The Trouble With Being God

Music Selection (Suggested Listening)

Posted by William under Music

If you’ve read TheTrouble With Being God or are at all familiar with the book, you know the book also includes footnotes for suggested listening for key parts of the story.

I’ve recently gotten a few questions and other feedback regarding these selections, and wanted to clarify one thing: the songs suggested are not the songs I was listening to while writing those sections of the book.  In fact, despite my tremendous love (or unhealthy addiction) to music, I seldom write with music on in the background. I frankly find it to be distracting, as I tend to have a hard time not listening to what music is playing.  Therefore, when I write I tend to either do so in silence, or with something lacking decipherable lyrics, like Sigur Ros.

So, if the songs in the suggested listening playlist aren’t what I was listening to whille writing those passages, then what are they?

They’re exactly what I claim them to be - what I consider to be the perfect musical (and emotional) companion to the particular section of the book they are tied to. During the course of writing The Trouble With Being God I would oftentimes come across a song that struck a chord with me as embodying exactly what was going on in the story, sometimes emotionally, othertimes literally, and was the perfect way to get that across through another (albeit borrowed) artistic medium.