On the rare occasions when someone asks what are the main influences on my writing and thinking, I come back to music, especially rock music. Sure, writing under these influences leads to a sort of plagiarism. Still, a run through the playlist jogs thoughts on the songs and memories in my life. It’s an inspiracy.

The exercise of mixing my sorry blog thoughts with wisdom from great musicians is reminiscent of an experience I had studying in Madrid. A bartender outside the college I was attending invited me and a classmate to his apartment at the end of the metro line—what we’d in the U.S. call a slum. Sad place with a widowed mother who explained something I couldn’t understand about the husband’s death. The son trotted out a book of his sketches, seamlessly interspersed with torn-out pages from art books of greats like Goya.

Nonetheless, in case I don’t live to see the book on my playlist published, here are a few of the passages under B …

Backstreets. Brings me back to the Beverly friends I introduced to Springsteen. I created a monster. Though I have to say I was proud and jealous to know my daughter went to see him on the DC mall on Veterans Day. Righties were mad he did Creedence Clearwater’s Fortunate Son (“It ain’t me, it ain’t me; I ain’t no fortunate one.”) I equate Creedence with Vietnam. Of course, most people on the mall didn’t know Springsteen’s Born in the USA is also satire. As for me, I tweeted: “Another Veterans Day, another war,” and linked it to my earlier piece Support the Troops … with Education. I’m no Fortunate Son, but as a child with a brother who resisted the Vietnam draft and wound up with “alternative service,” I did write a letter to the cardinal registering myself as a conscientious objector. Later, I registered for Selective Service as a condition of receiving student aid.

Blank Expression. The Specials came to Lynn when I was too young to get into clubs. Also recall a band called “There Goes the Neighborhood.” Lynn’s had a sketchy but constant place in my life. Shopping there as a child. Catching last call at the Porthole as a college student home for summers; Taking trains through haunting city en route to family homestead in Beverly. Of course, the passenger with the puffy Green Bay Packers coat whom I donned “Jet Engine Girl” in a lousy poem.

Breathing. I fell in love with Kate Bush my last year of high school and held tight to the relationship since. “Leave me something to breathe” fit my interest in antiwar songs of the 1980s. The song was very scary to me. I had worried about flashes in the sky. Always out my old backyard. Toward Salem. The closest urban core?