The Sound In My Head

Confession 1: I am a sucker for a lush, emotive, (dare is say it) pretty movie soundtrack. . . . And by the way, you are too. (Tell me you didn’t cry when the family dog died and the little boy is sobbing at the graveside in the backyard when the string section, with that angelic oboe line, begins to swell in the background. Right?) 

So, what could that possibly have to do with writing one’s first novel?

I wrote most of Theo of Golden with headphones on. While, for most of the past thirty years (since moving to the farm), I have gravitated to silence (no television or sound system in the house; just a radio), the process of book writing has been steeped in music. At home, at the library, in the coffee shop, even sitting in the woods, I usually had music playing as I wrote.  

I gravitated to a particular genre. 

Songs with lyrics would have been a serious distraction to me. I would want to hear what was being said, what story was being told. And a wildly eclectic instrumental playlist, chosen by someone else (though there are some good ones) would also have derailed my easily-interruptible thoughts. So I made a playlist of my own on Spotify. 

I have always had a great fondness for nostalgic, thoughtful movie scores. Since the genre aims at matching a sound, a feeling, an audible palette to a storyline, it seemed the perfect choice for my purposes. Given too that Theo of Golden is a story about kindness and trust, I figured there would be songs that express those sentiments nicely.   

I don’t watch many movies so I didn’t have any particular selections in mind when I began assembling my playlist. I put in some search words — movie soundtracks, orchestral, beautiful, slow, emotional, sentimental — and began to listen. What a pleasure. I came up with a short list of selections that ‘felt like’ the story I was trying to write and, from time to time, added others. The song count is now at 292. 

The benefit to me of having music playing was that, at low volume, it blocked out distractions, lowered my pulse rate, and called up ‘the better angels of my nature.’ 

(Aside: maybe more importantly, I tried not to have my phone with me when I was writing. It was usually miles or long walks away from me. Blesséd freedom.) 

But I discovered an added, unexpected benefit of the playlist. There were scenes where I felt like the music (‘the muse’) was leading the narrative.  

Confession 2: I would probably be a bit embarrassed to tell you, if I knew, how many times I cried as I wrote or read various passages of Theo. A melody, appearing randomly, would give audible affirmation to the poignancy of a scene and practically telegraph what I was supposed to write next. The sweetness of the old man sitting on the bench at sunset, for example, was enriched by a song from The Secret Garden; the tenderness with which Theo gave the homeless woman her portrait was wonderfully expressed in a song from Dear John; the pathos of a Tony sitting in his bookstore on a rainy Christmas morning was captured beautifully in a melody from Meet Joe Black. 

I was in very good musical company as I wrote and I am certain that many of the lines in Theo of Golden were inspired by melodies by composers I’d never heard of before.  

Thankfully, when I read the final manuscript in silence, headphones off, the scenes still had weight to them. In my mind, I could hear faint echoes of movie tunes as I read them. 

And then there is this: the playlist inspired me to write melodies of my own to accompany various scenes. A good challenge. And maybe I’ll add those to an audible book if we decide to make one. 

If you’re interested and have access to Spotify, you can hear the playlist by looking for “beautiful movie music” under my name. It is a public playlist.   

Sit still and listen. You might hear a story.