A “Landscape in Lavender” Playlist

When I was writing, revising, and later editing “Landscape in Lavender,” I felt as if I were simultaneously living in two distinct time periods—our current day and the 1980s. Sitting at my writing desk, I plunged myself into the past so thoroughly that when my husband, Dennis, entered the room to let me know he was going on an errand, I flinched at the interruption, momentarily disoriented. How could I possibly be living in San Francisco in my thirties while objectively embodying a man in his early seventies sitting at a desk?  Bill Kenower is not the first writer to speak of the trance one falls into when writing. From that welcome trance the spring of creativity bubbles forth, and the joy of creating flows in its current.

Of course, nothing reawakens the past so effectively as a remembered sensation. For Marcel Proust it was, famously, the taste of a Madeleine biscuit. But arguably, music is an even more effective time traveler than a taste or a smell. There are certain songs that I will forever associate with a specific moment in time. In “Landscape in Lavender,” more than a few of those remembered songs serve as pivots in the story, inflection points in the plot. Even when I listen to them today, I’m immediately transported back to those key moments in my personal development.

For example, in Chapter Two, I mention how Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” held a different significance for each of my classmates in a dormitory called Low-Rise North. Later, I write about an amazing congruence: I came out of the closet at the exact moment that Diana Ross’s  hit, “I’m Coming Out,” climbed the charts. Then, when I broke up with my first boyfriend, Deniece Williams’s song “Silly” helped me access my grief. And on it goes throughout my story of coming out and coming of age in the 1980s.

Realizing how many songs and recording artists transformed my emotional state at key moments over the course of the twenty-three years that my story follows, I asked my godson Charlie Smitherman, a talented jazz bassist, to assemble a Spotify playlist to accompany the text. He enthusiastically complied, and the result is nothing less than the soundtrack of “Landscape in Lavender.” Thank you, Charlie!

 When you read the book, be on the lookout for the pages where I mention specific songs or artists and take a listen to the playlist! Here’s a link to the soundtrack, followed by a list of the songs in the order they appear in the book: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4lK8NIXZ9C7NXp0HsxYfWj?si=FzfhOjYTQLK97YT66yJ-Ug&pi=9gbulWzTRneUR

LANDSCAPE IN LAVENDER playlist

1. Stephanie Mills, ‘Never Knew Love Like This Before’
2. Rick James, ‘Give It To Me Baby’
3. Marvin Gaye, ‘ What’s Going On’
4. Judy Garland, ‘Over the Rainbow’
5. Hall and Oates, ‘She’s Gone’
6. The Beatles, ‘Yesterday’
7. Boz Scaggs, ‘Lowdown’
8. Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, ‘The Fever’
9. Stan Getz, ‘So Danco Samba’
10. Donna Summer, ‘I Feel Love’
11. Lipps Inc, ‘Funkytown’
12. Abba, ‘Lay All Your Love On Me’
13. Diana Ross, ‘I’m Coming out’
14. Frank Sinatra, ‘New York, New York’
15. Parliament, ‘Give Up The Funk’
16. Toni Basil, ‘Hey Mickey’
17. Laura Branigan, ‘Gloria’
18. The Human League, ‘Don’t You Want Me’
19. Soft Cell, ‘Tainted Love’
20. Teena Marie, ‘Lovergirl’
21. Quincy Jones, ‘Ai No Corrida’
22. Sylvester,  ‘Do You Wanna Funk’
23. Deniece Williams, ‘Silly’
24. Carmen McRae, ‘Dear Ruby’
25. Steve Miller Band, ‘Abracadabra’
26. Ashford and Simpson, ‘Solid’
27. Toni Braxton, ‘Another Sad Love Song’