A Playlist Inspired by 'Call Me By Your Name'

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Italian summers, forbidden love and longing. Here is a playlist inspired by the 2017 romance Call Me By Your Name.

Welcome to Re-Play, a column where one of our writers curates a playlist based on a movie, TV show, experience or any part of life. Find the playlist for you here.

The first time I watched Call Me By Your Name was in the middle of a tough breakup during a harsh winter in New York City, all of which I immediately forgot about the moment that the dreamy opening credits rolled. It wasn’t until I stepped out of the theater, that it hit me that I wasn’t actually living in an Italian summer – I was in the middle of Manhattan, and it was still February, but I was a little less alone in my heartbreak, and feeling some semblance of hope again. If anything, I felt so raw and underwent such a catharsis while watching the film, that it took me a few seconds longer to adapt to my actual surroundings. I was amazed that a director could capture not just a place’s heat and lush environment, but also the feelings of love and loss in their tenderness, fragility, excitement, and fear. For a while, despite the stubborn chill surrounding me, I couldn’t get what I had just seen and felt out of my head, and I wanted to preserve that feeling in whatever way I could. So, as I tend to do, I created a playlist.

The music in Call Me By Your Name is just as important as its visual choices, making it a film that pulses and moves forward with its soundtrack, whether it’s the hazy intensity of a Talking Heads needle drop or quieter motifs from the score during intimate moments. In almost every other scene, Elio is seen listening to, playing, or transcribing music, not to mention the various references to music videos of the time, concerts, dance breaks, and posters from contemporary bands lining Elio’s (and Oliver’s) bedroom. Director Luca Guadagnino said that he wanted the film to be enveloped in a narrator’s voice, for which he chose Sufjan Stevens, whose original songs in each of the movie’s three acts help provide musical cues to amplify the story.

If the music in the movie’s soundtrack acts as a narrator, for this playlist, I chose songs that could also narrate the film through their lyrics. I set out to tell a similar story in 49 minutes and capture the youth, the longing, and the nostalgia of the 80s, just as Luca Guadagnino achieved for me in the middle of a Manhattan winter.

I also wanted to tell a story of heartbreak, with the first half of the playlist full of bright summer yearning, which later cascades into songs I associate with breakups, though hopefully by it’s end conveys that same bittersweet grief and gratitude that the final scene of the movie does for me. After all, this movie, like life, is about highs and lows, beginnings and endings, and finding the courage to want to experience the full spectrum of life and love.

You can watch Call Me By Your Name here:

“Mind Fields” — No Vacation

And I don’t want to let a moment pass
Running circles in my mind, circles in my mind
“Call you later”, Something that you forget

Waiting on the dial tone
Maybe I’ll just let it go
Here I am, been waiting on you far too long

With its jangly guitars and twinkling pop melodies, this song is a fun and hopeful start to the story. However, the lyrics point to issues under the surface of an obsessive summer romance: “I don’t want to let a moment pass, running circles in my mind.” Ultimately, there are miscommunications and hints at an unrequited romance: “waiting on a dial tone, wanting to call it quits.”

Upon rewatches, I sympathize more with Marcia’s character. I like to think this is sung from her perspective, since she is by Elio’s side before Oliver comes to visit that summer — she even watches Oliver’s entrance with Elio in the movie’s first scenes. Her character loved and waited for Elio for “far too long,” expecting something of him that he couldn’t ultimately give her.

“Forget It” – Blood Orange

I feel unique
Not yet complete

And your steaming eyes fall on me
Poor me
Poor you
Poor us
A fuss, a fight
So I sat outside, outside

If the last song was Marcia’s point of view, then here is Elio’s perspective of their fling. This song is about lust and a couple in discord: a confused narrator insists that he isn’t his partner’s savior. This differs from what Marcia wants to hear as she’s caught up in a situation she wants more from. The truth is that Elio’s attentions are diverted elsewhere with the introduction of Oliver, and he’s not the one for her.

