Music, Movies, & Books

Today’s post is going to be kind of trivial. It may be somewhat interesting, but I’m also using it to buy time. My musings from listening to the “pop” music ended up a bit more serious than I intended them to be, with a lot playing into it.

One potential issue is that it will result in an unusually meandering post, even for me. That can work for a complex topic, but it can also dilute things, and this is important. And it’s kind of getting into the social/political realm again, where I really thought I was just going to write about music for a while, then some television writing, and have kind of a break from the serious. Long story short, I’m ordering my thoughts, so here’s some filler.

Recently I have listened to mentions of both musicians having movies running in the background while they are working, and of writers having music in the background when they are working.

This makes sense. There is artistic stimulation, but not of they same type you are working on, which would interfere, and someone asked what songs do you play when you are writing.

Well, it depends a lot depending on what I am working on, but I can cover the major screenplays and projects here.

Obviously I am listening to Danger Days by My Chemical Romance for the graphic novel. The other CDs I am listening to more when I am working or blogging, and they do have parts that relate, but it is really mainly Danger Days. In fact, one song, “The Only Hope for Me is You” relates so well to the Christmas Eve scene that if it was a cheesy musical, the two leads would sing it together, and I can see exactly how they would circle, not facing each other, to convey that they are distant, even though they are both on stage. And it is not at all that the song is cheesy, or that the emotions in the scene should be, but musicals can be, and you need to make sure not to get overwrought when you are dealing with strong emotions, so having that image tells me she needs to not say very much, and he needs to not be shown at all.

Something that I am going to be working on soon, for television (but I am not ready to talk about it yet), I believe will be a mix of the Damned and the Eurythmics. It works. On to the movies.

First of all, Jade Mask and Past Present do not have associated music. I guess there just isn’t really anything to fit them. Jade Mask would almost certainly have a sound track, but Past Present is kind of heavy, and neither softening it or accentuating it would work. I think you would need to kind of go like Hitchcock did with The Birds. Coulrophobia did not have any specific music for it either, and I have no good reason for that. I guess Slipknot or Insane Clown Posse would have made the most sense, but no.

The two dance movies have the strongest musical associations. Between the Lines started with line dancing, so it is all songs that have dances, and one that totally should. They are Dance with You, by George Strait; Any Man of Mine, Shania Twain; 500 Miles, the Proclaimes; and Karma Chameleon by Culture Club (you listen to it and tell me that it is not a little bit country). I think I played Footloose a few times too, which also works.

Incidentally, you are not supposed to designate songs in a screenplay, because the director will probably want a say, and then a lot of it will come down to obtaining song rights, and I get that, but it doesn’t mean that you don’t know what it should be.

With Out of Step, “Kiss Me” by Sixpence None the Richer, and “Barely Breathing” by Duncan Sheik are really pretty necessary, along with various ballroom dancing type pieces, and also “Bring Me to Life” by Evanscence.

Against the Grain will pretty much be a lot of punk, and especially needs to have “Sheena is a Punk Rocker” by the Ramones. It is the perfect song for their first encounter. The untitled Scottish movie definitely goes with “A Thousand Miles” by Vanessa Carlton, but I suspect I will also be listening to Big Country, Bay City Rollers, and more Proclaimers.

Working on Counting the Cost (that was the one that had both a writing partner and it was a novel adaptation) had a key scene where “Put You Little Foot” was featured, so I would play that and then other songs with similar moods, like “Tennessee Waltz”.

Hungry does have some known songs, including both a slow and a faster version of “Forever Young” by Alphaville (actually, I changed the scene that would have used the faster version, so maybe not), as well as “Howling at the Moon” by the Ramones. There would be one pulsing techno track that becomes just a beat during the attack. However, I also ended up writing a lot for it. Some were songs that would belong on the soundtrack, and then sometimes I would be working on something that I would think would be for the movie, but then it didn’t fit when I was done, and yet it was still connected. And while the song for the photo shoot “More More More” is kind of weak, and could easily be traded out, the song for the end credits is perfect, provides a nice motif for the score, and would sound perfect sung by David Bowie who has a good vampire connection.

I think that ultimately that will be one I will have to produce on my own. It has been such a part of my life for so long, starting with a scary dream I had when I was 14 and changing and growing with me, and I have such strong ideas about it, that I can’t imagine handing it over to someone else.

What about the book connection? Well, as I have been taking this musical writing journey, and wishing I knew more about various things, and in many cases, there are books on my reading list that if I had already read them, they would probably be quite helpful. That’s just what I get for always being behind on my reading. (Sadly, I find books I want to read about three times faster than I read them.)

On the plus side, having already read Talking to Girls about Duran Duran and Love is a Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield and Rock On by Dan Kennedy has been good, and although I did not enjoy Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life by Steve Almond as much as I wanted to, it provided some food for thought as well. Anyway, here are some titles that I expect to enjoy:

Can’t Stop Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip Hop Generation, Jeff Chang
Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Oliver Sacks
No Commercial Potential: The Saga of Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, David Walley
Me, the Mob, and the Music: One Helluva Ride with Tommy James & the Shondells, Tommy James
Cinderella Ate My Daughter: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture
Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends, and Other Realities of Adolescence, Rosalind Wiseman
The House that Berry Built, Dornford Yates
Out of the Vinyl Deeps: Ellen Willis on Rock Music, Ellen Willis
Guitar Player Presents Guitar Heroes of the ‘70s, Michael Molenda
I Want My MTV: The Uncensored Story of the Music Video Revolution, Craig Marks
The Wrecking Crew: The Inside Story of Rock and Roll’s Best Kept Secret, Kent Hartman

Some of those may not seem to fit, but believe me, they will.

I am pretty sure I will check out Nile Rodgers’ memoir at some point. I would love for Bob Rock to write one.