Next week: Why artists need Pinterest boards…
Why collate a playlist?
It’s idyllic to think that most writing takes place sitting in long grass with a view of a glistening, lazy river. For most of us, though, writing takes place in noisy parks and cafes, or while Nine Inch Nails wails through the apartment wall, the dog barks to be let out, sirens blare down the street, the kids tear through the hallways with their friends, and our significant other takes a conference call. Alternatively, we we write in libraries where it’s too quiet. Finding that happy medium is a tough assignment, which is where your novel playlist can help.
Listening to music when you’re writing works in two ways:
- White noise — to block out the sounds around us;
- Personalized sound — songs or noises that set us in a place or mood. This can be fun music that puts you in the mood to write. Or it can be evocative of the scenes in your story.
Music of different genres, locations, and periods, takes me to places from my memories, and to places I’ve never been and may never go. It can transport me to time periods I wasn’t alive for. And evoke the tang of blood in a war field, smoke from a wildfire, or the butter melting on cobs of corn cooking on the grill; children’s laughter, or gun fire, or footsteps echoing behind my character’s back on a rainy Brooklyn sidewalk.
Finding and choosing songs
For some people it’s a breeze to create a novel playlist. If you’re a big music listener, you may have a constant rotation of songs you love. You may have learned a long time ago that you work most effectively to classical music, or hardcore rock. If that’s your jam, I am not here to stymie you.
I am here for the uninitiated. Those of us, who’s core fall-back music is circa 1997. I’ll admit that until recently I didn’t know if Lizzo was male/female/other/AI-bot/or 8-piece Zydeco band, and thought Bad Bunny was a type of edgy Easter candy.
Collating and editing a novel playlist is a good task for the evenings when you’re too tired to read or write, but it’s only 6.00 PM and you’re not ready to tuck your grandma brain into bed. To get you started, here are a few song titles to elicit a mood or time period1:
French Cafe Music
- La Vie En Rose by Edith Piaf
- Je Cherche Un Homme by Eartha Kitt
- La Mer by Charles Trenet
East Coast/West Coast Rap-Off
- California Love by 2Pac and Dr. Dre
- Hypnotize by Notorious B.I.G.
- Mo Money Mo Problems by Notorious B.I.G. feat. Mase & Puff Daddy
- No Diggity by Blackstreet
- Regulate by Warren G.
Evading the Drug-Dealing Biker Gang
- Bodies by Drowning Pool
- Song 2 by Blur
- You Could Be Mine by Guns N’ Roses
When You Get the Girl, But You’re Rough Around the Edges
- Wolf Like Me by TV on the Radio
- R U Mine? by Arctic Monkeys
- Fire by Kasabian
SoCal/The Beach
- California Girls by The Beach Boys
- Pure Shores by All Saints
- Santa Monica by Everclear
The End of the World
- Seven Nation Army by The White Stripes
- Uprising by Muse
- Lampshades on Fire by Modest Mouse
- End of the World as We Know It by REM (a little on the nose, but)
The End of the Relationship
- Say Something by Christina Aguilera
- Summertime Sadness by Lana del Rey
- Out of Reach by Gabrielle
- No Light, No Light by Florence and the Machine
Aliens and Life on Other Planets
- Spaceman by Babylon Zoo
- Starman, Space Oddity, Life on Mars? by David Bowie2
- I’m Blue by Eiffel 65
Classical Music
- Cello Suite by Yo-Yo Ma
- The Four Seasons by Itzhak Perlman
- The Blue Danube by Franz Schubert
- Violin Concerto No. 1 in G Minor by Maxim Vengerov
1960s Advent of “Rock” Music
- Bus Stop by The Hollies
- I’m Into Something Good by Herman’s Hermits
- Needles and Pins by The Searchers
1970s Free Love
- Hair by The Cowsills
- Free Bird by Lynyrd Skynard
- San Francisco by Scott McKenzie
1980s Housewife Debating Leaving Her Husband
- One Way or Another by Blondie
- Physical by Olivia Newton-John
- Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper
- These Boots Are Made for Walking by Nancy Sinatra
Late 80s/Early 90s We Got Rid of the Berlin Wall and Apartheid… Peace is in Our Reach!
- We Didn’t Start the Fire by Billy Joel
- Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears
- Heroes by David Bowie
- Land of Confusion by Genesis
- Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd
Late 1990s/Early 2000s Rave Scene (also check out Godskitchen and Gatecrasher compilations on YouTube)
- Born Slippy by Underworld
- Silence by Delerium (Niels van Gogh mix, look for the 3:20 version)
- Greece 2000 by Three Drives
- Saltwater by Chicane
- You only have to be historically accurate if you MENTION the song in your novel. Otherwise, you only need the vibe. ↩︎
- Yes, I know, this song has nothing to do with life on Mars. But Bowie paints humans as behaving in a way that makes us seem alien, mesmerized by inane films and TV shows. The song begins with a young woman longing for escape from this repetitive, circular existence, so it has a very “get me off this planet” inclination. ↩︎