Mood Music

Do you listen to music while you write? Some people can't concentrate at all with music playing in the background [including my husband who I sometimes have to share an office with....]but I am increasingly finding it essential to help get me in the right frame of mind to write. Susannah Rickards posted recently on ‘writing the mind alive’ and how Bach’s Goldberg Variations was integral to a certain kind of inspired writing, so I know I’m not alone.

My YA novel Dark Ride, to be published in May, was actually semi inspired by the Morrissey song Every Day is Like Sunday [yeah, OK, not quite Bach, but whatever floats your creative boat]. The song is about a grotty seaside town ‘that they forgot to close down’. Whenever I needed a little inspiration, I’d bang it on and picture this unloved town in my mind. I’d have gone slightly nuts listening to one song over and over again and luckily I found more for my playlist. I’m a huge fan of US band The National and something about their moody, melodic songs seemed to fit this atmosphere perfectly, even though they have nothing to do with the English seaside.

The book I am writing now is a very different beast, being set 12 years in the future, where human rights have gone to the dogs and all sorts of nasty things are done to the population. In this case, I have found the band Muse to be well, my muse. Yes, they can be a bit overblown but as their last album revolved around the idea of a dystopian future, certain songs just instantly get the creative bit of my brain buzzing and get me in the right mood for writing.

Here are a few links to the songs that have helped inspire me. I hope you like them too and I’d love to know how others feel about having a soundtrack to their writing...

Every day is like Sunday by Morrissey [check out those 80s ‘dos’]

Apartment Story by The National [gorgeous acoustic version]

Uprising by Muse