January 27, 2007
Songs
Written by Cindy Kirk in Jaunty PostIt’s crazy…it really is….everytime I get close to the end of a book I seem to come up with a song that is “the song” for the book I’m finishing. For When She Was Bad–coming out in July–it was Keith Urban’s “Tonight I Want to Cry” No, the story doesn’t have an unhappy ending 
It was around the time that I was writing the black moment that I played that song over and over and over.
Now I’m getting to the end of When She Was Good, the sequel to “Bad” and I’ve finally found my song for this book. Surprisingly it’s by a Christian artist Toby Mack (not sure if I’m spelling that right) and it’s called “I Was Made to Love You.” Of course the song is supposed to be that we were made to love God, but I’m using it as my hero was made to love my heroine. Now I just have to burn a CD of that song on all tracks, so I can just play it over and over and over.
Music really affects my mood. Upbeat songs make me walk faster on the treadmill. Soulful ballads help me get in touch with my own emotions. Fun, lighthearted songs can lift my spirits.
What about you? Do you have any favorite songs you listen to?
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Stefanie D Says:
My favorite songs or those of the movie “The Moulin Rouge”, especially the song “Elephant love medly”.
When I hear that song, I can’t do anything else but sing it.
Robyn DeHart Says:
Stefanie, I love that song too, but the one from Moulin Rouge that gets me is the El Tango De Roxanne - Cindy, you mentioned music that awakens your emtions, this one does it for me. I can just FEEL this song, it flows right through me.
But I can’t really write to music like that. I can listen to it before I write to give me a jump start. I’ve only ever found “the song” for two of my books, both unpublished. It just doesn’t happen often for me.
I do, however, have these songs in my life, I call them my anthem songs and they’re they kind where you want to open your arms wide, toss your head back and close your eyes and just sing as loudly as you can. I don’t what it is about these songs, but I know an anthem when I hear it. Just some examples… Melissa Etheridge’s “Nowhere to Go” and Amanda Marshall’s “Believe in You.”
Robyn DeHart Says:
Oh, one other thing about music, I love really emotional music - story songs that are painful and full of angst. It’s funny because I don’t read books that are like that or watch movies like that, but for 3.5 minutes I can handle the angst. Like Brad Paisley’s “Whiskey Lullabye” and Tim McGraw’s “Angry All the Time.”
Rainy Says:
I love to have music surround me. I fit my music to my moods. When I walk, I put on something fast with a good beat, unless I’m in a pensive mood, then I might put a movie soundtrack or possibly a New Age/George Winston kind of thing.
When I had an Italian character, out came Dean Martin.
But mostly what I tend to do is hear a song that I absolutely love and play the heck out of it until I am sick of it….at least for a while.
Shana Says:
I think I’ve said this before, but Erasure songs are really romantic. I listen to their acoustic album over and over again when I’m writing romantic/emotional scenes. I think the album is titled Union Street.
Clarisse Says:
Because I am (as I have said before) older than dirt, my choices of songs are of a different era: it’s the classic love songs of Frank Sinatra back in his early days (and NO, I’m not that old!) “I’m Glad There is You” for the happy stuff and the heartbreaking “I’m A Fool to Love You” for the sad times.
Take me back, I love you
Pity me, I need you
I know it’s wrong, it must be wrong
But right or wrong, I can’t go on
Without you
WOW!
Shirley Karr Says:
I have always loved music — even played trombone in school for eight years. I select my music according to my mood, or the mood I want to be in. I have a cassette tape (made when i-Pods were a germ of an idea) for housecleaning filled with energizing songs like Dirty Laundry and Kokomo.
Listening to 500 Miles by The Proclaimers always puts me in a good mood, and is faster than watching Benny & Joon.
I have Real Player on my PC so I can make playlists, sometimes that only contain one song so it plays over and over. I did that with Valse by Strauss — just couldn’t get enough of it. And let’s not get into what happened to the first-kiss scene I wrote for Charlotte and Alistair, not realizing I was listening to the long version of Ravel’s Bolero.
The song that’s probably had the biggest impact was Pachelbel’s Canon in D on acoustic guitar. I’d heard many versions, even played a few, but never on classical guitar. Made me sit absolutely still, enthralled. Transfixed. Also made me spend several hundred dollars on a nylon string guitar, cut the nails short on my left hand (that was the real sacrifice, not the $$) and take up guitar lessons. Three years later I can still only play a few notes of Canon because my fingers won’t stretch to play many chords, and book deadlines take away from practice time, but I haven’t given up hope.
Buffie Says:
Toby Mack is a wonderful Christian artist. I just love his music, and his lyrics are fabulous. I can see why you feel in love with the song.
AndreaW Says:
I’m hooked on Josh Turner, Sugarland and Rascal Flatts right now. Love ‘em!