Thank You For the Music

You know it’s gonna be a good post when it starts with an Abba song, amiright? Kickin’ it old school today, homies. ‘Cause that’s how I roll. Hells to the yeah, I’m down with the hipness.

*clears throat*

*stops channeling Eugene Levy*

Aren’t his eyebrows the most glorious thing since the invention of hyperbole? Just looking at him makes me want to write a Groucho Marx biopic. Are you listening, Hollywood? Call me.

Speaking of cool cats, I came across this video yesterday:

I have so much misplaced love for this. I simply adore the way someone, somewhere had the comedic sense to insert the “Mississippi—1870” caption at the start of the video. It helps explain so much. I mean, everyone knows the post-Civil War south was littered with riverboat gamblers and well-to-do African Americans. But the heavily made-up, strangely dressed spectacle of Boy George would have been difficult to understand without the crucial information that this was Mississippi in 1870. Whew, I get it now. Also, wtf are those boys stuffing into that barrel at 00:40? Methinks someone has been steeping in their creepers tea a tad too long.

Lest you think I sit around all day YouTubing Culture Club (an awesome pastime, no?), the video actually appeared after I’d watched this gem:

This video was the shizzle when I was young. I was totally entranced by the rotoscoping, although in all fairness I was pretty easy to impress as a kid. Dust particles in sunbeams captivated me back then. Also Madonna. But I was right about this one, which won several categories at the 1986 MTV Video Music Awards. I recently played it for my seven-year old (who inherited my sunbeam fascination), and I’m happy to report that twenty-seven years after its debut, the effects are still wowing audiences (and simple children.)

Just to wax nostalgic for a moment … remember when MTV played videos all day? And The Weather Channel featured real-time weather, rather than bad reenactments from every Jolene and Bubba out there (“God listened to our prayers and saved us from that there tornader.” (Sorry, everyone else who died—I guess God totally hates you.)) Oh! And remember when ABC News actually verified facts before Brian Ross projectile vomited them into the airwaves? And speaking of the media, remember when CNN was just a struggling cable news organization? Oh, wait …

Anyhoo, back to the music. Rambly Girl is rambly today. But I swear there’s a point in here somewhere.

Whether videos enthrall or repel, the music always moves me. When I write, I continually add and subtract to the “soundtrack” of my novel. The playlist for THE GREAT WALL started with a dozen songs and ended with 132. Some of them contain lyrics that represent a character, some capture the mood of a particular scene, and a select few play to the underlying theme of the story.

My protagonist, Kate, could star in a video for “Good Intentions,” Toad the Wet Sprocket’s stirring tribute to malaise and inadequacy. Listening to that song not only transports me to Mill Ave in the 90’s (and to my broker-than-a-crack-smoker days), it also crams me inside the head of my character. Can’t everyone relate to lines like this?

It’s hard to rely on my good intentions
When my head’s full of things that I can’t mention
It seems I usually get things right
But I can’t understand what I did last night

Yep. Been there, done that. Got the misdemeanor important life lesson.

Songs help me “hear” my character, and they also allow me to craft a scene around them. Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” and S.H.E.’s “Superstar” were on repeat when I wrote about the charity gig Kate attends at a glitzy Macau casino. Both songs evoked a powerful vibe, even though I couldn’t decipher the lyrics. (“Superstar” is in Mandarin, and Gaga’s native tongue is a combination of Gibberish and Cetacean, if I’m not mistaken.)

Understanding the lyrics became more important at the climax of my story, as Kate battles bad guys and seemingly insurmountable odds. That's when I called on Breaking Benjamin to deliver these rousing lyrics:

All is lost again
But I’m not giving in
I will not bow / I will not break
I will shut the world away
I will not fall / I will not fade
I will take your breath away

Of course, no novel about an American high-tech worker auditing a Chinese factory would be complete without a visit from Coldplay:

Come out upon my seas
Curse missed opportunities
Am I a part of the cure
Or am I part of the disease

Although if I’m honest, I played this final blast-from-the-past just as often.

SOLID GOLD, baby! Man, I miss the 80's.

Other than the “I sailed away to China” line (followed by a racist reference to laundry), this song has nothing whatsoever to do with my story. It stayed in the rotation nonetheless, inspiring me in a different way.

In fact, ALL music inspires me, which is the point of this post (and arguably of music itself). I may not like all genres, but they all have the ability to affect me. Rock moves me to write novels, while country music moves me to pierce my eardrums with ice picks. And without jazz, I’d never have learned how to tie a noose.

I’m not sure I would be a writer without a trove of songs to inspire me. Even if I were, I doubt I’d care for anything I produced. Which means I owe music a great debt of gratitude.

So I say thank you for the music, the songs [they’re] singing
Thanks for all the joy they’re bringing
Who can live without it? I ask in all honesty
What would life be?
Without a song or a [book] what are we?
So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me