For every book a song?
I don't know if I'm just weird, but once in a while I find that there's an eerie connection between what I'm listening to, and what I'm reading. When this happens, It's almost as if a particular song or album fits perfectly as the soundtrack to a book. One example I can'think of from years ago is when I was out west, living in Lake Louise, and reading Barbara Gowdy's The White Bone.
This book is definitely one of my all-time favourites. Barbara Gowdy tells the story of an elephant family from the animals' points of view. She-Spurns, also know as Mud, has recently been adopted into the She-S group, but has trouble fitting in. When faced with the double threat of a parched land and human poachers, the She-S's must heed Mud's visions, and try to find the "Safe Place," which legend says is marked by the bone of a baby elephant.
I happened to be listening to Beck's album Mutations a lot. Something about Mud's lonely and, at times, frightening journey to find the mythic Safe Place seemed to mesh with Beck's lyrics. Especially the song We Live Again: "These withered hands have dug for a dream, sifted through sand and leftover nightmares." The gentle sway of the music, lullaby-like, was evocative of a line of elephants walking through the drought-stricken landscape of the story.
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