As I’m sure you’ve heard, Kurt Vonnegut died a couple of days ago. If you grew up a white male in America in the last 40 years, chances are pretty high you went through a “Vonnegut phase,” and I’m no exception.
I read Slaughterhouse-Five
1. So It Goes - Tom Waits
This is an early song by Waits, and I think it sets an appropriate tone for the mix. The title is a reference to a refrain in Slaughterhouse-Five, “So it goes.” In the novel Vonnegut uses the phrase as a transition and as comic effect, usually immediately following some tragedy. The flippant tone of the phrase disperses the weight of the events and gives the narrator an emotional distance from the horrors he’s witnessed.
In the song, “so it goes” seems to be a resignation that what will be will be, and any wish the speaker tries to make are grounded by a harsh reality. In the song it’s used to distance the speaker from his emotions, as well. If he’s resigned to failure, he will never succeed.
2. Man Out of Time - Elvis Costello
I’ll admit to doing a little research for this post, and one of the songs I found to be a direct reference to a Vonnegut work is this one. In Slaughterhouse-Five, the main character, Billy Pilgrim, claims to have become “unstuck in time,” and in this song, the main character seems to be in the same predicament. I’ll be honest: I don’t really remember specific events in the novel that well (it’s been 12 years since I read it!). So I’m trusting the Web on this one, but if nothing else, the two characters’ circumstances are the same.
All that said, the song is fantastic. It’s one of my favorite Elvis Costello tracks because it combines an edginess (the screeching intro and outro) with a fantastic melody. He’s an amazing songwriter and a beautiful singer. Man Out of Time showcases both. (This song isn’t on iTunes! Sorry!)
3. Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)
Now I know that Vonnegut’s involvement with this song was an urban legend, but I think the events surrounding the song are enough to warrant its inclusion in this list.
If you’ll remember way back to 1997, an email started to circulate with the text of a speech supposedly given by Vonnegut at the commencement ceremony at MIT. Turns out, some clever or inept soul had mis-attributed the speech to Vonnegut: it was actually a newspaper column by Mary Schmich. Well, the speech took on a life of its own, and in 1999, it came to the attention of Baz Luhrmann, director of Moulin Rouge!, who decided to set the piece to music. And the rest is history.
Even though Vonnegut didn’t write the speech, his name became tied to it, and I don’t think it would have become the phenomenon it did without his name attached. Plus there’s some pretty good advice in there.
4. Sam Stone - John Prine
I selected this song because I was trying to find a singer whose voice was similar to Vonnegut’s. Little did I know, that would be a much taller order than I initially thought. To me the Vonnegut voice includes humor, history, gravity, and a matter of fact delivery. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you John Prine.
Sam Stone is the story of a Vietnam veteran dealing with the ravages of war and a heroin addiction that’s killing him. It’s fitting that the song deals with war, because many of Vonnegut’s novels dealt with WWII. And Prine has written the lyrics in such a matter of fact tone, peppered with humor that it might as well be a Vonnegut short story.
5. Cross Road Blues - Robert Johnson
There’s nothing I can say about this song. It speaks for itself, completely. I’ll just say that I’m closing out this week’s tribute to Kurt Vonnegut with a song from his favorite genre, the blues.
