ABBA

 I’ve had a long love affair with Swedish pop sensation ABBA. Ever since they burst onto the charts in the mid 1970s they had my heart (ousting the Bay City Rollers from top slot). So you can imagine my delight when the ABBASOLUTELY FABBAULOUS SHOW toured Newcastle last week.

I have SO many happy memories involving Agnetha, Frida, Benny and Bjorn.

#1: The day all the girls in my fourth class spontaneously broke into When I Kissed the Teacher when the much-adored sixth class teacher, Mr Malcolm, walked into our classroom. I can still remember the smiles, the happiness…and how that seemed to last the whole day. :) When I Kissed the Teacher is still one of my favourite ABBA songs.

#2: Being allowed to go to the drive-in with my older cousins to see the ABBA movie. It was one of those iconic “I’m a grown-up” moments (completely false, mind you, but I adored my cousins and I can still taste my excitement).

I now have the ABBA Movie on DVD!

#3: When I was an undergraduate—back in the old, old days (early 1990s)—my flatmate and I would religiously rock up to The Castle every Wednesday night for FABBA—an ABBA tribute band. We’d dance non-stop until the wee small hours, and then drag ourselves off to classes the next day. That was back in the days when a late night didn’t wipe me out for a week. ;-)

My battered Arrival album and a 45 of Fernando (B-side is -- swoon -- Tropical Loveland)

I loved Muriel’s Wedding and Priscilla Queen of the Desert when they came out. I swooned over both Mamma Mia movies. So it will come as no surprise to you that I was one of the first out of my seat at the theatre last Thursday when ABBASOLUTELY FABBAULOUS SHOW kicked off proceedings with Does Your Mother Know? Yes, much dancing and crazy good times were had. :)

You wanna know what else is putting a smile on my face? ABBA has just announced that they’re reforming to record two brand new songs!

TWO. NEW. SONGS. Coloured me excited.

Okay, it’s your turn now. What’s your favourite musical crush?

Near miss

 Clare’s post earlier in the month about rock stars and the best concert(s) we’d ever been to sent me on a funny trip down memory lane.

When I was nineteen(ish) my girlfriend called me one Saturday afternoon super-excited because Crowded House were playing in a little old club in Newcastle that night. Now, this was before Crowded House had become a name, but she’d been given the skinny on this band and knew they were going places.

“We have to go!” she told me. “This is a big deal, and it may never happen again.”
“I can’t,” I said glumly. “I promised my cousin that I’d go to the pictures with him.”
“Stand him up! Put him off! Go to the pictures next weekend. You can go to the pictures any time.”
My cousin was far from hip or cool, he’d never been groovy in his life, but he was a sweetheart. “I can’t. I’ve already cancelled on him twice, and I’m not going to do it a third time.”
She harangued and argued and cajoled. But I stood firm.

 
I tell myself that keeping my date with my cousin proves that I’m a good person. But every time I hear a Crowded House song, I shake my head and think You could’ve seen them live! And you know what the worse part is – I can’t even remember what movie it was that we went and saw!

Have you ever had a near miss like this? Tell me the truth, would you have gone to see the band or gone to the movies with Cousin Colin? ;-)

The rabbit hole that is YouTube

I often find myself getting sucked down that rabbit hole…otherwise known as YouTube. You know how it is—you want to listen to just one song because you caught part of it on the radio and you haven’t heard it in ages and you just know you won’t get the song out of your head until you’ve heard it all the way through.

But YouTube then tempts you with other song suggestions and suddenly you’re off, listening to one song after another and having a grand old time.

Actually, can you tell I enjoy this particular rabbit hole? I refuse to call it a time-waster or source of procrastination because I find a lot of inspiration in music. And I love to have a theme song for whichever book I’m working on. For my current work-in-progress I have three songs:

1. Foolish Games, Jewel
2. Kiss Somebody, Morgan Evans
3. Simply Irresistible, Robert Palmer

I heard that second song on my road trip to Tassie, and I jotted it down for future reference…and to research the artist because I wasn’t familiar with Morgan Evans.

