Hannah Moskowitz's Blog, page 5

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 16

SONG #16: "Little Sparrow" by David Cook.

So. I didn't know the original before I knew this cover.

I heard the cover on American Idol (judgey judge judge, yeah I know) and I loved that it sounded so dark and haunting. Since then, I know and love the original--I love Dolly and always will, and I'm not sure why I didn't know this song--but David Cook's version still works for me on a very different level. It's darker and more desperate, and it has a hollow, echoey sound to it. David' Cook's version is something you'd scream outside at night, so it...worked well for this part of the book.

I need to start being cagey at this point. So you don't get an excerpt. Just know that they lyrics to this song have just about nothing to do with the scene in question, or with the book at all. It's all about the tone of it, and the desperation, and the darkness. But if you take bits out of context...it can work. So when I listen to this song, I let those lines jump out at me.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

If I were a little sparrow
O'er these mountains I would fly
I would find him, I would find him
Look into his lying eyes

I would flutter all around him
On my little sparrow wings
I would ask him, I would ask him
Why he let me love in vain

CORRELATING PASSAGE: (um...how about some Camus instead?)

"Originally innocent without knowing it, we were now guilty without meaning to be."



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie
15) "Sorry" by Pushmonkey
16) "Little Sparrow" by David Cook

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 15

SONG #15: "Sorry" by Pushmonkey.

This song. Not only did it appear, like No One's Boy, on my iTunes with no reasonable explanation for its existence, but you can't actually buy it on iTunes. It doesn't have it. When I wanted to get it again for my new computer, I had to jump through all these hoops and get a download of it, which depresses me, because I never pirate music. (Or anything. Seriously.)

While looking for a video of this song, I discovered that a lot of people are saying, "This song just appeared on my computer!" Song. Where are you coming from.

So. This song. No idea how it got there, but it went on the playlist the first time I heard it mostly because it works so well with No One's Boy. You'll see in the excerpt that I very obviously am alluding to No One's Boy in this scene. This is just...an angrier, more final version of it.

We're really getting towards the end of the 3rd summer now. Something's about to happen.

Five songs left.

Also, a nice big excerpt for you today! Right after the--

SAMPLE LYRIC:

So drink your coffee
I made you breakfast
You're wearing my t-shirt for the last time
A revelation, we'll never make it
I'm staring at you for the last time
I'm sorry
You know I'm sorry

You lay in bed next to him at night
Convince yourself that what you did was right
Instead of him, you'll want me back
You can't move on
I know you'll wind up missing me

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

For some reason, my response to this is to take my restless hands and pull my shoes off and throw them toward the bed. Then I'm on my feet, feeling the carpet grain with my toes and wishing I was feeling the sand. Digging in with my toes, I won't get off I won't get off I won't move you can't make me while the ocean wears the sand away.

The bass booms downstairs and I hate it, I hate it. I can't hear the rain anymore. Maybe it stopped.

"I am not your boy," I'm saying. "I'm not anybody's boy."

Noah doesn't move.

"Not yours." My voice is so hoarse and the next thing I know I'm facing Noah and screaming, "Get off the floor! Get off the floor and take me home!"




1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie
15) "Sorry" by Pushmonkey

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 14

SONG #14: "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie.

I love Death Cab for Cutie very, very dearly. This is the first song on the playlist that comes from the magical album Narrow Stairs, which is really the reason Invincible Summer exists. The album came out on May 18th, 2008, and I still hadn't listened to it a month and a half later, when I started IS. It was just sitting in my iTunes.

(side note: I think at some point in the past I've said that I wrote IS in 2009. That is a lie. I wrote it over summer 2008, and it sold in summer 2009. I have figured this out now. So IS is coming out, same as Break, about 2 years after I wrote it. Zombie Tag will be the quickest, and it's coming out about a year and a half after I wrote it. Publishing is slow! Fun facts.)

So one rainy day I had nothing to do and I wanted to write a book, so I listened to the album. And two songs in particular jumped out and shaped, respectively, the character of Noah and the end of the book.

