Music In Me

I saw Rocketman over the Bank Holiday weekend and if you could have seen my face after I came out of the cinema, I'd have been the heart eyes emoji. Elton John, God Bless him and his divaness, put his whole life on screen until the moment he emerged from rehab a bejewelled and bespectacled phoenix from the veritable ashes of his life. The way he used his own music to propel the story and to speak to the emotion each and every person felt in that moment, at that time, was extraordinary. Time used to be that I couldn't hear Rocketman without hearing Stewie from Family Guy pretending to be cool, singing this in his faux British accent, as a gig in a smoky bar. Now, I hear Elton or moreover, I hear Taron Egerton (thanks Spotify!). I feel how badly he wanted to escape. How he wanted to be true to himself. How different he was from the man in feathers on stage. And something I read struck me. Don't write to music. You won't convey the emotion of what you're writing as well as what you're feeling when you hear the song.
Or something similar. Don't quote me, but it was in the same vein as the above. What you're writing won't have the same emotional impact without the music. Look, everyone has writing advice for all seasons. You can't go on social media without tripping over someone starting a tweet yelling "AUTHORS!" I write to music full stop. It's the only way I know how to write. The entirety of Shibah's Monster came to me listening to when I listened to Storm  by Craig Armstrong and A R Rahman. Remains started with Vaults' Premonitions. I wrote a whole scene in Windows around Que Sera, Sera by Sly & The Family Stone. Wynne's Surprise wouldn't have been the same, if I hadn't listened to Jack Garratt's Fire. If I told you how many versions of Verdi's Requiem I listened to for the right soprano singing Libera me  for Verde Bianco Rosso you'd be concerned for my general mental health - also the perfect distraction: "It's for the book!" Army of Me and You's ending chapter has Ellie Gouldng to thank. It was better to cry happy tears, than just sad tears to Explosions. I wouldn't have had a clue what to do with Gabriel in Angel's Baby if it wasn't for Keaton Henson's To Your Health or with Auden's midnight strolls without BoB's Ghost in the Machine in Addicted to Witch. Sympathy for the Devil was a reworked old story that I'd never got around to finishing and without each and every track, I know I wouldn't have finished it. I could see Toni getting off the tube at Brixton while COOL played. Cari knocking the shit out of Pierce outside halls to Deadmaus. The same two sitting in that café while James Vincent McMorrow's Look Out tore at my heart.
I know when I was in the midst of my Sahara Desert (the time of Hank abandonment and all my various issues) I wasn't listening to music. No Coldplay. No Rudimental. No Vaults. No Missy Elliot. No James Blake. No Hans Zimmer. That serious, not even Hans got me out of the pit.
I had these crazy expensive Beats headphones and I was watching film trailers with them. Sad times. I can't recall which song/film/advert started it all back up again, but I know it was my link with music that Hank came back to me and said the immortal words "double decker Routemaster bus". When you read it, you'll know. And without the music, I wouldn't be at the finishing line of what is now the longest Italian Knights book in herstory.
So I say thank you for the music! Wouldn't be here without it. ps go see Rocketman. It's a joyous biography of a man who knows his music.