Katherine Ryan’s Playlist Maps Family and Trauma — SkimNews
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- Katherine Ryan said her mother sang and danced while cooking and cleaning to Madonna and Paula Abdul, with “Material Girl” prompting her to think, “This is who I want to be.”
- Katherine Ryan bought three records at once—Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill, a Sheryl Crow single and TLC’s “Waterfalls”—from Sam the Record Man in Sarnia, Ontario, using money saved from chores.
- Katherine Ryan said she knows every lyric to Hamilton despite seeing it only twice, quoting “Satisfied” and its line, “I’m the oldest and wittiest.”
- Katherine Ryan said she cannot finish “What I Am” by Will.i.am with Sesame Street because its positive affirmations for young children make her cry and leave her worried that children need the show and the musician to tell them they are special.
- Katherine Ryan said Adam Sandler’s The Chanukah Song and Ode to My Car changed her life when she was about 11 or 12, when she realized music could make trauma and darker subjects funny.
- Katherine Ryan said she wanted to use Boyz II Men’s “Water Runs Dry” in The Duchess, but hears its story of two people no longer communicating properly and wanting to return to where they started as her daughter grows up, which makes her cry.
- Katherine Ryan said she is not someone who has sex to music and prefers uncomfortable silence, while naming Mario’s “Let Me Love You” as her choice if forced.
Why it matters: For parents of small children, the playlist’s useful distinction is that a fun-looking kids-song choice also unsettles Ryan: “What I Am” makes her cry and leaves her worried that children need *Sesame Street* and Will.i.am to tell them they are special. Her three chore-funded first records also show that her taste is shaped by family history, not anonymous fandom.
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