We break the narrative momentarily to answer a question that a great many of you lovelies have posed to Broke-Ass over the years: “What’s on your iPod?”

The first answer is: Broke-Ass does not own an iPod because she is fucking broke. Having said that, there are a number of songs, tracks–whatever–that characterize the Broke-Ass experience, which itself is characterized by the dissolution of a lifestyle commensurate with one’s education and professional experience into post-recession experience subsistence living: outrage, flailing desperation, fear of the cold and rudderless direction of the cosmos, riotous resentment of trustafarians, fierce love of schmushkies, and a commitment to hanging onto one’s values even as one cannot afford to support them.

Herewith, the Broke-Ass playlist:

Common People, Pulp

Anything Can Happen, Wyclef Jean

I’m Straight, the Modern Lovers

Declare Independence, Bjork

The Way I Am, Eminem

I Will Kill Again, Jarvis Cocker

Sometimes a Pony Gets Depressed, The Silver Jews

Holiday in Cambodia, The Dead Kennedys

Through Being Cool, Devo

Bring the Noise, Anthrax and Public Enemy

Levitate Me, the Pixies

All Apologies, Sinead O’Connor (Nirvana)

Rock and Roll Suicide, David Bowie

Angel From Montgomery, Bonnie Raitt

The Sound in Your Mind, Willie Nelson

Hotel Yorba, The White Stripes

In Spite of Ourselves, John Prine and Iris Dement

I’ll Take You There, The Staple Singers

Fill Your Heart, David Bowie

Ducks Like Rain, Raffi