, be it.

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s Sunday Songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Sunday Songs

Sunday Songs: 3/3/24

Posted on March 3, 2024 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Sunday, bibliophiles! I hope this week has treated you well.

This week: spring green for March, old dogs, and the consequences of the fact that at least 90% of my friends are gay and their music tastes rub off on me.

Enjoy this week’s songs!

SUNDAY SONGS: 3/3/24

“What Are We Gonna Do Now” – Indigo De Souza

This just in: the sad girl kool-aid has never left my system, and it likely never will. Buckle up.

“What Are We Gonna Do Now” lives squarely in the liminal space of uncertainty, as the title implies. It feels like the tense opening to a film; I could just be stuck on this imagery of the line “and we’re still on call with the nurses,” but I can’t help but imagine an opening shot panning out from the slow spikes of a heart monitor, slowly letting out beeps as Indigo De Souza’s voice gently drips like an IV with that lingering, trailing question: “what are we gonna do now?” Almost everything is gradual about this song, as if the verses were frozen in time: a picture of a person standing on the street while snowflakes suspended in midair decorate the space around them. De Souza’s voice dips and dives into nooks and crannies that only a cat could fit into, army-crawling through the shadows as she describes the wear and tear of a relationship in the middle of turmoil—not necessarily on the verge of a fracture, but in the middle of the storm that they aim to push through together. Exhaustion and frustration tinges it (De Souza’s delivery of “and I’m never cooking up what you’re craving” remains one of my favorite parts of the whole song), but it’s never the kind so intense that would throw their love out the window—it’s the determination of trying to find out exactly how to fix things, and scrabbling around, searching for answers in desperation. Like the ebb and flow of love, the instrumentals swerve from a near standstill to a rousing, guitar-driven chorus and back to quiet again, but after the first verse, nothing is the same; it has the same kind of barely-contained chaos of songs like Wilco’s “Via Chicago” and Mitski’s “The Deal,” with a sense that the anxiety of making amends and grasping for solutions. As De Souza’s airy voice rises like she’s gasping for air after emerging from the ocean, trembling drums and tambourines slip in and out of time, ever so slightly off-kilter and teetering, like one sneeze would send them all into disarray. Unlike the former two songs, though, it never fully gives in, but the unraveling is always at the back of the song’s mind, like an overflow of fearful thoughts as they try to pick up the pieces, but a sense of deep-breathing control as De Souza picks themselves back up.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

If Tomorrow Doesn’t Come – Jen St. Jude – one of the few apocalypse novels that really makes it a mission to focus on the human aspect.

“Lord Only Knows” – Beck

Full disclosure: I definitely ruined this album for myself. I knew it was going to be a good album, and it 100% is, but I’d already listened to about 3/4 of it, so there were no surprises left. All of the songs I remembered were already favorites, and the ones I hadn’t yet discovered weren’t as instantly classic as the others (sorry, “Derelict”). But that’s on me. Maybe on my parents for playing it so much in the car over the years, but mostly on me. Whoops.

That’s not to say that Odelay is a bad album at all—in fact, it’s quite the opposite. It makes me miss the old Beck, the one who didn’t scrub everything to an unnecessary polish, but instead made his music like a sculpture made from bits and bobs found in the junkyard—a bit of a tire here, an old, rusty car hood there, some nuts and bolts sprinkled on top for a finishing touch. It’s a collage, but not necessarily in the way that artists like De La Soul or The Beastie Boys make their collages: while their infinitely clever concoctions feel like they oil every sample into a unified organism of unlikely pieces, Beck’s method (for a while, at least) was to make every spare and found part stick out like sore thumbs, but so much so that all those sore thumbs eventually made a hand so absurd that it makes you think how does that even function as a hand? And yet it’s the perfect hand. There’s no other way that “Hotwax” would work without “I’m the enchanting wizard of rhythm.” In fact, the absurdity of all these samples make this mutant (no pun intended) record so memorable—nobody was doing it quite like Beck. Take this song, which starts out with a rasping scream, then descends into twangy and almost docile acoustic-guitar driven rock. It’s not the heat-waved calm that “Jack-Ass” (my favorite track on the album) exudes, but it’s got that same lazy drawl to it, every word curled at the edges like scraps of paper singed by a campfire. Odelay hadn’t yet reached critical mass of clever silliness that made ’90s-2000’s Beck so fun (that would be Midnite Vultures), but he had plenty of fun to spare—I always find myself laughing at the final lines that Beck sings as the track fades out like a car driving out of view, obscured by the wobbling lines of a heat wave: “Going back to Houston/Do the hot dog dance/Going back to Houston/To get me some pants.” You just can’t deliver the word “pants” with that much emphasis and have it not be funny. Them’s the rules. I apparently have the humor of a five-year-old, but evidently, so does Beck, and we’re all the better for it.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Fortuna (Nova Vita Protocol, #1) – Kristyn Merbeth – all of the same lazy, summer-eyed charm, but make it space opera (as things usually are on this blog).

