Tunes in the Night – my writing playlist for “A Bump in the Night”

Those of you that know me or have stumbled across this blog (or some other social media outlet) will know that I like music. A lot.

As with quite a few things, I have varied taste when it comes to music. It’s not always the lyrics that I’m interested in, but the melody. Sometimes, it can even be the memory or emotion that a particular song evokes in me. In these cases, I might not really like the artist at all, but that one song just happened to be playing at a particular point in my life and it got wrapped up inside the memory. The song becomes the trigger or key to unlocking it.

I’m sure this happens to you as well.

For those of you accustomed to these pages, I’ve mentioned some of my musical influences under the page entitled ‘Influences’ (fancy that). That doesn’t mean I listen to all those artists all the time. I often find that, whenever I sit down to start writing a scene or a poem, I just seem to land on the track I want. It’s almost uncanny.

As I continue, I tend to skip tracks unconsciously without interrupting my flow. It’s just the way I work. When I finally pause for a tea-break or whatever I’ll jot down the tracks that stuck with me or any that I just know I need to hear when I’m going to be writing a particular story/scene. Later, I’ll create a playlist for them on my iPod (an old classic click-wheel model) and add to it during the course of writing. To be honest, I prefer vinyl over digital (much how I prefer books to ebooks), but I probably wouldn’t get much writing done if I had to get up and change the record every three or for minutes. I suppose I need to become wealthy enough where I can hire my very own Jeeves… a ‘vinyl-turner’ of sorts… someone to flip the records at a moments notice!

So, since I’ve finished writing A Bump in the Night I’ve decided to reveal the playlist that I listened to whilst writing it. You might not like some of the tracks/artists; you might even wonder how in the hell I can mix them. You might even wonder at my taste in music, but it might also let you catch a glimpse of what was going on inside my head (for those of you that are bored – the YouTube playlist is at the very end of the post).

The tracks were usually played on a random loop, so the listing below is just a list and not in any particular order. If I was asked to pick one main track from the sixty-two on the playlist… I’m not sure that I could. If I was asked by a ‘murderous librarian’ with a cute smile then I suppose I could suggest one or two… “Get Blown Away” or “Paint it Black” immediately jump to mind… both are favourites of mine. Others would be “Siamese Twins” or maybe “Never Here”… both frequently repeated along with Stiltskin’s “Horse”, Tori Amos’ version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” and, of course, the classic “Lucretia, My Reflection” by The Sisters of Mercy.

There are a couple of tracks that made me think of writing additional scenes; parts that I toyed with writing but in the end didn’t. I always intended A Bump in the Night to be a novella rather than a novel. I have considered writing further stories involving Mr Snaggle & Mr Snuffle and will probably consider using those scenes then. The song that sprang to mind was “Driving South” and the scene involved the ghostly antics of getting from A to B (those of you that eventually read the story and know a little of England’s geography may understand what I’m rambling on about).

If anyone wants to know why I chose a certain song or what scene/feeling/character I associated it with then just ask away… either in the comments section below or elsewhere (Twitter, Goodreads, etc.).

Anyway, I’ll sign off now and just leave you with the list. I’ve also embedded the tracks as YouTube playlist at the end of this list… the videos are not all my preferred choices, but they were often all that was available or which accurately matched the version I have (the Terra Naomi videos were from her early virtual tour and were my preferred choice – fantastic).

So, plug in your deadphones and ride along with me (and anything else lurking in the room)…

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1. Love Electric (Radio Edit) – Circ
2. He’s So Strange – Go-Go’s
3. Winter – Tori Amos
4. Spin Spin Sugar – Sneaker Pimps
5. Stop Your Crying – Sleeper
6. All Along The Watchtower – Jimi Hendrix
7. Insomnia – Faithless
8. A Water Prayer – Deep Blue Something
9. Civil Sin – Boy Kill Boy
10. (Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult
11. Martha’s Harbour – All About Eve
12. Color Me Once – Violent Femmes
13. Horse – Stiltskin
14. Only Happy When It Rains – Garbage
15. Sex & Candy – Marcy Playground
16. Cold – The Cure
17. Sunshine And Butterflies – Stiltskin
18. What Do I Do Now? – Sleeper
19. Roads – Portishead
20. So Low – Ocean Colour Scene
21. Go Quietly (live virtual tour) – Terra Naomi
22. Temple of Love – The Sisters of Mercy
23. Lake Of Fire – Nirvana
24. Smells Like Teen Spirit – Tori Amos
25. Sale Of The Century – Sleeper
26. Siamese Twins – The Cure
27. Knight on the Town – Kula Shaker
28. My Lover’s Box – Garbage
29. I’m Happy (live virtual tour) – Terra Naomi
30. Mohammed – The Dandy Warhols
31. You’re Speaking My Language – Juliette & The Licks
32. Down On The Farm – Guns N’ Roses
33. Such A Fool – 22-20’s
34. The Trick Is To Keep Breathing – Garbage
35. Sixteen – The Heavy
36. Policeman Skank – Audioweb
37. Outside Of A Circle – Ocean Colour Scene
38. Driving South – Stone Roses
39. Undefined – Mad at Gravity
40. Back In The U.S.S.R. – The Beatles
41. Wouldn’t Change A Thing – Deep Blue Something
42. So Fine – Guns N’ Roses
43. Cut – The Cure
44. Sympathy for the Devil – The Rolling Stones
45. A Forest – The Cure
46. Mercenary (Live) – Go-Go’s
47. Clowns (can you see me now?) – t.A.T.u
48. Without A Trace – Soul Asylum
49. Get Blown Away – Ocean Colour Scene
50. Doll Parts – Hole
51. Never Here – Elastica
52. Deception – The Crüxshadows
53. Parklife – Blur
54. Until It Sleeps – Apocalyptica
55. Heart Full Of Soul – The Yardbirds
56. Mad Alice Lane (a ghost story) – Peter Lawlor
57. Waterloo Sunset – Cathy Dennis
58. Zombie – The Cranberries
59. All I Want – The Cure
60. Fashion Seekers – Go-Go’s
61. Paint it Black – The Rolling Stones
62. Lucretia, My Reflection – The Sisters of Mercy

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 A Bump in the Night is now available in ebook and print via Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and iBooks. The paperback can also be purchased via the Wyldwood Books eStore.