Welcome to Songs That Remind You of Feelings

Because who doesn't love feelings?

Nov 7, 2022

About a million and a half years ago, I was dressed up as Josie (of the Pussycats) getting ready to go to a Halloween party. The pre-party meet up took place at the house where my then-boyfriend had multiple weekly band practices. It was a house inhabited by a rotating cast of 20-something musicians. Sometimes it was clean. Sometimes there was even actual toilet paper in the bathroom. The walls of the kitchen were painted an eyeball-burning shade of pumpkin orange. Appropriate for Halloween, but very weird for every other day of the year.

As I waited for our group to get their beer/costumes ready, I fell into conversation with one of my boyfriend's many bandmates. I mentioned a show I'd been listening to on CBC radio earlier in the day and he scoffed. "Every time I turn on CBC radio, it's some guy going and now we bring you another hour of songs that remind you of feelings."

I had, and still have, a deep love of CBC radio, but I still laughed. Yeah, the radio DID play a lot of songs that reminded me of feelings. Songs that remind me of feelings are kind of my thing. So, when it came time to name this newsletter, which will combine my love of books (especially romance) and music, Songs That Remind You of Feelings seemed a natural choice.

October 2022 Feelings

I'm getting "all the feels" this month from a couple of romance novels from authors whose work I've enjoyed in the past. The first was Love on the Brain by Ali Hazelwood. Hazelwood's first book, The Love Hypothesis was so popular by the time it arrived in my library holds, I was worried that it couldn't possibly live up to the hype. But it did. I burned through that one, loving Hazelwood’s clever but awkward characters and their friends and surroundings. Love on the Brain was released with massive publicity, and again, I worried that it might not be as good as it was being made out to be. But though it wasn't a perfect book, it was still a fantastic read. The only caveat I would give is that I found some of the "mysteries" within the narrative to be very predictable. It was clear right from the start what was going on in a few cases. But the book itself is so strong, that didn't take away from my enjoyment at all. Highly recommend this one. Where else can you read about the romance and intrigue that happens when people are working on inventing helmets for astronauts? Nowhere! Bonus points for lots of excellent vegan jokes.

Christmas at Rosie Hopkins’ Sweetshop by Jenny Colgan is one that I listened to as an audiobook in late October, when I was desperate for some feel-good brain content to distract me from the stress of worrying about our municipal election and the state of the world in general. It's almost Christmas, right? I don't love Christmas, but I do love Christmas romance books set in small towns in the UK. Niche? Sure. Delightful? Absolutely. Colgan says in the introduction to this one that it was inspired by her love of James Herriot's stories in All Creatures Great and Small, which was a huge selling point for me. The ACGAS tv reboot that aired this past year was one of my favourite things to watch when I was desperate to imagine myself anywhere but in the middle of regular life and its chaos.

October 2022 - Songs

Here are three tracks that meant something to me this month. Some old, some new.

Baby Does Your Heart Sink? - Martha

"Cast your mind back as far as it will go/ to last time we were dancing at the darkest-timeline disco..."

Range Life - Pavement

"Out on my skateboard the night is just humming/ and the gumsmacks are the pulse I'll follow/ if my walkman fades/ well, I got absolutely no one/ no one but myself to blame..."

Graceland (cover) - Justin Townes Earl

"Losing love is like a window in your heart/ everybody sees you blown apart..."

Betty and I thank you for reading!

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My debut romance novel, Make Me a Mixtape is coming from Doubleday in 2024.