I just made a collection on Grooveshark for all the soundtracks I've used as inspiration for some of these stories.
Lakeside Heights Soundtracks
I thought I'd have a lot more, but it turns out I've only used thirteen songs so far? I guess I don't usually give each update its own soundtrack, but only the ones I really feel inspired by. And then some series stories use the same song as a soundtrack. Of course, a couple of the songs weren't even available on Grooveshark at all. And I'm sure y'all don't want to be spammed with songs anyway ;)
So I'll add to it as we go along, and if you ever want to have a listen to some of the songs that inspire these stories, it'll be linked there on the sidebar under "miscellany."
Of course I think I have a stellar taste in music (and don't we all), but I also know music is a very personal thing, so have a listen (or don't) if you want :)
... and would someone mind testing this out for me, to see if you can actually get to it and listen and stuff? ;)
Works perfectly.
ReplyDeleteVery fitting song selections. I'm horrible when it comes to music because I don't actually listen to much. But all of these songs definitely remind me of this story.
And very often I think of you when I hear Ingrid Michaelson. XD
Oh, good, I'm glad it works! And yay, I'm happy to be contained in the same thought as Ingrid Michaelson any day! :)
ReplyDeleteRadiohead! Fleetwood Mac! Well...I'm happy. And yes, it works great for me too. :)
ReplyDeleteI thought of you the other day because I'd just read the chapter you soundtracked with The Blower's Daughter (I forget which one it was but one of the most recent ones) when I read something about Damien Rice. It was a second hand story so it may not be true but it put a whole new spin on the song for me! Apparently, it was about him inadvertently falling for a teenage girl over the phone ("blower" means "telephone", in this case). I would never have guessed that!
LOL, you might be right! Man, now I can't help but see that song in a whole new light! I still like the obsessive nature of it though, so it still kind of fits the story I picked it for ;)
ReplyDeleteI've never heard blower for telephone before.
First thing first...I haven't even listened to the songs yet because you've just introduced me to Grooveshark. I'm too busy making my own playlist :D
ReplyDeleteSecond...I'll go back and check on your playlist now, since that was the point of the post in the first place. :D
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ReplyDeleteDuran Duran, Radiohead, Bush... love it! LOL, you know I'm a huge music/writing type, so I love seeing people's soundtracks and things they listen to while writing stuff. It's always interesting.
ReplyDeleteRome, ha! Isn't Grooveshark the best!?! :)
ReplyDeleteMathilde, ummm, spammer? For those curious, my Chinese to English translator gave me this:
"Comes to refuel ~ to you to hit inflates!!! When renewal, must pay attention to rest oh ~~"
Sorry if you're not a spammer, but I'm deleting your comment so none of my readers click on that dubious link...
Mao, yes, I love music and writing together so much! I swear it's such a big and important part of the process. Maybe it's weird, but I'm totally going to give thanks in my novel to the musicians that really inspired me to push through it. You never really see anyone do that.
Laura, "blower" is pretty common here. It's not a word I'd use but I'd know what someone was talking about if they used it in context. I never thought of it with this song though - I though it was referring to a trumpeter or something!
ReplyDeleteQuestion: when you soundtrack specific chapters, or parts within those chapters, what does that mean? Was it a song you were listening to when you started to write? Did you hear the song while you were doing something un-Sim related and it made you think of a particular character in your hood? Do you put on specific music in the hopes it will inspire you? Other? All of the above?
LOL, while I was making my breakfast this morning, I had a song stuck in my head that I thought sort of fit one of my Sims and it got me thinking about this post!
Hmmm, that's a really good question! I'm not sure if I've ever really thought about this before, lol!
ReplyDeleteI think if an entry is going to have a soundtrack, I usually know it at its conception. In the next couple of chapters, for example, I pretty much have all the major stories well drafted already, and I had a song in mind for each of those stories pretty much as soon as I knew what the story was (or very soon after). More often than not, it works out that way.
If no song comes to mind for a story, I won't push anything on it, usually. And in fact, the stories that have songs picked for them already, are also the stories that came to me in stronger bursts of inspiration, so maybe there's something to that.
But I think it happens in those very early stages of writing, because the story is still just a mood then, and songs reflect moods too, so they're very easy to pair up at that point.
Yes, I do hear songs while driving or doing housework or whatever that make me think of certain characters! Both in Sims and non-Sims stories :)
Carla, I wanted to answer your question about the soundtracks a little better, since this happened to me just last night and it's still fresh in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI'd been playing and writing for this character a lot this week, working on an upcoming story, and kind of mapping out the direction of her future stories - and I mentioned moods before, because that's exactly what it was. This character had a whole mood around her, and it showed in her stories and in the way she interacted with everyone around her, though I couldn't really put a distinct word on it at the time.
Then I heard a song come on and it just resonated with that mood perfectly. I mean, I probably hear dozens of random songs in the course of a day, but just this one song fit her, and her situation, so well that it felt like she could have been singing the lyrics herself.
So to answer your question, the story does come before the soundtrack :)