The Discarded / Dis Carted Playlist: A subjective soundtrack

Bart Gazzola
Apr 17, 2022
4 min read

Updated: Jul 7, 2022

A playlist by artist Bart Gazzola to complement DISCARDED, his ongoing documentation of abandoned shopping carts.

As seen in our TYPOLOGY edition.

Find it here - or on SPOTIFY!

Desolation Row

by Bob Dylan

This one might seem obvious, but it’s more so because of lines like ‘at midnight, all the agents

and the superhuman crew come out and round up everyone who knows more than they do.’

Many of my shots happen at night, when I’m walking, and the city is quiet and mysterious.

Grey

by Ani DiFranco

This one is specific to one cart I shot, one of the first toppled ones, where I began to see this

series as something more than what I’d thought it might be, and for the line of ‘as bad as I am, I am proud of the fact that I am worse than I seem’.....

One Great City!

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Left and Leaving

by the Weakerthans

If you’re familiar with my cart images - and how the only rule that I still hold to, with this project, is that they be abandoned, not staged - and the lyrics of these songs from this fine band that can make despair aesthetically seductive, no further explanation is needed. But if that’s not the case : ‘My city's still breathing, but barely, it's true, through buildings gone missing like teeth’ ran through my mind upon seeing St. Catharines again after nearly two decades, where I ‘watch the North End die and sing, “I love this town”’.....

Trucker Speed

by Fred Eaglesmith

“....sometimes I feel like my wheels ain't touchin' the ground…” Maybe my carts are self

portraits, or maybe I’m obfuscating, ahem. Can’t trust an art critic talking about their own art

work. It is known.

I Gotta Get Drunk

by George Jones

Sometimes I stay out later drinking just so I can capture images of carts on the way home,

looking as abandoned and lonely as I feel on the long walk from downtown to where I sleep.

My Little Town

by Simon & Garfunkel

“Nothing but the dead and dying back in my little town” : my cart works may also be a

commentary on returning to my ‘hometown’ after several decades, after swearing I would never do any such thing (like getting a tattoo. I now have two of those, ahem).

Smells like Teen Spirit

by Nirvana

I have sometimes captioned carts with the evocative lyrics of "with the lights out / its less

dangerous / here we are now / entertain us / I feel stupid / and contagious / here we are now /entertain us"....and as a member of Gen X, this is a theme song, whatever, nevermind.

Did I Ever Love You?

by Leonard Cohen

Many people who enjoy my carts, or send me images, anthropomorphize them, and there is

always a romantic element to that. This song, and this album, have been on my playlist

continuously since I returned to Niagara in 2015, and began the cart works.

I’ve always been Crazy

by Waylon Jennings

I have no idea why I took that first cart photograph, and at times I still have no idea why they

fascinate me, and why so many other people enjoy them and send me their own snaps of

abandoned carts. They are very, very different from the art I made for most of my life. Always

been crazy, but it’s kept me from going insane - mostly.

Reasons to Quit

by Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard

Many of my images are taken while walking, and not a few while walking home from the

downtown after an evening of libations, perhaps a bit inebriated (I mention Tom Waits later, and have been known to claim that the carts have been drinking, not me, not me, whereas Waits blames the piano…..)

Damn These Vampires

by The Mountain Goats

‘sleep like dead men wake up like dead men and when the sun comes try not to hate the light

some day we'll try to walk upright’ I’ve always preferred capturing carts that have tumbled and fallen. Any suggestions re: self portraiture in that respect are acknowledged, slyly.

This Year

by The Mountain Goats

Relocating to Niagara was difficult, the first few years were harsh, but I was ‘going to make it

through this year if it killed me.’

Black Sheep

by Metric

“Hello again, friend of a friend, I knew you when our common goal was waiting for the world to end.” An artist I respect greatly commented in passing a few years ago that I ‘take pictures of what is left when the world ends.’

This Mess We’re In

by PJ Harvey

“And thank you. I don’t think we will meet again.” There’s an amusing singularity to the pictures I take: shoot them now, for they won’t be there when you pass by that spot again.

Throw Me to the Rats

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Bleeding Hallelujah

by Tom Fun Orchestra

One of the last bands I saw in Saskatoon before leaving the prairies was the Tom Fun

Orchestra, and I have joked that Throw Me to the Rats should be played at my funeral. Bleeding Hallelujah is a plaintive hymn for that which was but now is not - like a cart that was useful then left.

Just like Tom Thumb Blues

by Nina Simone (Bob Dylan cover)

“I started out on burgundy, but soon hit the harder stuff. Everybody said they'd stand behind me when the game got rough. But the joke was on me, there was nobody even there to bluff. I'm goin' back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough.” Another friend once suggested to me that I felt my move to Niagara was a self imposed act of exile, or simply having had

enough….and this song always makes me sad, as so many of my cart images seem to evoke

an equal sense of melancholy in people.