Two Decades of Music to Save You

The playlist of my person, the music for my milestones, the lyrics of my life.

Playlist in full...

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When I think of my life, I think of my writing. When I think of my writing, I think of my life. And music is always there. Throughout it all.

My life gives me inspiration for stories. Music does too. Music highlights parts of my life, keeping memories and feelings on the forefront of my brain. Keeping memories and feelings in the writer’s room of my brain so their influence can always be felt. Music has helped me through some difficult times. There are songs that stick with me, I relate them to certain moments in life. They make up the playlist of my life. I feel like I owe them some credit to what success I have had in writing. Because without every moment in my life having happened exactly as it happened… I wouldn’t be exactly where I am right now. And I like where I am right now.

So, I can’t regret a single second… no matter how painful it may have been.

The earliest pivotal moments for many people is the first heartbreak. For me, it wasn’t love. But it was teen infatuation, which hardly feels any different to the adolescent mind. There were newfound highs in my life. I finally understood words like elation and ecstasy. And then it all was yanked out from underneath my feet. I finally understood words like despair and misery. Or I thought I did, anyway. Maybe something about the sad sound of the guitar in “The Pornographer’s Daughter” by Northstar is what I connected with. Maybe it was something about the promise of love in the lyrics, or that opening line “I can’t leave with words like these.” Those new words in my life. The painful ones.

I listened to that song a lot during that period. It was on a good ol’ fashioned mix CD so it often played on its own anyway… but it allowed me to feel horrible. I feel like you need the valleys so you can ascend to the peaks. That song made me want to push forward. That’s something I try to incorporate into characters in my stories.

Of course, in those young years of mine, I had plenty of good times with plenty of good friends. I’ve never laughed harder than I did just hanging out with my friends with hardly any plans laid out. My friends are inspiration for a lot of comedy that I write. When you write comedy… you need characters. My friends are characters. It was line-a-second madness with us, we should’ve all had six-packs from all the laughing we did. And, of course, I remember all the long road trips… with music… high energy, positive music. One in particular, “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind. All my friends loved that song. All my friends loved that band.

But one friend in particular loved the band more than anyone I’ve ever met. He was obsessed. Another favorite of his that he played often, which meant it became a favorite of mine, “Crystal Baller” by Third Eye Blind. When I hear this song I’m reminded of him in the passenger seat of my car as we’d drive to and from the beach, him cranking up the volume and belting out the lyrics and doing silly, undulating dance moves in an attempt to make me laugh. And after his favorite part, screaming the lyrics, voice cracking… starting the song over so he can do it all again. And I laughed every time he danced and screamed, “In my mind a record still plays! Still wonder what the FUCK it says!”

Yeah, there’s been a character or two based off of him.

My friends have influenced many characters. Their humor, their actions, and the good times I’ve had with all of them to songs like “Alive With The Glory of Love” by Say Anything. You can’t hear this song and be in a bad mood, not feel uplifted, not feel like you can’t create a storyline where a character overcomes the most difficult of situations. Not me, anyway.

There was that period of time where I tried my hand at stand-up comedy. A lot of open mics, a couple of competitions, a couple of years. My experience with stand-up is all over the map. Most days where I did stand-up would feel like the worst day of my life and the best day of my life, all in one. I would be so nervous to go do it. It’s nerve-racking to get up in front of people in any situation. Performing a play, you’re with others, and the material isn’t yours. Comedy show with a team, the material is likely yours collectively, but you’re also with others. This is not to say those things can’t make you nervous. They absolutely can and do. But at least you have some tiny thing to fall back on. Another person, perhaps. When you do stand-up… it is you… and you alone. And it is your material. If they don’t laugh… it’s you that they’re not laughing at. And if you don’t make them laugh right away… that silence grows to deafening volumes.