“New Slang” – The Shins

Whenever I go to write about The Shins, I always end up going straight for the purple prose. It’s like the way I get with Radiohead, except they invoke something akin to religious fervor in me. I’m too far gone. But there’s something about James Mercer and his perpetually rotating cast of characters that evokes the lyrical side of my writing. Perhaps it’s that part of me connecting to that part of him, because he’s certainly got songwriting chops for days.

“New Slang” has been lingering in my life for decades; I faintly associate it with a period sometime in elementary or middle school. I think it may have been at the end of a playlist I listened to frequently. The Shins are never all that far from my mind, but this was the perfect song to shuffle out of the blue, soft and smiling like an old dog with white patches threaded into the fur of its snout. And I ran right up to pet that dog—god, I missed this song. Hello, old friend. Mercer has long since mastered the art of the old heartstring-tugging acoustic song, and while its as hipstery as it gets, there’s a calmness to it, a serenity like no other. And yet, for all intents and purposes, it’s James Mercer’s equivalent of a pop-punk “I’m getting out of this town” song; the lyrics were inspired by his experiences separating from Albuquerque, New Mexico, where the first iterations of The Shins had tried to take root. Disillusioned by a scene that he described as “macho, really heavy, and aggressive,” Mercer and company branched outwards, where their lyrical folk could have more meaning. “New Slang” was Mercer’s way of “flipping off the whole city,” as he described it (“Gold teeth and a curse for this town”), but there’s something beautiful in how quietly this song shoots its bitter middle finger. It’s not the jerky angst of separation that pop-punk lends to the subject, but instead the moment of looking back into the sunset, knowing that everything you’ve left behind is in the dust with the approaching night. Perhaps that’s where that serenity I feel comes from—the serenity of knowing that what’s in the past is in the past, and that it has no control over your life anymore. It’s underfoot, only tire tracks in the dirt now. You can’t help but feel a wave of peace at the thought.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Trouble Girls – Julia Lynn Rubin – while Lux and Trixie’s reasons for ditching their town are more complicated, there’s no less of a feeling that they’re giving it the finger the whole way out.

“The Gold” (Manchester Orchestra cover) – Phoebe Bridgers

Full disclosure: I hate the original version of this song. Hate it. It stinks of that kind of that faux-earnest, country-leaning pop that forced itself down everyone’s throats in the mid-2010’s like a contagion. If this weren’t obviously a breakup song, I know my music teacher would have made my 5th grade class sing this. I hate to relentlessly dog on a song, but also…Christ. This made me throw up in my mouth a little.

Phoebe Bridgers, on the other hand? A godsend. Leave it to her to make the original lyrics, some of which were actually good sound good, and not like they were being shoved down through the godforsaken Mumford & Sons strainer. I will give Manchester Orchestra (posers, they’re not even from Manchester…) some credit: “you’ve become my ceiling” is genuinely a beautiful lyric. But I just wish it wasn’t being delivered with that smarmy, offensive excuse for authenticity. Again: Phoebe Bridgers is our savior. She grounds this song enough to make the turmoil within it feel real. Never once did this song need belting, stadium-rock grandeur: it needed clarity, a sense of calm amidst the chaos, and a steady hand on an acoustic guitar. It’s got slightly more effects than Bridgers usually allots to a song of this tempo, but it hits the balance of flourish and that acoustic sincerity that she’s come to be known for. It’s a breakup song, but although some of those call for grandiose declarations of sorrow, some of them need time to sit in silence and wallow it in, and that’s exactly the treatment that Bridgers gave “The Gold.” I’ll just go ahead and pretend that she wrote it. Yup. Manchester Orchestra? Who is she?

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Vinyl Moon – Mahogany L. Browne – similarly, this novel in verse deals with the fallout of a relationship built on mistrust.

“Caesar on a TV Screen” – The Last Dinner Party

Before I listened to the full song, I distinctly remember seeing a snippet of this song advertised somewhere on Instagram and thinking something along the lines of “god, this is pretentious.” And I stand by that. It’s still pretentious. But in context, it’s a good listen.

