Hanging out on “Story Street,” my writing compadres and I were bemoaning writer’s block and how to dodge, nudge, or obliterate it. For me, short of divine intervention, the only cure is going for a long drive and listening to music. Scanning the airwaves, I find new and old friends that tell or inspire stories, help me recover and dust off forgotten memories, allow my characters to wallow or triumph, and provide a musical playlist for my future book-to-movie deal (a girl can dream). “Music,” Plato once said, “gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” So, I listen.
I Listen for Story.
Recently, a meme popped up on social media with a freeze-frame of singer and mullet-perfector Steve Perry either passionately belting lyrics or passing a very large kidney stone. The caption reads: “I don’t care who you are when Journey comes on, you become a small-town girl living in a lonely world.” I remember shrieking these words in 1983 while driving my burnt-orange Plymouth Saporro to high school. I guess I qualified as a relatively small-town girl, growing up on the Gulf Coast of Florida, but I’d certainly never been on “a midnight train going anywhere.” I remember my son and his friends, thirty years later, singing these same lyrics at an eighth-grade dance in Glen Allen, Virginia, only they were hopping on that same “midnight train” as “city boy[s], born and raised in South Detroit.”
Released in 1981, the song “Don’t Stop Believin’” has now survived forty-three years of brutal karaoke renditions, sweaty pre-pubescent sing-a-longs, shower concerts, and me still slaying it in my car. What accounts for its longevity? Why does it resonate with thirteen- and fifty-year-old people alike? Whatever happened to Steve Perry? (That’s not relevant, but I wonder if he’s somewhere with a pillow over his head chanting it “goes on and on and on and on…”)
Some songs, like “Don’t Stop Believin’” tell a story. Like pieces of micro-fiction, they create worlds and characters in 100-300 words of lyrics. They transport us to different times and places while connecting us with universal themes. As the meme says, we all become “small-town girls living in a lonely world” because we’ve all felt small, lonely, lost, or insignificant at times. We fantasize about boarding “midnight train[s] going anywhere” when we long to escape.
When I listen for story in songs, I am reminded of the power of concision and connection. I sing along with Steve Perry and think of other scenarios where someone feels lost and alone. I begin to birth other worlds and characters that might someday live on and on.
I Listen to Remember.
Oscar Wilde believed that “[m]usic is the art which is most nigh to tears and memory.” For some, the sense of smell most fruitfully evokes memories. For me, it’s sound, particularly the sound of music. Though Julie Andrews found the hills alive with it, I find in it my past revived. As a writer of fiction more than memoir, it’s not just the 5Ws (Who, What, Where, When, and Why) I wish to unearth, but the emotions attached to them. So, when I’m stuck thinking of a new short story idea or unable to move forward in my novel, I turn up the volume and listen as Elton John, Stevie Nicks, and R.E.M. take me back in time.
If I’m writing about a specific year or decade, I’ll find the satellite radio station devoted to that time. The sounds of melodies and lyrics stimulate other senses, and I might feel the itch of a Spanish moss crown I once fashioned on my head or smell the exhaust from the motorcycle I wasn’t supposed to ride with the neighborhood bad boy. I become a ten-year-old forest queen and feel the exhilaration of playing outside. I become a thirteen-year-old wanna-be-rebel and fear my parents’ pending wrath. A floodgate opens, and the block is flushed away.
I Listen to Hone My Worlds and Characters.
The novel I’m writing has a playlist. If I’m in the car and a song reminds me of something one of my characters is feeling or going through, I tell Siri (the Australian male version I have a huge crush on) to add it to my “Novel 1 Playlist.” Since it’s hard to write and drive, I often hope whatever inspiration I have will be reignited when I return to my computer and play the song again. Sometimes, I have to pull over and write on a Target receipt or the back of my to-do list which never gets done for this very reason.
When the seeds of my novel-in-progress were germinating, several songs were on continuous replay. My protagonists are siblings who grow up with a mentally ill father and must come back together as adults to reconcile their past and relationships. Elton John’s opening lyric from “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” parallels the homelife of my young characters: “The roses in the window box are titled to one side. Everything about this house was born to grow and die.” The U2 song “One” echoes the fraught feelings of “drag(ing) the past out into the light.” I listen again and again, and I enter their world.
More specifically, my characters have favorite songs. For example, Camille, who as a child dreams of being the first female priest but becomes a freeze model, loves R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” and Anna Nalick’s “Breathe (2AM).” Tash, a rebellious teenager, grows into a regimented, emotional stuffer who fleshes out when I listen to Kelly Clarkson sing “Because of You.” Sometimes, in my more indulgent, cheesy moments, I imagine these songs on my novel-turned-movie soundtrack. But first, I must write the book. So, I listen.
Article Playlist:
- Word Choice: How Karen Russell’s “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” Can Save Writers from Becoming a “Bunches” - August 16, 2024
- An Attitude on Platitudes - July 19, 2024
- Fill the Chairs: How to Elevate Local Authors - June 6, 2024
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