A Playlist for The Fiennes

One of my favorite resources for writing, besides Wikipedia (a great source of moderately-detailed information on drugs and diseases), is well-chosen music. Having a song in the background that reflects the mood of the section or a character's personality I'm working on helps me visualize the scene, intensifying the actions and dialogue.

Often, I turn to my bookmarks in Firefox for a "mood" song not in my iTunes library (mainly instrumentals from James Horner and late 90's/early-to-mid 00's pop, depending on the scene).

I also have an iTunes playlist, mostly of 90's and 00's pop and alternative, for this very purpose. Most of the songs I think direct relate to Helen's stubbornness and passion ("Fighter" and "Beautiful" being two of the main ones), while others voice her envy of her peers' less stressful lives ("Could be Anything" and "Where Does the Good Go"). There are also "triumph" songs for the high points when Reuben and Helen manage not just to survive, but to come out stronger than before.

To see the full playlist, click on "read more."

Music, Memory and Silence

I have found that part of the experience of listening to certain albums is remembering things that happened when I began listening to a particular album and where I was physically and emotionally. Having first listened to Paul Simon on long car trips as a child, listening to his music brings up memories of those car rides. Likewise, Rubber Soul reminds me of listening to it with my brother, before he went to college. We are nine years apart so this is an older memory for me.

I have managed to associate "Sous Les Etoiles," the French translation of "Under the Stars," with long walks through the corridors of Massachusetts General Hospital the summer before my junior year, because that was when the song was stuck in my head. The vague glitter of the ceiling cemented the connection.

Likewise, when I hear "Heaven Have Mercy" I can picture myself pulling into North Station, the train stop between the commuter rail from my school and the train line that took me to work. The third volume of the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack is part of my memory of walking back to the dorm late at night from the commuter train, as well as walking to art class and painting (we were allowed to listen to our iPods while painting). Snow, quiet, cold, and oil paint, all bound by at times romantic and at other times angst-ridden indie rock/pop lyrics.

Ironically, the music I associate with my conversion immersion is the soundtrack to the movie Amazing Grace (which is about fighting slavery, but has Christian religious undertones). I had been listening to the album quite often that March, and the quiet, yet stirring instrumentals quickly stuck in my head. I remember thinking about one of them, "Triumph," while I was in the shower next to the mikveh, while reminiscing about the people who had supported me in the year and a half of study and prayer leading up to that moment. It was an important moment of reflection that felt almost as significant as the immersion itself, which happened quietly, with no music going through my head. Only focused silence.

Albums that Have Stuck With Me (a shorter list)

Rubber Soul - My main association with Rubber Soul is listening to it with my brother when I was in second grade. Since he was in 12th grade and moved away shortly thereafter, it was one of our few common childhood experiences. Fighting over potato chips at lunch and Easter candy (back when we got Easter baskets) were the others, and since my brother was much bigger and quicker, they were obviously less pleasant memories.

A Day Without Rain - When I originally got this album for my birthday in middle school, the music was soothing and relaxing. Later, when one of my best friends and I used it as comfort music after our childhood cats had died, I began to associate it with losing pets. Not a pleasant association, but one that persisted for quite a long time.

Moulin Rouge soundtrack - One of the few cases in which I heard a movie soundtrack before seeing the movie. After seeing the movie, I was swept up in the music, the costumes, and the story. Being an idealistic 14-year-old, the romance of the "bohemian revolution" seemed very attractive, even though the artist's lifestyle is very, very hard. Having grown up (somewhat), what remains attractive is the connection between music and emotion, particularly love.

What Makes a Good Copyright Violating AMV?

Arguably, the film Fantasia was not just the first music video (or, rather, a combination of long music videos) in the technical sense of pairing moving images and music.

It may also be viewed as the forerunner to the homemade animated music video or, as typed in YouTube video contests, the AMV. That is, the process of finding animated (or, in other homemade videos, live action) footage that brings new meaning to a particular song.

Some AMVs aim for sentiment, but not necessarily quality sentiment. Say, the pairing of well-recognized scenes from Disney movies to a sappy pop song without an effort to match the lyrics to the visuals or the Grey's Anatomy fan video whose aim is to say McDreamy/George/Mark/every male surgeon in Seattle Grace is soooo cute… enjoy 3 trillion 2-second clips of him. There are also the videos devoted to written (usually unwritten) pairings of characters. Some of these are kind of funny; most are not worth watching.

Others, however, take a step beyond the obvious, making unusual connections between separate films, giving someone a funny singing voice, contrasting a film's actual tone with the background song's tone, and somtimes all three at once.

Some of my favorites are:

The video with news clips of George W. Bush and Tony Blair, set to "Endless Love." There are several copies of this on YouTube.

Clips of Georgette (from Oliver and Company) set to "Prima Donna" from Phantom of the Opera. By YouTube user TheTerrierQueen.

Clips from almost every Disney movie set to "Hair" as an ode to, well, hair. The person who made the video found a clip to match just about every type of hair mentioned in the song (polka-dotted, twisted, braided, waxen, shining, down to there hair). By YouTuber agentcoffee.

The Firefly video to "All Theses Things That I've Done" by YouTuber cnstrikesback.

DaJugglingFool's video "Why is the Rum Gone: Remix" does a very nice job of sound mixing and pairing said sound effects with the video clips and adding unexpected clips (and audio!) from the Teletubbies, the Terminator and 24 into a video about Pirates of the Carribbean. 

I would post the hyperlinks, but haven't figured out how to do so in Blogger, which is why it will be a while before I make any AMVs.

One More Thought

I think I heard at least 3-4 covers of "Frosty the Snowman," "The Christmas Song," "Baby It's Cold Outside," and "Walking in a Winter Wonderland" during my 5-hour shift tonight.

I wonder why I haven't heard "Jingle Bell Rock" at least once at work; we've completely switched to Christmas-themed music (that is, 95% secular-ish Christmas songs and 5% secular winter songs) but we seem to be lacking some of the better pop Christmas songs.

I'm sure, for example, that there are more people who like "Jingle Bell Rock" than "Little St. Nick" ("Little Deuce Coupe" with minor, but not very good, lyric changes).

With that, I bid you all a good night, and hope that the Christmas music you hear in stores/elevators/people's leaking headphones etc. is at least tolerable.