This isn't either of those songs. This one made it to the playlist after, but it comes first chronologically. But I'm telling you all that stuff about Narrow Stairs because this is the point in the playlist where we get to the songs that directly inspired the book. The others were mostly just ones that worked. From here on out, they really contributed.

So let's do this.

This is a song about a girl.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I'm starting to feel
We stayed together out of fear of dying alone
I've been slipping through the years
My old clothes don't fit like they once did
So they hang like ghosts of the people I've been

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

For the first time in a long time I think she looks beautiful. Not hot and not disgusting. Just beautiful.

--p. 223




PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground
14) "You Can Do Better Than Me" by Death Cab for Cutie

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 13

SONG #13: "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground.

This song is, in a lot of ways--most of which I'll get into in two days--a pair with song #15. Their passages cross-reference each other. I got them both in the same way, meaning...I have no idea.

No One's Boy and song #15 are examples of playlist making at its weirdest and most exciting. When I was working on the first draft of the playlist, when I'd hardly started the first draft of the book, I scrolled through iTunes and chose songs that sounded good and two songs that I didn't know that had interesting titles. "No One's Boy" sounded like it could work.

I have no idea, no idea at all, how this song and #15 got into my iTunes. I have a theory that they were on my computer before I got there (which would be bizarre and likely impossible, but there you go). They didn't come on a soundtrack with anything else. I didn't hear them on TV first. I had no other songs by either band.

I really don't know.

But I love this song. It's raw and it's creepy and it's everything that the next few chapters had to be, and this song gets me right into it. It's mean and it's pleading, but at the same time it's completely adamant. And I always, always picture people on a Ferris Wheel when I hear it. They're sitting in their little cart, having an argument, just about to get off. This isn't a scene in the book.

But it might as well be.

Anyway, we're pretty much full-speed ahead after this point.

This song is so perfect that, sure, what the hell, let's have the whole song here. It's short.

THE WHOLE DAMN THING:

Angel,
You missed your chance to be the prom queen
And so you turned into a wet dream
Star of your own video
Late night show on the floor
A bad girl no one's watching
As you slow move to the rhythm
Of this sweet sound
Booming through the radio
Late night show that they ignore
Are you lonely

'Cause I'm no one's boy
I'm no one's boy
And I'll be all you need
Only if you plead
Pray do
Angel blue

If you'll be my girl
If you'll be my girl
I'm no ones boy
And I'll be all you need
But only if you'll bleed
Pray do

Hey hey, don't walk away from me
I found you
I can find you


CORRELATING PASSAGE:

God, how many times will she have to sleep with one of us before she understands that nobody lives with Noah, Noah just sometimes lives with you.

"He's not your boy," I say, quietly. "And he's not mine either."

--p. 196



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack
13) "No One's Boy" by Marcy Playground

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 12

SONG #12: "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack.

YEP. Cheating again. A little less this time, since this is faaar from my favorite Motion City Soundtrack song (though I still love it because, I mean...Motion City Soundtrack).

It's hard for a song to fit a mood better than Hello Helicopter fits Chase's 3rd summer. We're talking here about serious existential angst, but there's also the sense that you're sharing this angst with someone. This song is about "us," not "me."

And I think that's appropriate here, because Chase and Noah are, in every sense, with every pun intended, going down together.

The excerpt is from one of my favorite scenes. Noah's just home from, er, visiting Melinda, and he and Chase are standing on the deck, playing guitar, and trying to use her as a metaphor.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Hello helicopter,have you heard the news?
No one gives a shit about the things they do
We all waste and consume, destroy and ruin everything we touch
It's easy not to think when you're not told that much

I'm not saying anything you haven't heard before
I'm just trying to understand the way we are


CORRELATING PASSAGE:

"And she talked about you," he says.

"God, she always talks about you when I'm with her. Noah kisses me softer than that."

"Chase is so much more passionate."

"Noah takes his time." I play a minor chord.

"Chase doesn't hesitate like you do." Noah digs an almond out of the ice cream and tosses it off the balcony. "God. Why do we come back to this girl, Chase?"

--p. 180



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery
12) "Hello Helicopter" by Motion City Soundtrack

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 11

SONG #11: "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery.

This is another song I'm not incredibly fond of, but I never mind listening to it because it works so damn well. I know it originally because I heard it in that horrible movie Never Back Down, and I grabbed it because I heard the line about Cherry Valence.

It's one of the first songs that made it onto the playlist that wasn't direct inspiration for the story. We haven't gotten to any of those yet--those are songs 16, 18, and 20.

This is the first song of Chase's 3rd summer, and this is really a turning point in the book, I think, because the third summer is nothing like the other two. Chase has changed because his life has changed. He's not the idealistic, hopeful kid he used to be. In a lot of ways, he's turning into Noah.

He's a little cynical and a little sad and very much angry, but he's still Chase, which means he still keeps this close to him and regards it as some kind of personal failure, and he still holds onto his family harder than anything.

Time Won't Let Me Go is a song about growing up against your will, and about regret and disconnected. And that's kind of what's eating at Chase this summer. Coming back to the beach, this place was supposed to be his childhood forever, doesn't help. He doesn't want to think about college. He doesn't want to see Bella after two years without her. And he definitely doesn't want to hear Noah and Melinda.

But yeah, some things haven't changed so much. There's still Melinda. There's still Camus. And Noah.

In completely unrelated news...this is my 200th post on this blog, and I want to thank you guys so incredibly much for reading the blog, and following me on twitter, and most of all for reading the books, if you do. I don't think you know how much it means to me that you do. I don't think you could possibly know.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I am so homesick now for
Someone that I never knew
I am so homesick now for
Someplace I will never be

Time won't let me go
Time won't let me go
If I could do it all again
I'd go back and change everything
But time won't let me go

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

Bella comes by Shannon's room to ask if a shirt is hers or his. She gives me a polite smile. "Hey, Chase. How've you been?"

"Fine. You?"

She nods.

Shannon says to me, "I have a college book you can borrow, if you want. I can show you around the common application, let you see how it's done."

Down the hall, I hear Noah and Melinda, laughing.

"I should get going," I say.



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack
11) "Time Won't Let Me Go" by The Bravery.

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 10

SONG #10: "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack.

Remember when I said I don't use Motion City Soundtrack, since I have some crazy obsession with them and know all their songs like they were born from my own brain? I lied! About the first part. Not the brain part. That part's real.

But! I don't use my favorites of their songs (um, #magicgayfish playlist notwithstanding, I guess) and I'm totally right when I say that they don't work as well as other songs. The temptation to rock out to them without listening to the words is totally there and totally a problem. I have to really concentrate if I'm going to think about the song the way I want to.

But! Eventually you get to that place with all the songs, once you've listened through the playlist a zillion times, so you're constantly in that weird interstitial space between trying to concentrate on the writing and reminding yourself waitwait this part is important.

So. The Worst Part. Back in our last song, if you recall, SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED. And after bad things happen, there tends to be aftermath. This is the last song of the second summer, which is appropriate because it is the 10th song on a 20 song playlist. Halfway through the book, halfway through the playlist. Convenient!

(We will finish going through the playlist on April 15th, therefore, meaning giveaways will start on the 16th and continue through the 19th, so be aware of that.)

And so. This song.

The most important thing to know about Invincible Summer is that it is a story about a family.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

All the same sad lives
All the love that disappears
We are aching bones
And wasted years

We have few regrets
Save it for every night alone
In the sinking ship
And haunted home

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

His arm whirlwinds, scattering sand everywhere. "Fuck this fuck this fuck this fuck—"

I can't take it anymore. I stand behind him and put my arms around his waist.



1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray
10) "The Worst Part" by Motion City Soundtrack

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 9

SONG #9: "City Hall" by The Fray.

So, full disclosure: I don't like this song very much.

I was a big fan of The Fray when I was in middle school, and I still like some of their songs, but this is not one of them. I'm not exactly sure how it ended up on my iTunes, but I assume I bought it at some point--unlike three of the songs later in the playlist, where I have literally no idea where they came from.

But when I'm making a playlist, the first thing I do is find songs with appropriate titles, then listen through 'em listening to see if the lyrics work.