Well, slap my thigh and call me Susan—he’s a Newcastle boy (my hometown)! AND he has the sweetest grin on the planet (check out the film clip to While We’re Young…just the first little bit, and you’ll see what I mean...as a bonus there's a stunning beach in the film clip too).

How has he never crossed my path? (I’m talking figuratively not literally here…still ;-) ). And then I came across this particular YouTube clip and it amazed me what he did with his "American" band. The clip is long, but interesting. And, hey, let's admit it -- he's not hard on the eyes is he?



So tell me, have you made a recent musical discovery? Do share…there’s a rabbit hole that’s beckoning. ;-)

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If Music Be the Food of Love...

I’m an aural writer, meaning the silence that most writers crave drives me nuts.

I need noise.  White noise. Cafe noise.  TV noise.   I often joke that I could write at a Bon Jovi concert.

I wonder if that’s why my husband often complains that I don’t hear the lyrics the way he does. Because I experience sound differently.  More in a kind of diffused osmosis than any kind of purposeful way.

(I know!  Gasp!  For a writer of words to admit that!) 

But just like those singular, bittersweet, sigh-worthy moments in romantic movies that make your heart clutch, or beautiful phrases in books that put words together in such a unique and heartfelt way you literally swoon - for me, for a song to have a real impact, it’s more about a feeling.  It can be a few shiny lyrics that make me sing or move or smile or cry.  Or a clanging chord that makes my stomach sink.  Enough that it was able to break through the constant chatter inside my head and make a mark.

And I use that in my writing all the time.  For some books I’ve listened to the one song over and over to tap into the feeling it creates inside of me.

I wrote a musician hero once; the aptly titled Resisting the Musician :).  A rocker type - bruised and battered emotionally - the hero could no longer pick up his instrument.  I listened to a lot of Bruce that year.  Some INXS. And even a little One Direction!  I got what I needed where I needed to get it.

Here are a few of the songs that always take me somewhere other, elevating me to a higher plane when they dance into my day.  Songs that take me to that wonderful magical place that makes it human to need art:

“Kissing a Fool” by George Michael – I have listened to that song a zillion times while writing heart-clenching scenes in my books.  It takes me there so well.

“We Are Young” by Fun – dark subject matter within the confines of a raging anthem that makes me want to stage dive (even when I’m in the car)

“Viva la Vida” by Cold Play – this song feels like summer to me.  Like the car windows are down, my feet are on the dashboard and we’re going…wherever we want to go.

“Bad Things” by Jace Everett.  The theme music to True Blood.  It’s dark, and sultry and red.  Just so much red.

 “Jolene” by Dolly Parton – oh the yearning and heartache of that song.  It makes me tear up every time I hear those first plaintive notes.

 

Do you have any songs that always make you cry, or dance, or suffer, or think, or wind down the car window and sing at the top of your lungs?

Zoom, Zoom, Zoom...with Michelle Douglas

 “Round round get around, I get around.” / “Little Red Corvette, baby you’re much too fast.” / “Little deuce coupe, you don’t know what I’ve got. Well I’m not bragging, babe, so don’t put me down. But I’ve got the fastest set of wheels in town.” / “You got a fast car. I want a ticket to anywhere.” / “Oh lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes Benz. My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.” / “I took my Cobra down to the track, hitched to the back of my Cadillac.” / “Grease lightning! Go Grease lightning.” / “And she’ll have fun, fun, fun till her daddy takes the T-Bird away.”

Okay, I’ll stop now. But guess who just got a new car? It’s not brand new, it’s a couple of years old, but it’s sooooo pretty. :-) See…

 

Pretty, beautiful, gorgeous...

This is also the first car I’ve owned that has a CD player. My previous car had a cassette player…and, yes, I still have cassettes from the 80s and 90s that I’d play. See…

What on earth will I do with these now?

 I know this is dotty (though I prefer to call it whimsical), but I’ve been driving around blaring my Beach Boys CD (OMG you should hear this sound system!), so I can sing along to their car songs. I’ve been travelling all over the countryside singing “I Get Around”, “Fun Fun Fun”, “Little Deuce Coupe” and “Little Honda” at the top of my lungs.

