Once upon a time, I used to be a dancer. Not, like, professional or anything, but I did love to dance. It put me in a great community of women – not like the kind who go to Juilliard and tear the competition down, but the kind that loves to celebrate each other, femininity, and womanhood. It made me feel powerful, earthy, and womanly – not to mention, an hour of dancing is way fun and an hour of running sucks b*lls (no offense, runners).
I use music in my writing most especially to set tone and mood. If there’s a particular note of angst, drama, melancholy, or swelling ache that I want to hit in my stories, I put on an appropriate song and play it over and over and over again until my writing hits the notes in the song.
But the song I want to share with you is one that hasn’t (yet) influenced my writing. It’s from my dancing days. And I share it with you because when the prompt mentioned music, this is the one that called from my heart. I had danced to it, and I always loved the way the notes trickled and rolled over my body, bending down my back, and spilling out my fingertips and toes.
It’s this one: Red House Painters’ Song for a Blue Guitar.
I couldn’t even tell you in words what this song speaks to me, I can only dance it. It makes me want to cry. And it makes me want to dance.
I hope you want to dance it too.
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Over the next few weeks we are looking at how music can and does inspire our writing. Do you use music? Has a particular song inspired you? Leave the song, or a link to your writing playlist on Spotify, we’ll be putting together a BPB Writing Playlist to share with you over the next few weeks.
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