In this age of iPods, the digital download and the Web, we can’t resist playlists  composing our own and eavesdropping on those whipped up by others. They’re like salty snacks for our ears. The art of the playlist, though, can be more profound than just homing in on the 10 best songs to kick-start a Saturday night blowout.

We create them for road trips out West (and back East), for romance and abstinence, for funerals and baptisms. Sometimes, it seems, a life lived without a soundtrack is no life at all. I’m currently being treated for an advanced case of prostate cancer, and while the hormone shots and the radiation sessions are essential, they don’t tell the whole treatment tale.

I’m a music-obsessive, and I can’t imagine having prostate cancer without listening to just the right music to complement my moods: joy and sadness, anger and gratitude, fear and doubt. (For the record, I also dose myself with long hikes and vintage slapstick by the likes of the Three Stooges and the Little Rascals.)

There’s always a cornucopia of news articles about cancer  treatment breakthroughs, clinical studies, survival rates  but there’s much less on how to live with cancer, whether you’re the patient, a family member or a friend. So, here’s my playlist of music to have cancer by. The 10 recordings shade toward blue, bluer and bluest, but I believe that each time I slide a disc into the player (I’m old-fashioned that way), I do so in optimism and healing.