Over the weekend our friend Ron Hogan gave us the head’s up that one of our favorite writers, Ben Greenman (who we interviewed about his last book, Correspondences, here), has an original theme song for his soon-to-be released book Please Step Back. Kind of makes those art-house trailers look like small change, huh?
Here’s the back story from Ben, via Largehearted Boy:
“When I was writing my new novel, Please Step Back, which tells the story of a funk-rock star in the late sixties and early seventies, I was also working as a journalist at my day job at the New Yorker, and along the way I wrote a little piece about a new record by Swamp Dogg. Swamp Dogg, of course, is a cult funk legend from the early seventies. His work is fantastic. It has been in my head for years, and it had something to do with the character I was creating. After I wrote the piece, I got an email from Swamp Dogg himself. He liked the review. We struck up an email friendship. When I finished the book, I wrote him with a crazy idea. I had lyrics in the novel that were written by my fake funk star, Rock Foxx. One of the lyrics was never recorded. Would he be interested in recording them. He wrote right back: ‘like a black motherf**ker,’ he said. We discussed the two possibilities. He could either create a song that sounded like it came from 1973, and in doing so play the role of my fake funk star, or he could create a song that sounded like it came from 2009, and play himself, covering my fake funk star’s song. He chose the latter.”
How freaking cool is that? Click here to hear the track and here to check out the book which is due out May 5.