Saturday Songs – August 25, 2012

For a lot of people, they know Mike Oldfield either from his performance during the opening ceremonies for the London 2012 Olympics or from Tubular Bells, which was used as the theme to The Exorcist, not even realizing the vast scope of his music.  This is mostly because not too many people stray into the New Age section of their record stores where he is often categorized.

My first exposure to Mike Oldfield came when I was back in high school with the song Magic Touch.

The song itself was just the right mix of pop sound and trippy visuals (I saw the video first) to pull me into his music.  I bought the cassette, Islands, and loved not only the songs that followed the more traditional style of music, but the longer form Wind Chimes Part 1 & 2 as well.  Soon I was searching the bins for his CDs, finding a lot of what he composed inspirational, creatively, that is.  When I created sound tracks for some of my earliest writings, I used his songs to help set the mood, and still do.

Mike Oldfield’s music is available on iTunes and Amazon.com.

Saturday Songs – July 14, 2012

Many times, writers will have a song in mind when they are writing.  There are times when this happens for me as well.

Then there are times when you find the right song for a character well after that character has come to life.  In this case, it is almost like the character is getting their voice after being mute for so long.

I have already discussed Duplicator, a character from one of my NaNoWriMo projects on this blog, as well a the song that managed to get me writing on that project.  Now, as I get ready to work on the rewrite, I feel that I have found the song that best fits this character.

I have mentioned After Forever on this blog as well as part of my Women Rock playlist.  But, considering that Duplicator is empowered by other superhumans, it seemed more and more appropriate for a song called Energize Me to apply to him.

This song, as well as other songs by After Forever, is available on iTunes, Amazon.com, and your local record store.