Music Monday: Am I Just a Depressed Person??

Having joined a community of writers, there's always lots of talk about "playlists". Some of my writer friends take  a lot of time putting together groups of songs for writing certain scenes, inspiring voice in characters, and representing the novel in it's entirety. I even posted about a song inspiring a whole scene/idea and I have a playlist of sorts.

But, I found that I didn't really plan the songs that went into the list. It turned out that I tended to listen to specific songs while writing and skipped over the others. After a little while, I moved those songs to a list and have added others over time after hearing them.

So what does my playlist sound like? In a word: Depressing. I could make an excuse and say it's that way because my book is so full of sad emotion, confusion, and anger. But, no. Really, I just flat out like the music. When I look at my big playlist (not just for writing), I notice how incredibly depressing most of the songs are! Sure, there's the occasional happy, upbeat song.

Thinking on it now, I think this is genetic. No, really. My dad loves a particular song about some guy drowning (either physically or metaphorically, I don't know). I like the same song! We both know how utterly depressing the words are, but it doesn't make us dislike the song. In fact, I think it makes me like it more. My mom thinks we're both a little nuts. I'll agree.

So, what about you? What do your playlists look like? Do they tend to have a lot of the same songs from novel to novel or are they completely dependent on what you're writing? What about your overall listening preferences? Is there a wide mix of music, or do you find a lot of the songs following a similar theme?

Music Monday: Inspiring Scenes

So, I listen to music using this really cool program (that was free when I joined, but isn't free anymore) called Spotify. It's pretty sweet, because it's streaming, free for me (and I hope it stays that way), and allows you to make playlists like on iTunes but with streaming music.

Anyway, through Spotify, I found this list of sad songs. You might be asking me now why I wanted sad songs. And the answer is simple: my story is kind of depressing at the moment. To the get into the mood of things, I needed to have sad music. And, there's definitely some sad music.

But one of the songs stands out above the rest. I'd heard it before, but it wasn't until last night that I really listened to the words. Said song is "Drawn from Memory" by Embrace.

I've posted previously about my attraction to both music and lyrics. This is a case of both. But, it was the lyrics that ended up inspiring an idea for my WIP (for you non-writers, that means Work In Progress). I won't tell you what the idea is, but when I told my crit partner about it, she thought it was good. So, here are some of the lyrics that inspired the idea. I hope you go find this song and listen to it, too.

Drawn From Memory by Embrace (selected lyrics)

So innocent that sweet look in your eyes
No hate nor fear could open
You blessed a part of me
Without knowing

And it strikes me that I could cry
And the thought of me crying
Will start me laughing
You blessed a part of me
Without lying



P.S. Spotify is also great, because it gets me so freakin' addicted to particular songs that I have to go buy them so I can listen to them away from my computer. :-) Crappy on the wallet, but great for the ears.