I don’t know where I fall on the Listen While Writing spectrum. Somewhere on the downslope toward Full On Rock Out Baby, but not so far down that dead silence is out of the question. Sometimes I find myself with the earbuds in and “November Rain” on repeat, the volume cranked up to Jellied Brainz. Other times, the sound of the cat tap-padding across the carpet two rooms away sets my teeth on edge.
Still, on average, I’d rather be listening than not. And once I’m deep in the long grass, I find music often helps me find my way—if not to the narrative path itself, at least to the emotional territory I hope to explore. Every project has its own soundtrack, a nearly random compilation I cobble together bit by bit in conjunction with cobbling together the tale itself.
Which leads me to an aside. I kinda hate computers, in the sense they rule our lives and don’t work nearly as well as they should. They’re a money extraction tool whose planned obsolescence is founded on breathlessly selling solutions to problems which don’t exist. That said, there is one thing I love so much I can’t imagine how I lived without it.
The Playlist.
In the old days, I had to spend hours with the turntable and cassette deck to make one tape, and if I fucked it up, I either started over and learned to live with “Ninety Nine Luftballoons” in the midst of a Bowie/Stones/Floyd mix. The sound always degraded, and half the time my favorite tapes got eaten by the car stereo. The idea of building a playlist around a writing project never would have occurred to me. Too much work for something which would by necessity have to be fluid. To hell with that.
So back then in the dark ages, I listened to records or mix tapes with little thought as to how they fit with what I was working on. I’d either suffer through an inappropriate tune, or get up and change the damn record.
But now? Holy crap. It’s CLICK -> WIP Playlist. Drag, here’s something. Drag again, here’s something else. Wait, that didn’t fit? No biggie. Baleeted! It’s magic.
Microsoft Word can blow me, and I pray there is a special hell reserved for Adobe engineers, but omigawd I love playlists. Whoever Steve Jobs stole this idea from, I want to have their babies.
But I digress.
The County Line writing playlist was much longer than the final reader’s playlist. Part of the reason for that is some of the work-in-progress tunes were ones which made the final cut for my previous books’ playlists. Recurring characters have their own signature songs, and I figured once they were signaled out for one book, they didn’t get to play in the next. That’s right. I have playlist rules.
Of my four books to date, the County Line playlist is distinct in that it’s the first time I gave an artist two slots. Yo La Tengo made the cut with both “Here to Fall” and “Damage.” I might make the case that Yo La Tengo is my musical doppelganger, except I would never presume to suggest I approach their creative power. Still, I find they musically elucidate the particular range of emotion I’m chasing in my prose. If you held a gun to my head and said, “Pick one artist, for evermore,” it would be Yo La Tengo.
But. As soon as I say that, I must admit my Go To record for establishing mood is not by Yo La Tengo. Wah Wah, by James, is an unconventional compilation of Not Pop Songs by a talented pop band. I adore James in general, and Wah Wah in particular. The album was produced by Brain Eno, which will tell you a lot about its striking sound. The opening track is the haunting “Say Say Something,” and for setting the County Line table, you can’t do better.
Other Wah Wah songs might have made the list, but there was so much else I wanted to include. Because a lot of the story takes place in the late 80s, I needed songs from that era. Of course, I cheated. “Smells Like Teen Spirit” wouldn’t appear until two years after the events of Part Two of County Line, but whatever. It fits, as does “Bring Me To Life” (2003), “Bourgeois Shangri-La” (2009), and “Damage” (1997). Ruby Jane may not have listened to those songs in 1988 and 1989, but she felt them in her own way. Still, Ruby Jane would have listened to “Head Over Heels” on the radio, and “How Soon Is Now?” would have been an anthem, arguably the definitive song of the decade.
Of course, some may notice that while I include “How Soon Is Now?” in the playlist, it’s not the iconic Smiths original, but the cover by T.A.T.U. This, I acknowledge, is sacrilege. I’m sorry, but I like the T.A.T.U. version better. Villagers will soon appears at my door with torches and pitchforks. To them I say, ” Do you worst!”
I also include another cover of a classic, the Afghan Whigs version of “My World Is Empty Without You.” This is a safer choice, since as popular as the Supremes were in their day (and they were truly magnificent), the Afghan Whigs are just so damn cool the cover will win out for many. And if not, well, you’ll have to take a number after the Smiths zealots.
There’s little point in detailing every justification for the playlist as it stands. I can say that “Sons and Daughters” is a song which makes me feel melancholy yet happy in exactly the way I imagine Skin feels at the end of the book, but I think it’s something reader will better experience through listening. And, I well know, maybe readers won’t feel it the way I feel it. That’s okay. We probably all create our own playlists.
In the end, these songs all share one thing in common: they feel to me like they illuminate the novel. These are some, if not all, of the songs which guided me in my exploration of Ruby Jane’s and Skin’s emotional wilderness. When I was lost, they helped me find my way. And, when I want nearing home again, they helped me remember where I’d been.
The County Line Playlist:
http://www.billcameronmysteries.com/county_line/soundtrack.html
Bill Cameron is the multi award-nominated author of LOST DOG, CHASING SMOKE, DAY ONE and COUNTY LINE. For more information about Bill, his books and his collection of vests, visit his website.
