Some Strange Music

/ Jeff Cann

In dim light, I pass daily by the new fiction shelves. The books on display, each cracked open to forty-five degrees, stand on their own.  I used to stop here to browse on my way into work, my accounting job at the library system. All lights out except the nighttime emergency light, opening time still an hour away. The April illumination with added daylight is brighter than December, but not much. The windows face west with sheer curtains. Bright in the afternoon, twilit in the morning. I enjoy the unlit library. It relaxes me, reminds me of the era where wall sconces were candles, not electric lights. I rarely look at the books anymore. I stopped reading four years ago.

The pandemic disrupted my reading habit. I know I’m not the only one. I’ve had this conversation with a handful of others. Too agitated to settle down and concentrate on a story. Better to mind-surf Google, doom-scroll Instagram, binge TV. Double vision followed the pandemic, but surgery solved that a year ago. A few minor tweaks last winter, and I’m as good as new. But I’ve only read one book this year, a simple, mediocre novel by Stephen King. I’m only halfway through a memoir I received for Christmas. I can’t read more than three pages at a time.

Two weeks ago, walking into the library, a title caught my eye. It stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t read the title so much as it imprinted itself on my optic nerve, Some Strange Music Draws Me In. I was singing the song before I realized how I even knew the phrase. It’s a Patti Smith lyric from her song Dancing Barefoot, I’ve known it for decades. I grabbed the book and skimmed the dust jacket flap. Paraphrased as I absorbed it: A gender-confused teenage girl in the nineteen-eighties meets a transgender woman in a drug store and begins a journey of self-discovery. I flipped the book over, written by a man. What’s a middle-aged, bald guy know about queer teenage girls?

I put the book back on the shelf and climbed the staircase to my office. I can’t add any books to my pile. I’ve got that half-finished Christmas present and an unopened novel I need to read for work by mid-May. Plus, it’s not my normal sci-fi genre. Woke! I studiously avoid political literature. I get too much just reading the news.

I found myself singing Dancing Barefoot in my head all that day at work. Driving home, I took my playlist off shuffle and streamed through a few Patti Smith songs on my short commute. I went for a run with a mantra of Because the night belongs to lovers… (a song Smith collaborated on with Bruce Springsteen) on repeat in my brain. Later that evening, I confessed to Susan: “I saw a book today with a Patti Smith lyric as its title. I want to read it, but I know I never will. That really bums me out”

“Why don’t you give it a try? Maybe it will click with you. Maybe this book will get you back on track with reading.” I grabbed Some Strange Music the next morning. And yes, it clicked. It really clicked. A week later, nose in the book, again, Susan said “Wow, you’re really liking that book, huh?”

From Amazon: It’s the summer of 1984 in Swaffham, Massachusetts, when Mel (short for Melanie) meets Sylvia, a tough-as-nails trans woman whose shameless swagger inspires Mel’s dawning self-awareness. But Sylvia’s presence sparks fury among her neighbors and throws Mel into conflict with her mother and best friend. Decades later, in 2019, Max (formerly Mel) is on probation from his teaching job for, ironically, defying speech codes around trans identity. Back in Swaffham, he must navigate life as part of a fractured family and face his own role in the disasters of the past.

One might wonder why a straight, married, middle-aged (OK, oldish) guy like me identified with a novel about a teenage girl and a trans woman. Susan and I discussed this. The author, Griffin Hansbury, did a phenomenal job of capturing the otherness both characters feel. Do you know this term? Merriam-Webster defines otherness as ‘the quality or state of being different.’ I think I would alter that to ‘the quality or state of feeling different.’ It doesn’t matter if you are different, just how you perceive yourself.

I’m sure if I look hard enough, I can find some stats stating the percentage of the population that suffers from feelings of otherness. I can’t guess at that. People like me who feel ‘other’ tend to feel like they are the only one. First as a child and now as an adult, my otherness has stemmed from embarrassment over Tourette Syndrome, loneliness from social anxiety, and the agitation of OCD.

A defining moment in Some Strange Music, Sylvia introduces Mel to Patti Smith’s music. She put the album Horses on the turntable, and the opening lyric, Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine, electrifies Mel and wakes her up. That instant sets off summer-long chain of events that changes the trajectory of Mel’s entire life.  

I’ve just spent three days reading messages from Patti Smith fans on a former rock singer’s Facebook page. The singer posted a thank you to Patti Smith for changing the direction of her life and included the drawing above created by artist Sheila Ann Journey. Woman after woman attested to how Smith’s music altered their approach to… everything. As a man and feeling left out, all I could offer was a description of my book and a recommendation to read it.

I fully understand the sentiment, though. Patti Smith is a voice for those of us who feel different from everyone else. A voice for the outsiders. Smith and other punk bands from the seventies helped an oddball like me craft an identity that gave me confidence. Griffin Hansbury gets it. Earlier in this essay, I called him a middle-aged man and wondered what he knows about teenage girls. A closer look at the back cover reveals that he used to be one. I suspect Some Strange Music is somewhat autobiographical.

