1. What is a movie that you think people should know about that speaks to you?

This is a dopey answer, because it's objectively not a very good movie, but I've also watched it more than any other movie from the past five years or so: Danny Boyle's Yesterday, the rom com about the guy who bonks his head while riding his bike and when he wakes up, he’s in an alternate reality that’s exactly like ours in almost every way except the Beatles never existed. He does the rational thing and decides to steal all of their songs and pass them off as his own. It’s both charming (Himesh Patel is great as the lead; Lily James is very endearing even though it’s hilarious to cast her as his mousy best friend; somehow Ed Sheeran gives a cute performance playing himself) and annoying (Kate McKinnon does her usual thing in a movie that isn’t built to contain it). It’s insightful about both the enduring greatness of the Beatles’ songs and the irreplicable alchemy that makes them matter the way they do, and also misses a ton of opportunities to use its concept in more interesting ways. It has a moment near the end that took my breath away, and then its climax blows its shot to set up one of the all-time great Grand Romantic Gesture moments. It’s complicated and definitely imperfect, but also comforting in a way that, even though it was released in 2019, makes me think that I grew up watching it. It probably doesn’t hurt that there is something like seventeen Beatles songs woven through the movie, so it has a familiarity that it doesn’t really earn. But mostly, I’m fascinated by the idea of creative ownership, and of art that works mostly because it belongs to a very specific place and time. Yesterday explores what it might look like if the most famous songs in the history of pop music emerged from some kid last week rather than from the zeitgeist of the British Invasion, and I haven’t yet gotten tired of watching that, flaws and all.

2. What is a favorite song that made you excited to explore a band / artist's career further? What is it about that song that resonates so strongly?

There are a lot of these (and I’ve written about many of them in my own lil’ newsletter, which counts down my 150 favorite songs three times a week), but the one that just came on shuffle is “Green Eyes” by Erykah Badu. It’s the final song on her second album, Mama’s Gun, and it runs ten minutes long. It’s a jazz vocal piece that runs through the entire emotional arc of a relationship in a non-linear fashion, built around a few simple piano riffs that recur throughout the song’s various movements. It’s emotional and funny (the title comes from the opening line, “my eyes are green because I eat a lot of vegetables / it don’t have nothing to do with your new friend,” which feels like a line that should have existed for at least a hundred years). Stretches of the song are traditional—Ella Fitzgerald could have song the first part, Johnny Hartman might have done the second—while others are contemporary to its time, something that only make sense coming from Badu. It’s just such a statement, impressive and showy but also the sort of song that fully earns and justifies its showiness; it ain’t bragging if it’s true, and “Green Eyes” is one of the best artists alive putting out a song that shows off everything she can do better than anyone else.

3. What does your perfect comfort meal consist of?

Probably pizza? I’m a man of simple tastes. Let’s say a sausage and pepperoni pizza from House of Pizza in Hammond, Indiana.

4. What is something that moves you to tears (film, song, book, anything)?

I don’t know if I have an answer to this! I have a car battery where my heart should be. I feel emotionally engaged by weird shit (see:Yesterday), so here’s a list of things I first encountered in the past year or so that, while I don’t think any of them made me cry, all made me feel things: This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; “Miami” by Caroline Rose; “Younger and Dumber” by Indigo De Souza; Past Lives; season three of Reservation Dogs; and Ducks by Kate Beaton.

Dan is the senior editor at Texas Monthly and wrote the YA novel The Fight for Midnight (about abortion bans). Follow: Dan Solomon. buy his book: The Fight for Midnight