I would often feel my material would be good… maybe even borderline great. But good material is horrible if you lack confidence. You have to have the confidence to deliver it, you have to be able to deliver with comedic timing. Nervous energy can be good if you can channel it into positive energy. You do want energy on stage, you just have to use it correctly. But that's easier said than done. And you need to eliminate as many nerves as you can so you can be confident enough on stage. I am someone who eats a ton. On days when I was going to be performing, I would eat a tiny breakfast, and that’s it. I couldn’t eat all day because my stomach would be in knots. I’d be going over my set list in my head over and over, it was so hard to concentrate on anything else. It would be a torturous day… until I stepped on stage… and as long as it went decent… it’s one of the best feelings in life. (Followed by extreme hunger as my stomach finally allowed my brain to realize “We haven’t eaten, dude!”)

Standing up there, alone. Delivering something that you created and making people laugh. I would feel fucking invincible… when just hours before I felt very fucking vincible. Like a turtle with a paper shell. How did I go from a nervous wreck, lacking any confidence, to what I needed to get to? Any music that could pump me up. I’d play it earlier in the day, on the car ride over, I’d try to keep it playing in my head and try to remind myself (or pretend with myself) that I was a rockstar. “Lyrical Exercise” by Jay-Z was one I listened to a lot. That song just injects me with confidence I don’t normally have. And the clever wordplay in the song would remind me of the importance of words. Using just the right words in a set. For a joke. Even for a story. Or a script. Or as dialogue for a character.

Of course, I wouldn’t have been a young person if there wasn’t more heartbreak. More letdown. Dates planned and then canceled at the last minute… or never canceled… the awful “I was stood up.” Sometimes I couldn’t utter the words, not for a day or two. It was better to drive around and listen to music that mirrored my soul, but also offered me the idea that I’m better than this. I’m better than this place. And not necessarily a physical place that I lived in. But a place my mind existed. A song like “Pachuca Sunrise” by Minus The Bear.

This song told me that I let this happen to myself and I stayed in the same stagnant place. I didn’t strive to achieve, I didn’t strive to move from my halted position. I stayed in a place at a job I didn’t care for, I wasn’t motivating myself to go after what I wanted, I allowed heartbreak to continually attack me. Perhaps I didn’t have to physically move to achieve this… but I did. Across the country. I feel like this song continually told me I needed a change, so when an opportunity arose, the tune echoed in my head and told me to take it.

And hell, I’d be lying to you if I said this didn’t play out in my head when writing stories. That stays with me. It was something I wanted for myself and it’s something I want for many of my characters.

This was a period in my life where I had a lot of changes. New job, new state… hell, new time zone. Most people I knew were across the country, which is a realization that can make you feel lonely. But remembering I moved to not stay stagnant, to advance, to move on… that was an important thing to keep in my mind. A song like “Fast Car” by Tracy Chapman was one I would listen to a lot.

I used to listen to it often enough anyway, but it’s like it took on new meaning. The song may not perfectly mirror my situation, but a lot of what I get from it, is making changes to your life… to better your life. The hope and the ambition in the song that I hear would remind me that that’s what I was trying to achieve… and what I’d be able to achieve if I kept my mind focused. If I’m writing a scene for a character where they’re making a monumental decision, altering their life, a climax to a story… Tracy Chapman’s voice may grace my speakers.

And a lot of times it was hard to focus. Because I made new friends. So, it isn’t always so awful if you lack focus a bit, as long as you replace it with something good. I replaced it with good times. “Only the Good Die Young” by Billy Joel came up a lot in my playlists, this time especially. It feels like new things are happening, fun times with friends are happening… “We might be laughing a bit too loud.” That’s a perfect depiction of that “dangerous crowd” I ran with. More inspiration for characters… and another song that pumps me up and gets me ready to formulate ideas.