I love beach music. Give me some Beach Boys, Jan and Dean, or The Riptides and you’ll have me grinning from ear to ear. But who knew beach music included so many car and driving songs?

And that got me thinking about other car and driving songs. Obviously I now have to create a playlist, and I’m asking you for advice and suggestions—do you have a favourite car or driving song? Or maybe there’s a particular song you simply love driving to? Do let me know—I’ve been having so much fun belting out tunes in my new car. :-)

P.S. When I go up a steep hill, my car keeps going AND maintains its speed rather than dropping back to 2nd gear (or, heaven forbid, 1st gear). Do you know how nice that is? Torque, is what the salesman said. I have a feeling some torque wouldn’t go astray for my writing at the moment…and I’m sure I’ll find some…after I take my car for just one more spin. ;-)

You Can't Stop the Music

by Michelle Douglas

Reading: Everything I know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels by Sarah Wendell

Watching: Jam and Jerusalem

Listening to: Kate Fagan

Making Me Smile: my afternoon walks in this gorgeous spring weather

I’ve heard that a lot of authors create a playlist of songs for their stories, and I’d always thought, Good for them. Whatever works, I say. But it was never something I’d tried for myself.

That is, not until The Secretary’s Secret (out now in the UK). I’m not even sure why I did give the playlist thing a whirl. Except, I’d given myself a whole wonderful fortnight to play with the story before getting down to the nuts and bolts of actually writing it, and a playlist seemed like one of those fun, playful kind of things to do.

So I spent a week perfecting my playlist and another week playing it over and over, and it really did help me visualise certain scenes in my book. It helped me find the right tone for the story. What’s more it acted like a form of brainstorming and had new scenes occurring to me too.

Funnily enough I didn’t play it at all once I stared writing the story. But it had already done its job – it had helped me imagine my story world.

The process for every book is different and I didn’t create a playlist for The Man Who Saw Her Beauty (out in the UK in April 2012). I did, however, have a theme song for that book—Jesse by Carly Simon. Now, the book changed quite a bit so the reunion story I had in my mind became something quite different (so plaudits to anyone who can find even a skerrick of the song in that book now). But, again, the song helped me find the right tone and atmosphere for the book, even if the lyrics no longer applied.

For the story my editor has in her hot little hands right now I had three theme songs – Jesse James by Cher (for my heroine’s attitude), Summer Rain by Belinda Carlisle (for that all important tone) and Captain Zero by The Mixtures (for my hero’s realisation of his thick-headed doofusness and accompanying need to make amends).

One of my favourite things in the world is to lie on my sofa and stare up at the canopy of trees that soars over the backyard and listen to music. I quieten all the white noise in my head, and savour the view. Invariably, however, a line of music will catch my attention and suddenly I’ll be off playing the what-if game and creating scenarios in my mind.

And it seems to me that some songs lend themselves more to this than others. Here are three songs that persistently intrigue me:

1. My Girl by Hoodoo Gurus (She’s fallen out of love with him. Can he make her fall back in love with him? Has she really fallen out of love with him? Are his friends trying to cause trouble? If so, why?)

2. Living Next Door To Alice by Smokie (OMG, Alice is leaving! Hmm…but will Sally make the loss bearable? Actually, I play a whole load of scenarios with this song. Exactly how many love-pairings can I make? For a start there’s the narrator/singer and Alice, the narrator and Sally, Alice and the guy who’s sent the limo…and perhaps even Alice and Sally.)

3. Insensitive by Jann Arden (Is this jerk redeemable? And if so, why is he acting like such a jerk?)

Oh, and here’s another two:

The Day You Went Away by Wendy Matthews (The film clip breaks my heart)

Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis (I haven’t worked out exactly what this song is getting at, but I really like it.)

I don’t know if I will ever write a story based around any of these songs, but then again… :)

Songs are a great source of inspiration and I love collecting them. Do you have any favourite songs you think could be turned into great stories?