TOP TEN TUESDAY
February 16, 2016

It’s Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by the wonderful blog at The Broke and the Bookish! This week’s topic was Top Ten Songs I Wish Were Books

I LOVE music as inspiration for writing. There’s just so much that you can imagine coming from a song and the music totally sets the mood. There was an alternative to this topic to come up with theme songs for a book or matching a song with a specific title but unless I write those down while I’m reading, I tend to totally forget what I had associated with each book!

This topic was SO fun and actually pretty easy for me. I tend to lean on songs pretty hard when I’m coming up with inspiration for writing (not like I even write a lot anymore, but still) and I can picture a lot of situations from a song playing out as a book in my head. Here are some of the songs and lyrics that I have pictured over and over! (I also realized like all of these are about break-ups? Apparently I don’t listen to happy songs or the sad ones just so easily reminded me of conflict scenes that could appear in a book… *shrug*)

“LAST NIGHT” BY MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK

She whispers something in my ear, the message is unclear
She motions outside.
I trail her closely from behind
She tries hard not to cry
She shakes underneath the pouring rain

“I can’t compete with all your damn ideas
This isn’t working out for you or me
The truth is I’m too tired to play pretend
This is goodbye, this is the end.”

SCENE FROM A BOOK: An almost-relationship that just never quite made it there

“CASIMIR PULASKI DAY” BY SUFJAN STEVENS

All the glory when you ran outside
With your shirt tucked in and your shoes untied
And you told me not to follow you

SCENE FROM A BOOK: Throwing on a pair of shoes quickly to escape from a fight/break-up (I always picture this scene so vividly)

“KILL” BY JIMMY EAT WORLD

Well, you’re just across the street
Looks a mile to my feet
I want to go to you
Funny how I’m nervous still
I’ve always been the easy kill
I guess I always will

SCENE FROM A BOOK: Girl who easily falls for “the wrong guy” crushing on the boy across the street

“FIVE DAYS AND COUNTING” BY SPITALFIELD

In my car
Five days and counting here you are
The phone rings what more could you say

I know you won’t ever admit that
You fell for him, he never loved you back
Isn’t it wonderful? So predictable? I told you so

SCENE FROM A BOOK: Unrequited love, girl hopelessly waiting for her crush to call her. He’s sending all the right signals but isn’t following through in anyway and she’s beginning to wonder if he’s leading her on.

“PICK UP TRUCK” BY KINGS OF LEON

Hate to be so emotional,
I didn’t mean to get physical,
But when he pulled in and revved it up,
I said you call that a pickup truck,
And in the moonlight I throwed him down.
A kicking, screaming, a rolling around.
A little piece of a bloody tooth,
Just so you know I was thinking of you

SCENE FROM A BOOK: The “bad boy” taking on the best friend as they both attempt to prove how much their care about their girl. Clearly they don’t like/trust each other

“BLUEBIRD” BY SARA BARIELLES

I told him I saw this coming
That I’d practically packed up my things
I was glad at the time that I said I was fine
But all honesty knows I wasn’t ready, no

SCENE FROM A BOOK: The guy calling it quits and the girl pretending she’s totally on the same page even though it took her completely by surprise.

“BRICK BY BORING BRICK” BY PARAMORE

She lives in a fairy tale
Somewhere too far for us to find
Forgotten the taste and smell
Of a world that she’s left behind
It’s all about the exposure the lens I told her
The angles are all wrong now
She’s ripping wings off of butterflies

SCENE FROM A BOOK: A twisted fairy tale set-up

“PAPER COVERS ROCK” BY AM TAXI

You can swear like daggers right before my eyes
You can never be sure
You can switch to blood when the ink is dry
You will never be heard
Now I write words like a target and your aim is poor
So give me your worst I don’t feel a thing anymore

My downward path
Don’t you forget to mention
You’re selling out tickets to my intervention
RSVP you’re a hell of a friend
Somehow I’ll still sleep tonight
Raised on your dial in a FM hiss
Until I died on the air at the top of your list
Pointing fingers would you ever have guessed that
I learned it all from you

SCENE FROM A BOOK: Battle of the frenemies!

I’ve also created a few playlists for books (before I forgot all of the songs I wanted to include)! You can find some of them here:

• Just One Day Playlist | Blog Post | Listen to it on 8tracks.com
• The Rules for Disappearing Playlist | Blog Post
• Eleanor & Park Playlist | Blog Post | Listen to it on 8tracks.com
• Degrees of Wrong Playlist | Blog Post | Listen to it on 8tracks.com
• The Beginning of Everything Playlist | Listen to in on Spotify

Which song lyrics inspire you to write a scene for a book? Have any songs reminded you of a specific passage or quote?