The sounds of various types of music resonate many, many times in the foreground and background – throughout the novel and memoirs. It is playing, performers are watched, it is spoken about … It is key to much of the content.
A proposition offers itself. Could a great novel or memoir be music-less, be denuded of musical allusion, event and sparked emotion? Is that question absurd?
Could you write a convincing novel about a life little or unaffected by the power and the soaring, the reflection and the resolution of music? Is there enough ‘other’ for great writing?
Of course there is, but it means something profound remains absent. The most powerful art form.
The novel references in different ways many musicians, composers and their works, singers and a conductor – reflecting their importance to the characters and the writer.
Beethoven, Brahms, Vera Lynn, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Springsteen and the E Street Band, early Genesis … The unfairly not famous Clayson and the Argonauts (the author is admittedly biased) who are transformed into Alex and the Greats. John Lennon has a walk-on part.
Prevalent are 1960s singles including songs by The Beatles , The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, Wilson Pickett, Bob Dylan, The Walker Brothers and Otis Redding.
… Play on.