It’s not surprising to me that Hansbury used Patti Smith as a catalyst for change in his book, that he used her lyric as its title. She’s an empowering force. She dares us to be ourselves. Like Mel and Sylvia in the book, like those women on Facebook, listening to Patti Smith sing helps me locate my place in the world. Helps me assess how I fit in. Reading Some Strange Music Draws Me In has done the same thing.

I never give books a five-star review—that should be reserved for those once-in-a-generation novels like the Grapes of Wrath and One Hundred Years of Solitude. But who knows, maybe Some Strange Music Draws Me In will hold a spot like that in the hearts of readers in the future. It certainly does for me.

Heading art created by (and used with permission from) Sheila Ann Journey.

32 thoughts on “Some Strange Music”

  1. I’m glad to hear I’m not alone: every since the Covid pandemic started, all these years ago, my reading habits have changed as well… And I’m trying to get “back on track”, too 🙂

    And, yes, it’s strange what stories resonate with us. It’s actually the topic I’m (yay!) reading about now: what stories resonate with us? Do you have any ideas how to determine that?

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Hopefully, this book has given me a bit of a kick to get back to nightly reading. I REALLY need to read a book for work. I’m not sure my new boss will understand if I tell her I have mental illness related issue that doesn’t allow me to read. Pre pandemic, the books that resonated with me most were post-apocalyptic. I think I got enough of that from Covid. I think part of my problem is that I need a new genre.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  3. I found Patti Smith doing Barefoot dancing at the Montreux Jazz festival ~ 2005. What a great introduction to an artist and song I’ve not heard before. I’ve just pulled up another version with light up lyrics to lead me on.
    ~
    Bye_bye_bye_bye_bye.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • A lot of us are quite obsessed with her. In that facebook chat, many people were writing about how powerfully they were affected seeing her perform live. I’m pretty sure I saw her and my walk-away was thinking it was mediocre. This was when I was still in my serious drunk-phase and I hadn’t really come to grips with my otherness. I masked it with alcohol (a paragraph I deleted from my essay). I’m glad you’ve discovered her. So much amazing music and lyrics/poetry to enjoy there.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  4. I’m so glad that, last year when I started my blogging adventure, I discovered your writing. I’m always drawn into your subject. It’s because of your ability to create “voice,” in your work–that sense that a genuine personality speaks the piece. I feel like I know you–heck, I feel like I know Susan, too. Your ability to be real on the page is so admirable. And your ability to write organically, following what seems to be your progression of thought as you develop your subject–well, I’m just going to call it magic. So much to admire here, Jeff.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  6. Otherness is a great way to capture that and likely what bonded Patti and Mappelthorpe. Good luck with the reading! Does worlds for the writing dunnit?! I sold about 30 hardcover cook books last week to a book store for $10 then spent $20 on two new titles myself ha ha. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History and Updike’s Couples. Pre-summer reading.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I’m surprised they even bought those cookbooks. At the library where I work, we take book donations for a big summer sale. We can’t get rid of the cookbooks. They get recycled. Mapplethorpe plays a role in the book.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  7. I love Patti Smith’s writings as much as her music, especially her books Just Kids and M Train, and some of the writings on her Substack. I never got to see her in concert until last summer at a smallish outdoor venue, and she sounded great. It was moving to see her with her longtime stalwart musicians Lenny Kaye, Tony Shanahan, and Jay Dee Daugherty as well as her guitarist son Jackson Smith. Iconic!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I’m pretty sure I saw her in the 80s or early 90s when she had that big radio hit, but that was before I really ‘got’ her. I’d love to see her now. Central Pennsylvania probably isn’t high on her tour list though.

      Like

      Reply

  8. Loved this post! I’ve been sitting here thinking about whether a song or an artist ever touched my heart like that and I’ve come to the conclusion that there are too many songs and feelings to wade through for the answer Lol. Man… music is one of those things that will drum up an emotion (wanted or not) along with a long forgotten memory at the absolute wrong time.
    Maybe I should give this some thought. Also, it occurred to me that you may have given me an idea for a blog post with that in mind. What song speaks or has spoken to the depths of you? Like what song was the one for you?
    I’ll give this some thought. Again, great post!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. Wow! Such an interesting read…and it is funny how literature and music both worked at different sides of arts; but was able to draw people towards an alternative, through using someone else work. And I love how both artist complimented each other through different aspects (literature vs music). Amazing post!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. I watched a YouTube interview with the author; thank you. A trans man from Charis interviewed him. God forgive me. I spent the whole time wondering if they are trans men; how did they get those beards? And, what exactly is a trans man? And is that the right terminology? I need to be a better ally. The book sounds great. I’m thrilled you read it.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment