The Soundtrack of Gay Lives is a mixtape in story form—fifty short stories inspired by the songs that helped one gay man find his voice, make sense of heartbreak, and uncover the shape of home.

Structured like a double LP, this deeply personal collection unfolds across eight thematic Sides: Becoming, Wanting, Breaking, Reckoning, Celebration, Homecoming, and six final Bonus Tracks. Each Side captures a mood, a memory, a distinct emotional chapter of gay life. Each story is introduced with the lyric or song that sparked it—an echo of the moments we replay on repeat, long after the person or place is gone.

These stories span decades and emotional registers: first crushes and final goodbyes, awkward beginnings and quiet reckonings, missed chances and soft landings. Some are barely whispered memories; others hit like a harmony to the chest. What connects them isn’t plot or continuity, but something harder to define—an emotional truth that hums beneath every encounter. These aren’t just coming-out stories—they’re coming-back, letting-go, staying-in, choosing-again stories.

Glances across dance floors. Hands not held. Kisses that shouldn’t have happened. Silences that lasted too long. Stories where gay men are messy, brave, quiet, generous, selfish, real. Where emotion isn’t always loud—but always lingers. Told with warmth, lyrical clarity, and a deep ear for memory, The Soundtrack of Gay Lives is for anyone who’s ever built a playlist to survive heartbreak—or to remember who they really are. This is not just a collection. It’s a memory set to music.

The Soundtrack of Gay Lives is the debut work of Tom Gloude Whittaker, a storyteller by nature and music lover by blood. Written with the kind of perspective that comes from falling in love more than once, moving in search of belonging, and finding home in chosen family, this collection is as intimate as it is resonant. A little messy. A little brave. Just like the man behind it.