Musical Wednesdays: Mixtape for a Novel

As you may know, I've been working on my first novel. I started thinking today about the music that I began to associate, over the course of writing the first draft, with the characters and story.

I kept coming back to Paul Simon, because his song "Graceland" became the anthem of the last third of the book. I think the combination of hearing that song and reading a lot of Flannery O'Connor shaped the idea that (I hope) the last act of the book lives up to: these characters are moving toward grace, in the spiritual sense.

Like Paul Simon's song, this is a voyage that brings them south (not to Memphis, but I don't think Paul Simon's Graceland is necessarily the one in Tennessee--I think it's more of a place where redemption is found). The more I listened to the words of the song, the more resonance it had to the story arc:

"She comes back to tell me she's gone,
As if I didn't know that
As if I didn't know my own bed,
As if I'd never noticed,
The way she brushed her hair from her forehead,
And she said losing love
Is like a window in your heart,
Everybody sees you're blown apart,
Everybody sees the wind blow,

I'm going to Graceland,
Memphis Tennessee
I'm going to Graceland,
Poorboys and Pilgrims with families
And we are going to Graceland,

And my traveling companions
Are ghosts and empty sockets
I'm looking at ghosts and empties,
But I've reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland."

Here were my characters, making their separate ways to where they hope to find salvation, guided by a woman who is gone, who continues to touch their lives. I originally called the last chapter "We All Will Be Received," but I don't think I'm going to title my chapters. We'll have to see.

This song--really, the whole album--has a big place in my memory. I remember my mom giving me this album, and how I didn't really know most of the music on it, and I remember falling in love with it. It will always be a memory of her that I treasure, and I'm glad that all of these years later, a connection that we had pops up in this novel of all places.

I originally intended to post other songs that I've started to associate with the characters and story in this novel, a kind of set list of songs that I've played or thought of while I've worked on it. But I think for today, I'll just leave it at "Graceland."


"I'm going to Graceland,
For reasons I cannot explain
There's some part of me wants to see
Graceland,
And I may be obliged to defend
Every love, every ending
Or maybe there's no obligations now,
Maybe I've a reason to believe
We all will be received
In Graceland."