Sing Me a Song

I love music. I feel that life should come with a soundtrack. So, why not our books? I do my best writing when I have music playing in the background. I even work in musical references to nearly every book I’ve ever committed to pixel.

If I’m struggling to find the proper emotion of a given scene, I will stop, create a play list of songs to set the mood and let the feeling the music inspires carry over into my words. So far it has proven quite effective.

Most of the time, I just set my iPod to shuffle and let it play. It’s rather odd, but I usually don’t even register the lyrics while I’m typing. I just feel the presence of the music, comforting me, embracing me, urging me on.

What music does it for me? It really is a varied list. As an example, here is twenty of the last songs that played while I wrote (about an hour’s worth of music).

Stone in my Hand by Everlast
Pony by Teenager
16 Military Wives by The Decemberists
Wanna Be in L.A. by Eagles of Death Metal (the name is misleading, as they are far from death metal)
Vampire by People in Planes
Going On by Gnarls Barkley
The Resolution by Jack’s Mannequin
Rusty Cage by Johnny Cash
Via Con Me by Paolo Conte
Pretty Vegas by INXS
Finding Out True Love is Blind by Louis XIV
Repetition Kills You by The Black Ghosts
Moving to New York by The Wombats
You by Atmosphere
Wishing Well by Terence Trent D’Arby
I Will Possess Your Heart by Death Cab for Cutie
Bonnie and Clyde by Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot
Violet Hill by Cold Play
Believe by The Bravery
Io Sono Qui by Nek

There you go… that’s a pretty good representation of the type of music I listen to while writing. What music moves you?