I’ve heard a decent amount of buzz surrounding The Last Dinner Party, usually falling in one of two camps: that they’re out to save rock and roll and bring it back to its glory days, or that they’re just…okay? The former argument, while I like it in concept, reeks of the kind of mentality that “modern music isn’t good anymore” because it’s not all Pink Floyd, which…okay, cool if you like Pink Floyd, but also…creative rock didn’t die as soon as Y2K hit? You just have to look a little harder now that rock isn’t the reigning influence on popular music anymore. In the modern day, we treat rock music like we often treat women: as something to be saved, when all along, it’s been doing just fine, thank you. I doubt we’ll ever go back to those days, and maybe we shouldn’t—there’s no way you can completely replicate a movement in its full, temporal context, and maybe that’s okay. I’m all for bringing back glam rock, but chances are, anything you try to resurrect is going to feel displaced in our modern day context. You can take inspiration from them, but personally, it’s a hard thing to recreate in all of its flesh and blood.

Which…seems like a good deal of what The Last Dinner Party are going for. Frontwoman Abigail Morris has regularly emphasized how much she and the band enjoy being pretentious (if having their debut album titled Prelude to Ecstasy wasn’t enough of an indication), and if that’s what’s bringing them joy, then all power to them! They’re talented musicians, for sure. Weirdly, the other two songs of theirs that I listened to just sounded like…any old indie pop song, which I kind of hate to say, but if you’re all about “saving rock n roll” and just putting out that, then I feel like you have to keep your mission consistent. But you certainly get that feel from “Caesar on a TV Screen.” As far as the structure goes, it feels slightly disjointed, but the more I watch the music video, I get what they’re going for—a song with a distinct, three-act structure, emulating the epic, Shakespearean twists and turns that inspired it. There’s loads of drama to spare, from the rush of strings in the third act to Morris’ impassioned howl of “everyone will like me!” at the song’s exiting flourish, like she’s brandishing a prop sword with every word. It’s dripping with that kind of theatrical, ’70s and ’80s drama—there’s Queen written all over it, and I can’t help but think that some of that drama was informed by Kate Bush. And…yeah, Freddie Mercury, Kate Bush, and David Bowie, the latter of whom the band have repeatedly cited as one of their primary influences, are probably some of the most colossal shoes to fill in terms of musical artistry. But there’s no doubt that The Last Dinner Party are a skilled bunch in their own right—and god, they look like they’re having the time of their lives. It’s exactly the kind of excess, maximalism, and drama that their band name implies.

…AND A BOOK TO GO WITH IT:

Strike the Zither (Kingdom of Three, #1) – Joan He – “When I was a child, I never felt like a child/I felt like an emperor with a city to burn” HMMM…

Since this post consists entirely of songs, consider all of them to be today’s song.

That’s it for this week’s songs! Have a wonderful rest of your day, and take care of yourselves!

Monthly Wrap-Ups

August 2023 Wrap-Up 🎂

Posted on September 1, 2023 by madeline @ The Bookish Mutant

Happy Friday, bibliophiles!

I just finished my first week back to school, but after this, chances are I’ll be somewhat radio silent until I can get fully settled into my routine. The only reason that this post is seeing the light of day is that I start working on my wrap-up posts about a week in advance, so here we are.

Let’s begin, shall we?

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

Summer’s officially over, but the weather sure doesn’t seem to think so. Hopefully I won’t have to endure much more of my (long) walk to class in this 90+ degree heat.

That aside, I’ve had a good August, for the most part. My initial “yay, I’m going back to college!” got partially replaced by “oh god, I’m going back to college” closer to move-in, but I’m feeling better now. (The fact that I’m in a much nicer dorm than I was last year certainly helps. It doesn’t constantly reek of weed in here! Huzzah!) I had the opportunity to soak up the last dregs of summer beforehand, at least. I finished up my summer job at the library, bought a catnip toy for my cat for his sweet 16, completed another trip around the sun, and blew part of my paycheck on books to celebrate said trip around the sun. Worth it.

My blogging’s been a tad slower since I’ve been trying to get everything together before I moved in, but I feel like I’ve still been able to be productive. I’ve enjoyed reviewing all of my books this month and putting together graphics and going off about music. And I got in one book tag that WordPress screwed up and I had to recreate from scratch, but it was fun in the end. Once my schedule figures itself out, I’ll get back on the writing train, but for now, I’m mapping out the best route to my class in That One Building on the other side of campus.

Other than that, I’ve just been drawing, watching Only Murders in the Building (for the love of god, can we just stop pairing Mabel with people who have zero chemistry with her 😭). Good Omens (pain, suffering, even), Heartstopper (Lucy Dacus and Wolf Alice paying in the same episode >>>>>>>), and Taskmaster (“you’ve got no chutzpah”), and reveling in the fact that my new dorm has air conditioning. It’s the (not so) small things.

READING AND BLOGGING:

I read 17 books this month! Other than the one stinker in the batch (sorry, The Surviving Sky), it’s been a great reading month in terms of quality and in terms of quantity. Expect some kind of mini-review post for all of the books I bought for my birthday and the books I got as gifts, because they’ve all been fantastic so far.

1 – 1.75 stars: