Music is such an inspirational tool to use while writing. Well, actually for me, I rarely listen to music during the act of writing, but I immerse myself in melodies prior to applying my “stellar” typing skills. Usually once I sit down to write (and rewrite and read and revise and write some more) I need total silence. That being said…
I think music is a great mood enhancer and can really help you get to that creative place quickly and easily.
With each book I write, the soundtrack changes. Poetic? Perhaps, but I’m also a music junkie and can’t get enough lyrical candy.
I’ve comprised a list of the top ten songs that were joyously blasting from my iTunes while I bled out my latest manuscript. (Sorry for the dramatic mental image!) They aren’t labeled in any particular fashion, so number one is really no different than number seven or number three…
Without further ado, here are my top inspirational songs this time around:
1. Simple Twist of Fate – Bob Dylan
2. Hero – Regina Spektor
3. Pictures of Me – Elliott Smith
4. Mushaboom – Feist
5. It’s Only A Paper Moon – Ella Fitzgerald
6. Another Travelin’ Song – Bright Eyes
7. Where Did You Sleep Last Night – (Lead Belly cover) Nirvana
8. Talk Show Host – Radiohead
9. Burning Photographs – Ryan Adams
10. Blackbird – The Beatles
After going through my music I could probably make this list the top 20 or top 50, but for the sake of keeping this blog at a decent length I’ll keep it at the top 10. Is there any song in particular that you MUST listen to before, or while you’re writing?
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite poems:
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.
Arthur William Edgar O’Shaughnessy
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