press play;
“If music be the food of love, play on.”
– Duke Orsino; Twelfth Night, Act 1 Scene 1
For a few years now, I’ve caught myself thinking about books when listening to music. Sometimes a lyric reminds me of a character, or a plot arc, or a relationship in a novel I have read or am reading and I find myself either listening to that song on repeat as I read, or sitting down and making a playlist.
Playlists are a fun way of telling a story. While listening to the songs, you get the sense of the characters, get a sense of what the novel has put them through. And I know I’m not the only one who enjoys doing this. Just look at 8tracks! There are loads of playlists based on different novels to find.
I have seen a few blog posts around the ‘sphere of how to make book playlists, but this is not that. For starters, I haven’t found a website that fully suits me – 8tracks no longer plays all the songs for everybody, Spotify sometimes does not have the song I want to use on the playlist uploaded, and YouTube comes with videos that can be rather distracting.
This blog post is for me to find out if other people enjoy making playlists and listening to playlists as much as I do.
I have a list of relationships from novels I have enjoyed that I have made playlists for, or that I am making playlists for. Everytime I hear a new song that I feel reminds me of the novel, I add it to the list. It’s fun, it sometimes influences me to re-read the novel (while my TBR continues to grow in the distance), and it is simple to do.
(The not so simple part comes when I try to make playlist covers. It helps if I have a fancast for the novels – playing around on PhotoShop is always fun when you have a fancast because it is easier to find photos. I might be the only one who thinks this.)
Figuring out where to post the playlist so that I can share it with other readers has been a pain. And I don’t know, maybe I’m the only one still enjoying making these. It certainly sometimes seems like not a lot of other people have been making or posting playlists anywhere.
(Not that I’m planning to stop anytime soon.)
What are your thoughts on playlists? Do you listen to them? Make them? Where do you look for them?
P.S.
If you’re interested, here are a few of my playlists.
Ara
Iām Ara, a Southeast Asian writer who someday hopes to have published a novel, and who is currently losing herself in the worlds created by others. I love books and food and television and blogging and I get distracted and sidetracked easily.
5 Comments
Cait @ Paper Fury
I do love listening to music and have playlists…but not specifically geared to books. I’M SO NOT THAT TALENTED. Plus I secretly never understand lyrics haha. It took me an embarrassingly long time to figure out a Sia song wasn’t about teatowels and editing. Yeah. I KNOW. I need to sit down and nope.
Anyway I need to go stalk your playlists now…I looove seeing how people connect songs to books!
Ara
LOL. To be fair, I sometimes have to go search for the lyrics to make sure that the song means what I think it means.
Enjoy! I hope to have more put together soon.
Evelina @ AvalinahsBooks
I’m only making it to your blog now! I’m sorry about that cause I promised to visit on a blog hop FOREVER AGO š so sorry, honestly – life happened! But here I am š
It’s an interesting post! You know, I used to love music. But then I became an old and boring adult š thing is, now I barely have time for music. I’m one of those people who can’t work/write while listening, so it would have to be a dedicated activity, and the last time I had time for that? University. Ages ago š so right now, when I do repetitive tasks, pretty much just one playlist is enough! But I love it how people can get creative with their playlists, and I never imagined you could do book playlists. That’s so cool! Yes, music is an emotion – and books give us so many emotions. This makes perfect sense! Great post š
Ara
Better late than never! Glad you’re here.
I love having music in the background when I write and read. More when I write than read. But putting together playlists that fit the story after reading a book is so much fun! I suggest it to most of my friends, to be honest.
Thanks for dropping by!
Pingback: