Music

[Laila]

Hi David,
I think I'm drawn to voice more than anything else when I read, which is why I love your books. The other thing I love is how you incorporate so much music into your stories. I think it was Love is the Higher Law that introduced me to Now It's Overhead's "Book of Love" - my favorite song of 2009. (I could be totally wrong about this, since 2009 was a tumultuous year for me and I was reading frenetically to keep my head above water.) Anyway, I'm assuming that you love music - are all of the songs you mention songs you love? How do you get the ideas for songs to include?
Thanks!
Laila

[David]

Hi Laila,

The tricky part is that I really try to include songs the characters would love ... not necessarily songs that I love. That said, it's perhaps unsurprising that a lot of my characters share my musical tastes, dating back to Boy Meets Boy, when there are shoutouts to everyone from Dar Williams to Jimmy Eat World. The hardest part is, sometimes, leaving the music out, because it would get tiresome if all of my characters were so easily defined by their music. The Lover's Dictionary is somewhat music neutral, and my character in Dash & Lily's Book of Dares defines himself almost entirely through books, not songs. My next book is an interesting balance -- it's called Every You, Every Me after a Placebo song, and when I started writing the book, I wanted the novel to be my equilavent of a Sleeping With Ghosts era Placebo song. But in the book itself, it never says that the character listens to Placebo. The reference is more to the writing than to the events of the story, or the point of view.

I'm so happy to have introduced you to Now It's Overhead's version of "Book of Love" -- the Magnetic Fields' original version is also amazing.

Thanks,
David