I used to make a lot of mixtapes and playlists and record some of my own stuff, too (that’s an old picture of me and Rachel and our friends Amy and Joe playing on the street in Queens for Make Music New York!) . . . but it’s been a couple of years since I’ve done anything with music other than listen to it.
In the mornings I’ll usually try to catch Breakfast of Champions on WMBR (MIT’s excellent college radio station) and if I feel like listening to some ambient music while I’m writing, I’ll stream French talk radio or WWOZ (the jazz station in New Orleans) layered under “10 Hours of Blizzard Sounds” on YouTube. Or I’ll put something on that couldn’t possibly distract me, like “Jurassic Park Theme – 800% Slower“.
The last playlist I made was probably for the website Largehearted Boy, which published an annotated playlist for my first book (The Loudness) back in 2015 – and that playlist is a lot of fun! But it’s a little punk rock and jangly because the idea was to choose stuff that could’ve been on a soundtrack for the book . . . not songs I would’ve listened to while I was actually trying to write it.
Still, I’m always looking for new music, and even though I don’t usually listen to music with lyrics while I’m working . . . “10 Hours of Blizzard Sounds” can get a little old.
So — inspired by an excellent playlist of book-themed music by Jo Watson Hackl, author of Smack Dab in the Middle of Maybe (“part treasure hunt, part wilderness adventure, and all heart.”–Alan Gratz, New York Times Bestselling author of Refugee) — I put together a list of some of the songs I listened to while I was writing and revising Snow Struck or that I’d play before I got into my Word document, to get me in the mood to write.
You can listen to the full playlist on YouTube or just cherry-pick songs from the list below.
