I finished my second round of edits on The Summer Country the other day! To celebrate, I’m dusting off another old post from the archives: my musical playlist for this book. I’d forgotten, this was actually the very first time I made a playlist to go along with a story in progress, almost exactly nine (!) years ago. Here’s what I wrote back then:

Music and writing have a kind of odd relationship for me. I adore music, and it definitely inspires my writing, but unlike a lot of people, I can’t listen to it while I write. Either I get too focused on the writing and wake up to find I’ve missed my favorite part of the music, or I listen to the music and can’t concentrate on writing. I guess it’s because when I listen to music I like to savor it; to listen closely to every note, to wait for those favorite moments and relish them when they arrive.

But as I said, music still definitely inspires me. Mostly instrumental music. Some people draw inspiration from song lyrics that tie into the themes of their story; while that does happen to me occasionally, I get a lot more from listening to classical music and film scores. They become the soundtrack to my story. I imagine certain scenes playing out to them, or link particular musical themes with characters. My favorite time to listen to music like this is late at night, when it’s dark and quiet and I can pay full attention to it and let my imagination spin. And then eventually the things I dream up work their way into my daytime writing sessions.

The playlist itself has undergone some slight changes since then; a couple tracks have dropped off and a few new ones have been added. But the core of it is essentially the same:

• The “Mississippi Suite” by Ferde Grofé. As usual, there’s often little to no thematic connection between the original intent of the music and my story. I have no idea how music inspired by the Mississippi River fits The Summer Country, which is set entirely in turn-of-the-century New York and—well, in dreamland—so well, but it just absolutely is the soundtrack for this story. Three of the four movements (“Huckleberry Finn,” “Father of Waters,” and “Mardi Gras”) are so closely linked to specific scenes in the story they seem to have been written especially for them, and the fourth, “Old Creole Days,” does fit the mood of certain parts.
• Suite from The Heiress by Aaron Copland. Here I think there is a subconscious mental link, with the film being set in old-world New York City, albeit several decades earlier. It sets the mood nicely for the city scenes in The Summer Country, and some of the more dramatic moments later in the story.
• “Allfriars” from the score to The Buccaneers by Colin Towns. Another piece, from a Gilded Age period drama that I haven’t seen, which just seems to fit the old-world historical side of the setting. Other tracks from the same score didn’t strike me the same way, which shows you just how random a process this playlist business can be!
• “Toyland” by Victor Herbert, performed by the Capitol Symphony Orchestra. Fun fact: I actually use lines from this song as a chapter epigraph in the book! The themes of childhood nostalgia and imagination make it a thematic fit, and this lush instrumental arrangement fits in perfectly with the other orchestral pieces in my playlist.
• “Lullaby for Pegi” by John Rutter. I can’t remember whether I heard this on the radio first, or stumbled across it on YouTube—but it’s amazing to me how perfect a companion it is to my central character, a young girl named Peggy, who spends much of the story telling bedtime stories.
• “Waltz” from Swan Lake by Tchaikovsky. A waltz plays a rather key part in The Summer Country, and when I was first thinking about it, the beginning of this one was what kept running in my head. Most of it’s rather bigger and grander than the one I have in mind, but the rhythm of that first theme definitely inspired it.

image: “Twilight Dancers” by Morgan Weistling