"City Hall" was a title that immediately jumped out at me for this part of the story, because it's a deliberation scene of sorts. It's a very depressing meeting. The lyrics work, too, to an extent.

It's not a perfect song, and it's not at all my favorite moment in the playlist. And that's probably why I kept it.

This isn't supposed to be a comfortable point in the book. This is SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS, part A. If I liked it, something would be pretty wrong. And of the two SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS, this is the more uncomfortable, less pretty of the two. This is just messy and gross and unfun, and it's supposed to be.

But we have one of my favorite songs right after, so it makes up for itself, I think.

This is also the first passage I've used, so far, that has sign language, though it's just the one word. There's a fair amount of sign language in the book, as one of the characters is Deaf. I made the choice to go with ASL word order for the book, for two main reasons. 1. ASL has its own grammar, and this is correct, and 2. none of the characters in the book are fluent in ASL, least of all our narrator. A lot of it is pidgin signing, and a lot of the translations are way incomplete, as you can see below. There's a whole theme involving lack of communication through the book, so this plays into that.

I also think this is the first passage with Claudia, Chase's sister. And she's pretty badass.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Decision on the dock head
Make up your mind and if you get consensus
Drop me a line

The city hall in my mind, got together last night
Rumors of reelection started to fly

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

"No," Claudia says. "Just keep trying, okay? Don't give up, what the hell. This isn't like a do-it-yourself project gone wrong or . . . or a game of spider solitaire." She signs spider.



1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard
9) "City Hall" by The Fray

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 8

SONG #8: "Slang" by Def Leppard.

So...to put it super plainly, this is the sexiest song I know.

It's filthy and dirty and really hot, both in the sexy sense and the sense that you are doing it stuck to leather seats in the back of someone's car, probably still wearing half of your bikini, no makeup, sweaty. Pretty is something you gave up several days and several sunburns earlier.

So we're at that part of the book.

If you've read any of the summaries of Invincible Summer, you'll know that Chase and his brother are sleeping with the same girl.

It's not what the book is about.

But it's there, and it goes something like this.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

Slang with me, I don't wanna get my hands dirty
Slang with me, I just wanna get soakin' wet
Slang with me, I don't wanna get my hands dirty
All I ever wanna get is slang

It's my intention to be your obsession
(Mi pasion, mi obsesion, queria que eastuvieras conmigo)
It's my obsession to be your addiction

CORRELATING PASSAGE:

God, maybe she knew I would tell him. Maybe she wanted us to fight over her like hungry animals. I want to tell her that I can tell when I'm being used, but this seems like a lofty statement when I don't think I've ever been used before.

--p. 145



PLAYLIST SO FAR:

1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris
8) "Slang" by Def Leppard

INVINCIBLE SUMMER Playlist: Song 7

SONG #7: "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris.

Another cover. I grew up with this song--it's one of my mom's favorites--and I remember the first time I heard this cover, and it blew my mind. It's a much younger, much more energetic, much more...well, summery version. And it remains, along with Rufus Wainwright's "Across the Universe," one of my favorite covers of all time.

This is the most recent song to make it onto the playlist. I tweak as I go along, but this song didn't come until this winter. So in a way it's kind of cheating, because it wasn't there when I wrote the book. But I can't believe that it wasn't.

It's a perfect 2nd summer song for Chase, when being infatuated with a girl is still exciting. Especially when she's unobtainable.

SAMPLE LYRIC:

I can see you-
Your brown skin shinin' in the sun
You got that hair slicked back and those Wayfarers on, baby
I can tell you my love for you will still be strong
After the boys of summer have gone


CORRELATING PASSAGE:

Bella never made me feel this way. Bella was just lips. We're talking about whole bodies, now. We're talking about lungs.

--p. 97



PLAYLIST SO FAR:
1) "Turn Up The Sun" by Oasis
2) "Island in the Sun" by Weezer
3) "Just Like Heaven" by Gatsby's American Dream
4) "Bigger Than My Body" by John Mayer
5) "New Soul" by Yael Naim
6) "Across the Universe" by Rufus Wainwright
7) "Boys of Summer" by The Ataris