Loser of the Year Playlist
Warning: there are detailed spoilers below for Loser of the Year.
Remember liner notes? Those little write-ups that artists would put on the booklets inside CD cases? I loved liner notes. In the days before Genius or other lyric annotation websites, it was such a great way to learn more about the artist’s interpretation of their songs: the inspiration, the background, what it meant to them.
I’ll never write or perform an album, but thanks to Spotify, I get to create my own version of liner notes! At the top of the page, you’ll find a playlist I created to go with Loser of the Year. If you’d like to know more about why I chose these particular songs, read on:
“you should see me in a crown,” Billie Eilish
If Jillian Reed was a wrestler, then this would be her walkout song. Everything about it captures her swagger and ethos: the beat (that bass!), the sense of menace, the lyrics. I imagine this playing in the background of the first chapter as she’s holding her press conference and glaring out at St. Rita’s faculty and staff.
Most applicable lyrics: I'm gonna run this nothing town/Watch me make 'em bow/One by one by one/One by one by/You should see me in a crown/Your silence is my favorite sound
Joseph is probably the artist/band I listened to most often while writing Loser of the Year, and, not coincidentally, they show up twice on this playlist. This song belongs to Mattie, and it gets at her sense of powerlessness and incompetence at the start of the book. After a rough few years, Mattie has no faith in her own abilities or competency; she also finds herself in a position of authority she doesn’t feel she’s earned.
Most applicable lyrics: Oh, you thought you'd know the way but now you don't/Oh, you thought you'd have the answers when you'd grown/They handed you the keys/The driver's seat is yours now/There's nothing left to lean on/You're the queen from here on out/No time for doubt/Good luck, kid
The opening track on this playlist is Jillian’s walkout song, but “White Flag” is her anthem. She’s an army of one, and she’ll get what she wants while doing it better than anyone else ever has. Incidentally, there’s an indirect reference to “White Flag” in the book, when Jillian tells Mattie, “If you think I’ll raise my little white flag just because you’re too oblivious to know who you’re messing with, then you’re going to learn otherwise.”
Most applicable lyrics: I'll be an army, no you're/Not gonna stop me gettin' through, ooh/I'll sing a marching song and/Stomp through the halls louder than you, ooh/I could surrender but I'd/Just be pretending, no I'd/Rather be dead than live a lie/Burn the white flag
“Extraordinary Machine,” Fiona Apple
For me, this song captures Mattie’s emotional journey around the time Jillian becomes her co-director. She doesn’t trust Jillian yet, but she’s also not as bothered by Jillian as other people seem to be; she knows how to handle her. At this point, Mattie is also unwilling to take responsibility for her own role in her life, not seeing her pattern of running away as something she needs to deal with.
Most applicable lyrics: If there was a better way to go, then it would find me/I can't help it, the road just rolls out behind me/Be kind to me, or treat me mean/I'll make the most of it, I'm an extraordinary machine
This song gets at the rising anticipation Mattie and Jillian feel once they know they’re heading to New York on that field trip—and to that shared room. They both know they should resist their attraction—physical and emotional—but they’re incapable of holding back the wave. There’s also a refrain of “let me in,” which echoes Mattie’s increasing desire for Jillian to let some of her walls fall and open up.
Most applicable lyrics: Who am I kidding?/If all my defenses come down, oh baby/Will you lay it all on me now?
“What is this Feeling?”, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth (from Wicked)
Halfway through the book, Mattie and Jillian take their students to see Wicked on Broadway, and “What is this Feeling?” gets a special mention on page, as the classic musical theatre enemies-to-lovers (or enemies-to-should-have-been-lovers) song. Sure, it’s a little on the nose, but I couldn’t resist the reference!
