What’s a good story without music? I’m not sure if there are writers out there who don’t rely on music at some point in their process, whether it’s during edits, while writing, or just trying to get inspired. If there are authors who create in silence for no good reason – avoid them, they cannot be trusted.
While writing my new novel, BENEATH THE SALTON SEA, it should become readily apparent that at least one song heavily inspired the work, but there’s more! That’s right, a whole playlist’s worth! This is not a soundtrack to the book, because that would cost a lot of money and rights contracts and stuff. Nay! This is a soundtrack to the writing process.
A brief synopsis of the novel, for anyone who needs it:
Every memory is a recording.
Nothing about the Salton Sea is normal. The sand isn’t sand. Just piles and piles of desiccated bones. There are little pockets where life clings on, birds, reptiles, people. It’s an ecosystem of living things that rely on other living things too stubborn to leave. Life forcing itself on death, or maybe the other way around.
Dee and her wife Sharon find this out the hard way after making a quick stop at Salvation Mountain to film some b-roll and see the sights out in the middle of the vast nothing. A bizarre rumor of a “crack in the sky” from one of the locals sends them on the hunt for an abandoned yacht club— where they make a discovery that changes their lives forever, and those close to them as well.
Could you identify a loved one by their whisper?
Beneath the Salton Sea is a cosmic horror technological nightmare transcribing the raw honesty of what makes a family, what breaks them, the difficulties of communication, and the painful joy of memories.
If you knew this was the last thing I’d ever tell you, what would you want me to say?
I wrote this novel on my lunch break every day at work, feverishly scarfing down my food before diving in. A tight timeframe is a great motivator. But it’s hard to just drop back in to the world of the book. Enter – music! I have a song I associated with each section of the book, and others that inspired certain scenes, so it was easy to cue up the song to get into the zone faster. I’ll have a link to a Spotify list at the end, but if you want to read a little bit cinematically, here are my recommendations. I’ve included little lyric snippets that were particularly catchy for me…
PART I – HOW THE LIGHT GETS IN
- Still Life – The Horrors
Start with this song at the top (you thought it would be Cohen, didn’t you?!). This song was evocative of a wide-open desert space, a hot day, a warm night, and a sky where weird things are happening. Everything in the book starts with a rumor of a crack in the sky, so why not kick it off with “Under a sky no one sees, waiting, watching it happening”? - Fall at Your Feet – Clara Bowditch, The Feeding Set
A great cover of a great song. When I needed to get the feeling of Dee and Sharon’s love for each other, I came back here. They’re not in a great spot in their relationship, but they connect again… “Lying in the dark, and I think that I’m beginning to know her. Let it go. I’ll be there when you call” - Survive – David Bowie
I’ve loved this song from the first listen. I used it to help find the fractures in their relationship. Bowie has SO MANY good lines – “You’re the great mistake I never made…” or just that simple “I miss you…” - Hold On – Lola Marsh
A nice airy vibe, perfect for two women fleeing for their lives inside of a hellish desert nightmare.
“And we couldn’t find what we were looking for
We failed to read the writing on the wall
So we tried to hold on…” - Heart-Shaped Box (instrumental) – Ramin Djawadi – Westworld Soundtrack
You know the words, but there are no words. You’re used to hearing it through steel and distortion, but now it’s wrapped in warm wood and breath… Dee and Sharon reconnect at the North Shore Yacht Club in a room upstairs. This is that moment in a nutshell for me… - Kalimankou Denkou (The Evening Gathering) – Bulgarian State Television Female Choir
I have no idea how this song first reached me, but I’m damn glad it did. When you see the line “Get to the road. Someone will see us, someone will find us…” toward the end of the first story, hit play on this one. - Anthem – Leonard Cohen
Savvy readers might know that How the Light Gets In was originally a standalone story in the excellent LOST SIGNALS anthology. Leonard Cohen’s spirit carried me through this entire process. My favorite line is not the chorus, but “they’ve summoned, they’ve summoned up a thundercloud… they’re gonna hear from me…”. The way this song bounces between pain and menace and hope is next-level. “Every heart, every heart To love will come, But like a refugee” kind of encapsulates the notion of love and grief, how they hold hands and envelop you, always together, one following the other…
PART II – YOUR PERFECT OFFERING - At the River – Groove Armada
Sharon’s sister races into the desert to find her at the sea.
“If you’re fond of sand dunes and salty air, quaint little villages here and there…” - Thursday’s Child – David Bowie
“Something about me stood apart. A whisper of hope that seemed to fail
Maybe I’m born right out of my time, breaking my life in two…”
This part of the book deals with the fractured relationship between two sisters, how one of them never felt like they fit in anywhere, but ultimately ends on a hopeful note. - Song for Zula – Phosphorescent
Another song that punches me in the gut. I knew I had to honor it, so Sharon’s sister Susan got the childhood nickname Zula. The sisters shared a secret song (not this song).
“Yeah then I saw love disfigure me Into something I am not recognizing” - Dead – Steve Burns (from a TMBG tribute)
The Blues Clues guy! How do you reconcile with someone who’s gone?
“Now it’s over I’m dead and I haven’t done anything that I want
Or, I’m still alive and there’s nothing I want to do” - Spark – Over the Rhine
This song feels like painful reconciliation to me.
“Only love can turn this around, I wake up dreaming.
Everything we’ve lost can be found, we’ll wake up dreaming”
PART III – START AGAIN - Firefly – Over the Rhine
“My Memory will not fail me now…” how could a lyric like that not help influence the last section of the book? - Uninvited – Alanis Morissette
Who doesn’t love Alanis? Memory is a terrible and wonderful thing when it ambushes you…
“But this is not allowed
You’re uninvited
An unfortunate slight” - Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap
When I started writing Ash into her daily life, after [the thing] starts to happen and she retreats into memories in her home, this is the song that looped in my head.
“Where are we?
What the hell is going on?
The dust has only just begun to form” - Elephants – Rachael Yamagata
Get ready for the room to get dusty! This song always brings me near tears.
“You are forcing me to remember
When all I want is to just forget you.” - Exit Music for a Film – Ramin Djawadi – Westworld Soundtrack
Instrumental, but this is a good one to put on when Ash reaches the North Shore Yacht club and things start to go south… - Black (feat. Norah Jones) – Danger Mouse
Night falls at the end of the last story.
“Until you travel to that place you can’t come back
Where the last pain is gone and all that’s left is black”
ROLL CREDITS… - Love & Hate – Michael Kiwanuka
While you ruminate through the last journal, this is a great song for the final credits, right?
“I believe she won’t take me somewhere I’m not supposed to be
You can’t steal the things that God has given me
No more pain and no more shame and misery”
And with that – if you pre-ordered the book, maybe you’ve already started reading. If not , go check it out and give this a listen! BENEATH THE SALTON SEA can be purchased directly from Perpetual Motion Machine Publishing (with a signed book plate!) or Amazon and the other usual suspects.