Category Archives: Soundtracks

Superman
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I’ve been working with wounded heroes this morning, and scarred villains, and I happened on the song that has to be the theme song for Gods Old and Dark — Superman, by Five for Fighting. If the tag line, “It’s not easy being me,” is trite and unworthy of the song, the rest could come out of the mouths of every single one of the main characters in the book — Lauren, Molly, Pete, Heyr, and Baanraak.

“I can’t stand to fly. I’m not that naive. Men weren’t meant to ride with clouds between their knees …”

They’re running up the stairs, not down, this morning. Running to the front of the plane, and this song echoes the price the hero pays to move forward when forward is the worst place to be.

But that it’s equally right for Baanraak … well …. What does it mean when your heroes and your villains could sing the same song, and it would be equally appropriate for all of them?

Darkness
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In Gods Old and Dark more than anything I’ve written before, the story is about the price of heroism, and about who we are and how we hang onto that when we’re faced by darkness from within or without. Today I had a tough scene to write — the one in which Molly faces the internal evil that threatens to consume her, and discovers that she has two choices for her future, and one is short and the other is bad. I put on Adagio for Strings from the Platoon soundtrack, and looped it with Acoustic #3 by the Goo Goo Dolls, and with my external darkness pretty much hardwired by sound, dove into one of the hardest character scenes I’ve had to write in quite some time.

It went well. The whole morning of writing went well, actually, and I got two complete scenes done to my satisfaction, though I had to rewrite one almost from the ground up and just flat out wrote the other from scratch.

Tomorrow, more Baanraak. (Or maybe tonight — I’ll have some extra writing time this evening, and think it would be a great time to really tear into the book. For Baanraak, I’ll Be Watching You, by the Police … and Blue Oyster Cult’s Don’t Fear The Reaper, definitely. Both of those are his theme songs. And Enya’s Exile. And as something topical, Jimmy Buffet’s Remittance Man.)

The stack of pages-to-be-revised at my left elbow got markedly shorter this morning. That is a very good thing.

First day of my new work year
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I’m sitting in a word war in chat right now, with flint, JeriT, Nonny, PuristLove, QAchyck, and robertsloan2, plugging away on a scene way late in Gods Old and Dark,and finally believing that I’m going to get to the end of this thing. I have the Good Playlist running —

Acoustic #3 – The Goo Goo Dolls
Classical Gas – Eric Clapton
Ferrington Guitars J.J. Cale
Iris (Acoustic) – The Goo Goo Dolls
Slide – Goo Goo Dolls
Classical Guitar — Los Angeles Guitar Quartet
Brandenburg Concerto — Bach
Overcome – Live
Ferrington Guitars — J.D. Souther
Ferrington Guitars — Ry Cooder
Simple Man – Lynyrd Skynyrd
Classical Gas – Mason Williams
Streets of Philadelphia – Bruce Springsteen
Breathless – The Corrs
I Heard It Through The Grapevine – Credence Clearwater
Ferrington Guitars — Phoebe Snow
Here With Me – Dido
Come Again – Damn Yankees
Concerning Hobbits – Lord Of The Rings
High Enough – Damn Yankees
This Kiss 3:18 Faith Hill
Yo Yo Ma – Bouree – Bach

Mostly it’s going pretty well, if slowly. At least I like what I’m getting.

Goldberg Variations tonight, and lisahall,
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and Michelle Lewis with “Nowhere and Everywhere,”
    and the wonderful Snuffy Walden and “The Stand” soundtrack.
        Blue Oyster Cult.

            Marvin Gaye.

Rossy.

            Joni Michell,

         Steven Bishop,

    Billy Joel in both his rock&roll and classical phases.

Ry Cooder.

David Hidalgo.

Zao.

Jim Croce. Barry Manilow. Stevie Nicks. Albert Lee.

Dion & The Belmonts,

Antonio Vivaldi,

Steelers Wheel,

Amy Grant,

Bran Van 3000,
Dream,
Elton John,

Pachelbel
   and
      
J.D. Souther
         
and
            
Neil Finn
               
and
                   J.J. Cale
and
Rex Smith
and
Richard Thompson,
and
Wes Montgomery
and
Live;

Stand by Me Ben E. King.

Reeves Gabrels.

Michael Ward.

Amen