Crafting Julie and Elle’s playlist was a funny, slightly disjointed pursuit from the jump. Adding new songs—as with the act of drafting the book itself—often made me laugh. While my writing soundtracks are typically composed of the more mellow kind of genres Spotify has classified for me as comforting yearning hopeless romantic (guilty as charged), Julie and Elle’s story is heavily influenced by the high percentage of their lives spent on basketball courts. Hence, with this one, I wanted to inject a little Jock Jams energy into all that comforting yearning. I…do not know if I was successful, but these are some of the tracks that still bring me back to writing How You Get the Girl.
- Spirit, Judah & the Lion: From a pure musical perspective, I love the composition of this song: the quiet intro and the surprising drumbeats before the melody truly begins. From a writing How You Get the Girl perspective, it makes me laugh for the exact reasons described above. Siri, play me a sports song but make it kinda sad indie rock for writers.
2. Basketball, Bow Wow, Jermaine Dupri, Fabolous & Fundisha: A self-explanatory requirement.
3. Follow Your Arrow, Kacey Musgraves: In addition to Julie wearing an infamous Kacey Musgraves t-shirt in the opening scene of this book…a lot of Julie’s storyline in particular is about trying to find direction and identity when you have always felt a bit label-less and adrift. So Kacey’s do whatever the hell you want messaging in this song always felt apt. If You Want to Sing Out, Sing Out by Yusuf / Cat Stevens is also on this playlist for the same reasons.
4. Master Pretender, First Aid Kit: It takes a bit of the book to actually get there, but Elle and Julie end up practice-dating in How You Get the Girl (perhaps a subgenre of the fake dating trope—I feel there are important differences but still, similar vibes). As First Aid Kit sings here, going from master pretenders to master defenders is sort of…the whole book.
5. Praise You, Fatboy Slim: If you ask Elle? Julie desperately needs someone to praise her, like Elle should.
6. Trophies, James Gardin: I believe I found this song when I was specifically googling best basketball jams or something equally embarrassing, but I clicked when I saw the title because Elle’s old trophies are a bit of a plot point in the book. The lyrics don’t match Elle’s story, per se, but the song still hit perfectly for me.
7. Lean On, Major Lazer: There’s a one-on-one b-ball scene in the middle of the book that was so much fun to write, and for some reason, I always envision this song as what’s pumping from the gym speakers when it begins. It always makes me want to move.
8. Dreams, The Cranberries: “Wait. Are you crying already?” Elle sniffed, hugging her mug to her chest. “They’re playing The Cranberries, and I’m a lesbian. It’s required for me to cry.”
9. Only Girl (In the World), Rihanna: This is Julie’s cat Snoozles’s favorite song. Which becomes a Thing, in the book. I don’t know; listen, my last book was really sad and I wanted to laugh more with this one.
10. How You Get the Girl, Taylor Swift: Yes, this is how I got the title. But I feel the need to note that I think Message in a Bottle is the actual Taylor song that fits Julie and Elle best (and is also on the playlist).
11. Come Down, Noah Kahan: Upon examining the lyrics, I know now that this is a song about staying with someone after they got too high, comforting them as they come down. But if you replace got too high with got too depressed, the chorus of this one matches one of my favorite scenes in How You Get the Girl perfectly.
12. Closing Time, Semisonic: I randomly heard this song as I was finishing work on this book, which wraps up a series that has meant so much to me over the last few years, and yeah, I did cry in the car while listening to Semisonic in 2023. It’s closing time for me and these characters, now, but I’m so glad I got to hang out with them at the bar at all.
Anita Kelly 