UW Alumni Book Club
“There’s Always This Year” Playlist
Some books just need a soundtrack!
UW Alumni Book Club is reading “There’s Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension” by Hanif Abdurraqib. This 1990’s basketball memoir thrums with a rich current of popular music — and we’re collecting some of those tunes here for easy reference.
Does this playlist bring back memories for you? Did we miss any songs? Join the discussion at our online forum! Reading period: March 14–May 16, 2025.
Instead of chapters, “There’s Always This Year” is organized into the quarters of a basketball game, complete with timeouts and countdown clocks. The list below includes notes on when songs or musicians are mentioned, following that format.
Introductory Quote
- Bizzy Bone, “Thug Luv”
Pregame
- 1:00 Meshell Ndegeocello, “Bitter”
First Quarter
- 9:20
- Mobb Deep, “Survival of the Fittest”
- Barry Harris Trio, “Skylark”
- (Note: on the Spotify list, an Art Blakely version of this song is standing in. Hear the Barry Harris Trio version on YouTube)
- Capone-N-Noreaga, “The War Report”
- Boot Camp Clik
- (No song specified, but “Soul Jah” fits the theme)
Second Quarter
- 12:00 Kings of Leon
- (No song specified, but “Four Kicks” gives us a taste of their music)
Third Quarter
- 10:05 Nina Simone, “Pirate Jenny”
- 9:40 Gladys Knight, “Midnight Train to Georgia”
- 9:35
- Otis Redding, “My Girl”
- Marvin Gaye, “Let’s Get It On”
- The O’Jays, “Use Ta Be My Girl”
- James Brown (No song specified)
- Boyz II Men (No song specified)
- The Soul Children, “Don’t Take My Sunshine”
- 7:23 Cleveland City, “We Are LeBron”
- (Note: on the Spotify list, “We Are the World” is standing in for this song. Hear “We Are LeBron” on YouTube)
- 0:14
- Fall Out Boy, “The Take Over, The Breaks Over”
Intermission, White Men Can’t Jump
- The Allman Brothers Band, “Eat a Peach” album
Fourth Quarter
- 11:15 The Mamas & the Papas, “California Dreamin'”
- 0:16 The Beach Boys, “God Only Knows”