“W Longing” – Porches

I get high
Alone tonight
And I ask myself
If you could be mine

I hold my breath, motionless
My lungs pink with black air

This song begins Elio and Oliver’s romance, from the initial tension and discord to the nerves sparked by a crush nearby. This song concerns pools, getting high, dancing, wondering, and longing.

The song’s lyrics also mirror the question at the crux of Elio and Oliver’s affair, which they’re both asking to be confirmed to each other: “Tell me what you wanna hear, I want you to hear it”

“Peach Pit” – Peach Pit

Lift back and see the darkness hid
Swallowed up and angled in
Looking back at sweetness dim

Ripe June had leaf and shady friend
The cool air is gone again

It’s been a long season through
All this rotting fruit with you

Of course, I had to include a song titled “Peach Pit.” It’s good that it works as perfectly as it does, narratively and sonically. This is a moody, sweet song sung in soft refrains describing a nostalgia for summer love and the deeper feelings and foreboding of an inevitable ending. Nostalgia always colors everything sweeter, but the time of peaches hanging on branches is gone, and all that’s left is summer fruit on the ground; everything that ripens must eventually fall, signaling that even summer romances that seem to last forever must end.

“Olive Boy“ – Reptaliens

We don’t have to know
Anyone at all
Anyone at all
Draw the blinds back slow
Sun fades in our room
Two begin to bloom

This song – another dreamy bedroom pop project – asks if the relationship being formed between two lovers is reciprocal and affirms that nothing else matters as long as they have each other. There’s a daydreaminess to the lyrics that set the scene in a bedroom, blinds being drawn back so the night can last longer, and they can shut out the world’s reality for a while longer.

And a little nod to the movie’s title in the chorus: “Is that cool with you? That I wanna call your name?”

“Cool with You” – Her’s

Feeling sick
Sinking ship
The sun goes through your window
It shatters on your pillow

Mustard skin
Olive man
Who are you when you’re at home
Are you the same when you’re alone

Hopefully, these songs all have a clear sonic connection so far: they’re synthpop, analog, retro, and reminiscent of the 80s, with soft, lovelorn vocals. All of these could soundtrack an alternate version of the movie or be the background music choice for a Gen-Z-esque fan cam. This song is another bedroom pop project, whose grainy, retro style creates a hazy drug-infused scene about a boy who cries and feels sick as he wakes up – similar to Elio, high off of new experiences but feeling lovesick with the amount of new emotions he’s trying to make sense of.

“I Don’t Know You” – The Marías

There’s a weight in my bed
Where you laid and you said
“I don’t know you”

If we tried to retrace
Would it show on my face?
And remind you
I don’t mind you

This is a nostalgic and sultry song about a couple’s experience filled with uncertainty and wonder whether the other person truly knows the singer. Despite being together, there are still some doubts and tension between them and a question about whether the other person is just as invested:

“I’m hardly unsatisfied, You’re not heels over head, But darling, There’s a weight in my bed”

Similarly, Elio and Oliver are finally together, but Elio still doubts whether Oliver is just as compromised in the relationship as he is.

“I Love You So” – The Walters

You’re everything I want,
but I can’t deal with all your lovers
You’re saying I’m the one,
but it’s your actions that speak louder

Giving me love when you are down and need another
I’ve gotta get away and let you go, I’ve gotta get over

I love you so (ooh-oh)

This song is about gathering the courage to let someone go after discovering that the other person has a life and lovers beyond their relationship. It’s about a shattering loss and heartbreak but still loving someone so much and searching for the determination to move on from them:

“I’m gonna pack my things and leave you behind

This feeling’s old, and I know that I’ve made up my mind.”

I see this song from Oliver’s point of view. He realizes that he must leave Elio at the end of the summer, and nothing can change his mind.

“Trust the Tension” – Drowners

A bookshelf organized just by the color of the spines
Has enough time quite elapsed for me to call you mine?

