It’s hard to come up with a reason to criticize Joni Mitchell, but here’s my one complaint: I can’t listen to her music without feeling like I ought to be working.
Earlier this year, a member of The Food Section’s advisory board suggested it would be fun to give readers a peek into how this publication gets made by sharing a list of songs that power its production. Problem is, there’s nothing interesting about my listening habits.
I start the day with the super light classical strains of WQXR, then a few hours later segue into one of the four volumes of the Joni Mitchell Archives series. I never bother looking at those year-end lists of “Your Year in Audio,” since I know it’s just thousands of hours of Joni. Once in a rare while, I’ll cue up another album, but they’re all in the same thematic ballpark: Sophisticated lyrics and sweet voices are my writerly jam. Other titles in my rotation include Willie Nelson’s Phases and Stages, Patty Griffin’s Living with Ghosts, Richard Buckner’s Bloomed, and now, Jason Isbell’s latest, Foxes in the Snow.
So, I consulted The Food Section’s team of correspondents to find out if they had playlists worth circulating. Turns out, nearly all of them write in total silence, which is a choice I respect when I don’t have a newsletter to fill out.
Right: African American soldiers listening to WPA concert at Camp Blanding/ Photo from State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
Fortunately, Nashville bureau chief Mark Blankenship is the exception (he doesn’t live in Nashville for nothing!) But music is such a big part of Mark’s life that he doesn’t have a set of standard tracks; instead, he usually listens to whatever he’s next writing up in his pop music newsletter, The Lost Songs Project. Recently, he’s had Queen Latifah and Monie Love’s “Ladies First,” The Ramsey Lewis Trio’s “The ‘In’ Crowd,” and Melissa Etheridge’s “If I Wanted To” on repeat.
Nobody cited what’s possibly the most common music choice for journalists: Movie soundtracks. When you’re trying to conjure intense emotion, swelling strings really help. While I’ve never fixated on a soundtrack album, that’s the source of my ultimate go-to song: At one point, I had a playlist called “Work songs” that consisted solely of Mark Orton’s “Their Pie,” from the movie Nebraska, over and over and over.
Audience listening to the Caney Forkers of Cookeville, Tenn. performing at the 1976 Florida Folk Festival in White Springs/ Photo by Karl E. Holland, State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory
Beyond that, there are a few favorites that turn up when Joni needs a rest. Because I trust our advisory board would never steer me wrong, they’re found below in playlist form, with my weakness for covers intact (and if the tunes inspire you to write in a vaguely TFS way, remember that our pitch box is always open.)
Have a great weekend.
p.s. What this list is lacking—besides fast tempos, brilliance that demands total attention, and a beat you can dance to—is diversity. Please know this soundtrack is specific to the office: I’ve got plenty of other music for other occasions.
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