TALK Greenville: Last Train Out- Mamie Morgan's Spotify playlist for love and heartache

Recently my husband Alan took up drawing, and he now spends hours on end hunkered down at the dining room table rendering just about anything you might imagine—Janis Joplin, Van Gogh’s wheat fields, air pods, soldiers, a frog’s eye, bridges. For whatever reason, he’s particularly gifted at turkeys. When he’s focused, I must remind him to eat, to drink water. I, on the other hand, habitually find it impossible to sit still. Ten minutes on the treadmill here, a few pages from some Joan Didion essay there. I might leave the dishwasher halfway through unloading and forget to ever go back. My energy’s a little frizzy in this way. Alan calls it my doin’ abouts mode.

Perhaps because of this tendency, early in the pandemic I began heading out for early morning drives with—to state the obvious—no particular place to go. Nearly two years later, and neither the routine nor the route have changed. Down Paris Mountain’s southeast side, passed the retired guy forever doing yard work, down Old Buncombe (where I’m often amazed at the skillset of Lakeview Middle’s crossing guard), passed a herd of cyclists who sometimes wave back, mostly don’t, passed my dream little bungalow in need of some love, around Park where at approximately 7:34am I often see my friend Kate running, come sleet or high water.

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At seventeen I took plenty of these drives as well, particularly after a high school boyfriend broke my heart. I’d fallen for him roughly a dozen years earlier, in kindergarten, after he returned the sheep blanket I carried everywhere by running after my mom’s Buick waving it in the air until one of us noticed him in the rearview. The specifics of said love and subsequent break-up hardly matter. What does are the two things that carried meaning and solace for me during that tough time in 1999: my old red Honda Civic and Wide Open Spaces, that perfect record released by The Chicks. They seemed to have made it just for me.

I’ve spent the last few months revisiting that and every other Chicks album on my drives, along with plenty of other heartbreak-meets-empowerment records. (Kesha’s Rainbow might just take gold in this genre, if I do say so.) That I’m giddily married to a man with whom I share one home, two dogs, a penchant for British detective series, and often the same thoughts feels irrelevant. Sometimes the current condition doesn’t discount the past repertoire of experience.

Reba McEntire released “Does He Love You” when I was twelve. On the one hand, experientially, I had no idea what she was talking about. But on the other, when I belted the lyrics from backseat during carpool, I did. Hurt, longing, desire, connection. Those things made sense to me, and they do still, even if the extent of our current exciting love life consists of Alan and me eating quesadillas on the couch wearing matching robes with other peoples’ names embossed on them. (Long story, but Catherine and Teddy were on clearance at the L.L. Bean outlet and we couldn’t pass up the deal.)

For this February issue each year I make two mix tapes: one for heartache and one for love, one for the anti Valentine’s Day and one for the pro. This year, though, I decided to make just one that at least attempts to capture the road trip, windows down, full range of (e)motion that a lifetime of love and heartache leave us with.

• Angel Dream (No. 4)...Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

• Irene...Courtney Marie Andrews

• Canola Fields...James McMurtry

• Is You is or is You Ain’t (My Baby)...Dinah Washington

• Dear Fear...Kota the Friend

• Can She Dance...Dr. Dog

• Julianna Calm Down...The Chicks

• Me and Magdalena...The Monkees

• Fingers Crossed...Lauren Spencer Smith

• Praying...Kesha• Good Lovin...Ludacris and Miguel

• Lies I Chose To Believe...John Moreland

• No One’s Gonna Love You...Band of Horses

• Foldin Clothes...J. Cole

• No, Bobby Don’t...Kelly Hogan

• Your Song...Elton John

• Maybe I’m Amazed...Paul McCartney

• All Too Well (Ten Minute Version)...Taylor Swift

• Persephone...Allison Russell• Freedom...Beyoncé and Kendrick Lamar