Most applicable lyrics: My pulse is rushing/My head is reeling/Oh, what is this feeling/Does it have a name?/Yes/There's a strange exhilaration/In such total detestation
I listened to this song a lot while I was writing the hotel room scene between Mattie and Jillian, because the intensity of it really matches Jillian’s headspace: desperate, overwhelmed, unable to hold herself back, and incredibly turned on. With the exception of that one night stand eighteen years earlier, Jillian’s spent her entire life repressing a really important part of her sexuality, and this is the moment the fire hose finally lets loose.
Most applicable lyrics: I spread like strawberries/I climb like peas and beans/I've been sucking it in so long/That I'm bursting at the seams
The first couple of sex scenes in Loser of the Year are pretty primal—less about feeling, more about claiming—and “Lioness” evokes that dynamic. It’s also a really hot song? Like, incredibly hot.
Most applicable lyrics: [a woman moaning]
We don’t get Jillian’s POV at any point in the book, but if we did, I imagine this song would be something like her thought process while she and Mattie are sneaking around. She’s always known that “something better” was out there for her, even if she couldn’t fully articulate to herself what that “better” was. Now she’s found it—along with a sure, sick horror that she won’t be able to keep it.
Most applicable lyrics: I always wanted to be something better/I always wanted to shine/And now I know I can't deny my nature/Cause I got somethin' to hide/I got a secret/I've got a secret/Lord knows there's a bad thing comin'/I feel it in my bones
“Now That I Found You,” Carly Rae Jepsen
No other singer is as good as Carly Rae Jepsen at capturing the thrill of new love, and this song gets at Mattie’s exhilaration during the winter months. For the first time, she’s “coming alive,” but also keeping secrets—from herself, from Jillian, and from the world.
Most applicable lyrics: How did we get this far?/It came without a warning/And in the night time, you tell me your whole life/You and me get too real, but all I feel is alright/My heart's a secret, mmm/I think I'm coming alive, yeah/I think I'm coming alive with you
“Stray Italian Grayhound,” Vienna Teng
Oh, Jillian. For forty years, she’s convinced herself she has enough—that the confined, narrow life she’s built for herself is exactly what she wants—and then along comes Mattie (again) to blow up her certainty. I imagine that Jillian’s terror in the later chapters of Loser of the Year stems from sheer desperation at the thought of going back. She knows now what it feels like to live toward the fuller version of herself, and returning to her status quo is the equivalent of breathing through a straw.
Most applicable lyrics: I just stopped believing in happy endings/Harbors of my own/But you had to come along didn’t you/Tear down the doors, throw open windows/Oh if you knew just what a fool you have made me
“Being Alive,” Raúl Esparza (from Company)
A crying Mattie listens to this song in her car after her last day at St. Rita’s, once she’s lost both her job and Jillian. In many respects, “Being Alive” is the entire ethos of Loser of the Year, and the core of both MC’s journeys. The song tells us that emotional risk is not only worth it, but a necessary condition of humanity. If you close yourself off to pain and hurt, you also close yourself off to love and connection, to someone “who’ll always be there/as frightened as you of being alive.”
Most applicable lyrics: Somebody hold me too close/Somebody hurt me too deep/Somebody sit in my chair/And ruin my sleep/And make me aware/Of being alive, being alive
“Loser of the Year,” Simple Plan
(Hey, that’s the title of the book!) I actually didn’t name Loser of the Year after this song—the title was a brilliant suggestion from my wife—but it’s surprisingly a great fit, and sums up Jillian’s end-of-book epiphany pretty well! Of course, readers are supposed to think at first that the “loser” of the title is Mattie, but, as I hope is clear by the end of the novel, in many respects the “loser” is really Jillian, who has lost so much—including Mattie—and needs to learn how to reclaim it. As Mattie thinks at one point, “The opposite of loss wasn’t win, after all. It was find.”
Most applicable lyrics: You make me wanna shut it all down/Throw it all away/'Cause I'm nothing if I don't have you/What's the point of being on top/All the money in the world/If I can't blow it all on you?/So send the cars back/Put the house on the market/And my big dreams too/'Cause it's all so clear/That without you here/I'm the loser of the year