Seeing as The Egotist’s Club and Jubilare have settled on a variety of choices for this topic, I shall take the same liberty. After all, it’s not an easy task. It’s true I do often hear some kind of soundtrack when I’m reading a book, but it’s usually one my mind makes up on the spot. And when listening to songs I often see in my mind’s eye a story to fit it. But finding a single song that encapsulates the heart of an entire existing story or character becomes surprisingly difficult.
Here are a few I was able to come up with.
1. Mannheim Steamroller’s “Red Wine” has always struck me as an extraordinarily dignified song that nonetheless exudes warmth and beauty. It’s reminiscent of “Greensleeves” in that regard; in ¾ time, its harpsichord melody gives it the stateliness of a waltz. But the emotional cries of the flute give it a quality that is also earthy and natural. This isn’t a song for a cathedral of stone, but a cathedral of trees, which we visit in our dreams.
And so it is that I match “Red Wine” with George MacDonald’s Phantastes. This book is almost beyond description; to know what it feels like, you simply must read it yourself. In it, a young man named Anodos finds himself transported to the Fairy World, perhaps through dream or perhaps through magic. He travels through a vast and bewildering forest filled with various fairies, trolls, knights, princesses, and other creatures, some of which embody holiness, and others which embody various evils.
It’s a dreamlike story, one you can imagine watching through the flickering flames in a campfire. There is a stateliness to it; MacDonald’s Victorian prose is dignified and eloquent, his themes involve the journey of man to become holy, and the climax takes place in what might well be called a woodland cathedral. Yet it is full of emotional and spiritual yearnings. Joy, terror, and melancholy all meet in this story, and while Mannheim Steamroller’s “Red Wine” may not have much terror to it, I hear in it much of the other two.
2. In researching this topic, I came across another interesting match. One of the most soulful, heartwrenching songs I have heard in recent years has been “The Hill” by Marketa Irglova, from the movie Once. The song is directed to her absent husband, whom she desperately wants to please but hasn’t apparently been able to. Their marriage is troubled, and they have temporarily separated, but in one powerful scene, Marketa’s character (called only The Girl) walks home at night singing this song to herself, pouring her heart out to the dark streets and expressing all her sorrow, her longing for love, and her accusations: namely, that he never seems to acknowledge her feelings, her struggles, or her thoughts.
And this reminded me of Ness in The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff. There are some key differences: The Girl clearly loves her husband and desires his affection, whereas Ness hasn’t yet found herself able to love Aquila for most of the book. Yet Ness has some of the same accusations against Aquila that The Girl has against her husband. Aquila isn’t cruel, not intentionally; he just doesn’t spare hardly any thoughts for Ness’ own struggles and emotions until it’s too late, and when he does realize them he doesn’t know what to do, so he does nothing. I could imagine Ness singing this song, especially later in the book when she and Aquila do become a little closer together, but still don’t quite understand each other and still hurt each other emotionally. And, gladly, both women find reconciliation and love by the end.
3. When I listened to Celtic Woman’s cover of Nightwish’s “Walking in the Air” recently, I suddenly remembered one of my favorite children’s books. Moonhorse by Mary Pope Osborne is an absolutely magical poem with gentle, cool illustrations about a girl who is taken on a beautiful, cosmic journey by a flying horse…a moonhorse. Technically, she’s riding in the air instead of walking, but the song’s soaring poetry and mysticism fits well a journey that takes the girl and her Pegasus past living constellations, across the hunting paths of sky wolves, to where they lasso the moon and pull it across the sky.
We’re walking in the air
We’re dancing in the midnight sky
And everyone who sees us greets us as we fly.
And indeed, as they fly gracefully past planets, stars, and comets, all the creatures of space greet them as they go.
Lastly, David “Fathead” Newman’s “The Thirteenth Floor” is a song I am waiting to find the story for. It’s filled with great jazz flute riffs, jingling cymbal beats and drum rhythms, and it makes me think of an acrobatic duel in a city alley involving hip urban elves. That mix of breathy flutes and cool jazz is just infectious! But I don’t know of any existing book that it fits, so I’ll probably have to write that one myself.
Unfortunately this YouTube video is only part of the song. The full song, which can be found on iTunes under David Newman’s CD “Bigger & Better,” includes a short gap of silence after the YouTube video ends, and then it builds slowly to an exciting, action-packed conclusion.
The Warden's Walk 