In the first scene of the last episode of “Breaking Bad,” Walter White opens the glove box of a car he’s trying to steal and the case to a Marty Robbins cassette falls out. At the end of the scene, … Read more
Sometimes, when I get stuck for ideas, I imagine some of my favorite songs as real-life narratives. What if you could find a real story as good as the song playing in your head? I’ve been thinking about that a … Read more
The haunted “third of June” cannot pass without calling out Tommy Tomlinson‘s classic piece on the essence of story, via Bobbie Gentry’s “Ode to Billie Joe.” Tomlinson, a onetime Pulitzer finalist who now writes for Sports … Read more
Sometimes short nonfiction pays. Today we’re going to talk about a (mostly) nonfiction narrative of 457 words that made it to No. 2 on the pop charts. In 1975, a freighter named the Edmund Fitzgerald sank in a brutal storm … Read more
Songs speak not just to us but also to one another, crossing years and miles and even genres. One of last year’s best hip-hop singles, written by a rapper from Compton, Calif., has an echo in a 14-year-old … Read more
When I was little, my mama worked the early shift at the seafood plant. She’d drop me off at my Aunt Janice’s house before dawn and they’d lay me down on a pallet in the living room. Country music played … Read more