Well now you know
That I’ll learn to trust the tension
And I’ll learn to let things go
But if you plan on leaving
Please just fucking go

I find that this song can fit Elio’s point of view of the coming end of the relationship: he hopes that if Oliver plans on leaving, he should go and not drag things out. Here he battles all the stages of letting off the relationship: wondering if enough time has passed to call Oliver his, then realizing that he needs to learn to let go, and then more confident: “Yeah, if you plan on leaving, Please just fucking go”

“Heart Swells/Pacific Daylight Time” – Los Campesinos

I don’t want to sound trite but you were perfect
The way you look could seriously make nature dysmorphic
I wish that you would kiss me ’til the point of paralysis
The way I flail my arms in front of you, it just embarrasses
I’ll never turn my body clock back
And think about the things I’m glad I left out
Some things are best left unsaid

To me, this song parallels the movie’s climax: the heartbreak. Saying goodbye at the train station, the tension building, the train and Oliver departing, everything falling apart. Then follows a tenderness, a yearning for the love and the memory of the relationship, and everything left unsaid.

This moody song with stilted vocals has always felt emotionally packed to me. It also has a particular build: it starts slowly, and all the instrumentation comes together simultaneously.

There is an initial chaotic feedback of electric guitars (which foreshadows the climax of the song later on), followed by an acoustic guitar that softly marks the rhythm. Horns then appear in the background, and with the addition of a distorted electric guitar, and a twinkling piano, it all soon fades into a wall of noise as the fuzzy vocals start in the first part of the song (Heart Swells). The lyrics here describe happy memories within a relationship, as then builds to the conclusion of a breakup, knowing they’ll never be the same after that experience: “Sleep well, I feel you’ve ruined me forever”

The instruments hit their final, discordant note, and the song shifts to Part 2 (Pacific Daylight Time), a sunny and bright instrumental with a loud, steady drum that marks the rhythm this time. More precise, more conventional vocals now express longing and desire for that person, but a decisiveness about how they’ll never regret that time together, despite everything left unsaid: “I’ll never turn my body clock back, And think about the things I’m glad I left out”

The song stops abruptly after more feedback, static, and disconnected vocals. Everything ended before its time, but it was beautiful, and even if the memory gets distorted, it’s all okay for now.

“I’ve Been Thinking Too Hard” – Yellow Days

I, I don’t know what’s right anymore
The sea flooded and the rain poured
I’m conditioned to survive
Just I need to be alive
I’ve got intuition on my side
Just to ease that paranoid mind
I’ve cried tears ocean-wide
Just to ease that pain inside

Here’s when we reach my favorite part of a movie full of favorite moments: Elio’s dad’s speech.

The song features an intro and outro by Alan Watts that asks the listener to find the ever-elusive peace in a man’s soul. His reassuring voice takes me straight to the scene where Elio’s dad helps him navigate his immense grief at the loss of Oliver and insists that this pain is Something to hold dear because it signifies a great love. This song is a break from the rest of the playlist – an outside perspective, an authoritative but empathetic voice breaking through the emotions and innermost dialogue of the narrative.

“Vacation“ – Florist

But at least I know that the world is spinning
when we’re tangled in the bedsheets
And at least I know that my mom is breathing
when we talk on the phone
And at least I know that my house won’t burn down
Down to the ground
Or maybe it will

This song is a soft and sweet epilogue to this playlist and matches the epilogue that we’re given in the movie. Its lyrics reflect on an idyllic past: simple pleasures, bike rides, Christmas lights, and the small delights of a family vacation, which the singer is still determining if she can enjoy the same way anymore.

The song describes childhood and the loss of innocence as they head into adulthood. Despite the initial nostalgia, the song is ultimately realistic, with the singer believing that anything could happen, both good and bad, and that she can still view things with hope, as she did once as a child while accepting that things don’t last forever.

Similarly, at the movie’s end, Elio is seemingly content but still carries grief about the past, which he remembers after his phone call with Oliver. But he finds the peace that comes with catharsis and accepts the ending of something beautiful that wasn’t meant to last.