Now, I was having good times, but I definitely needed that focus. And I realized, the dreams and goals that I have, they are lofty. But I want to achieve them. A lot of people know I’ve moved across the country and I’m hoping to achieve goals. Many people recognize it’s not easy, perhaps unrealistic. But it doesn’t make me want them any less. I do have less experience than thousands upon thousands of other people going for the same things, which can be daunting.

But I’ve always felt I had talent… without sounding cocky. I always felt I was creative. I needed to remind myself of that and I needed to motivate myself. “Sky’s The Limit” by The Notorious B.I.G. Always gave me that perfect dose of motivation. Sure, I’m not coming from the depths and difficult positions that Biggie did, but sometimes you can talk yourself into depths, you can turn yourself into an underdog in your mind. And songs like this can remind you even an underdog doesn’t have limitations… except for the sky, that is.

I would listen to this song and just zone out, letting the words and music wash over me, and I’d instantly be ready to write. To work. To achieve. And so would my characters. They’d be ready to defeat the bad guy. To train for the big game. To achieve.

I had some productive times… but like anyone who is human… I faltered. I fell out of writing. This partially coincided with me taking a new job, one in which I had to work overnight. That was a difficult adjustment. An adjustment I never fully made, but just tried to coexist with.

Luckily, I managed to get my groove back. (Yes, Steve-a got his Groove back.) I found it back inside of me… my desire to write. I credit many things to aiding me in finding my strength and my passion again… to dig something out of the depths of myself, buried underneath the constant feeling of being tired, the bouts of freedom and elation, the sporadic sadness. Working overnight really messed with me. But I found it again… as I said… I credit many things. But one of those things, wouldn’t you know it, was music. And a song I discovered and fell in love with, “In Our Blood” by Fenech-Soler.

Maybe the title and the chorus “in our blood” reminded me it’s in my blood to create… to write… to tell stories. Maybe it was also the uplifting nature of the song that made me feel happy and made me feel like I could take on the world. It’s funny, when I listen to the song now, it still makes me feel happy. It has such light and heartwarming tones to it… to my ear. But what I see when I hear it… is still a lot of darkness. What I see in my eyes, is pitch black skies, a lonely office with fluorescent lights and dark corners. I see nighttime and no souls awake. Because I would play this song at 3 A.M. when work slowed down and there wouldn’t be much to do for an hour or two, and I would motivate myself to start writing. And don’t I want my characters to be able to lift themselves back up when they’re down? You know it.

Now, for me, I sometimes need to keep a good mood going. That last song did it… but as I mentioned… I can’t help but to see darkness outside when it plays. And when it’s pitch black outside, no one is awake, and I am listening to a song that makes me see darkness… that’s a lot of darkness and loneliness. After the song ends, I would be motivated to write for a while. But as soon as you let thoughts of sleep creep into your head when you’re up with the moon, night after night… as soon as you let yourself think for even a moment about your comfy bed… you are done.

You want nothing else with life. You will sacrifice it all just to go lay horizontally on something soft right at that moment. I’d have to combat those feelings. I needed something that was pure ecstasy in a bottle… or in headphones. I didn’t even care which form of ecstasy we were talking about. I just needed to stay awake and stay motivated. Because I wanted to keep writing. And I preferred to not be asleep at my desk when coworkers rolled in at 6 A.M. (Kind of a bad look.) Enter “Wonderland” by Bag Raiders.

I don’t know what you see when you hear this… but I see a god damn party! And it’s light outside! Sun! Warmth! Is that a pool behind the partiers? Does everyone have a tropical drink in hand? I’m normally one to point out the eye-poking-hazard that a small umbrella in a drink would be, but what the hell, toss one in my drink too! I chase my characters up a lot of trees and throw a lot of heavy stones at them. They deserve a break too. Whether halfway through a story, at the end, they need this song occasionally.

That was when I was doing a lot more screenwriting. And a lot more comedy writing. I’m quick to make jokes. Comedy always comes easy to me. Correction. ATTEMPTING comedy always comes easy to me. (As you may have noticed, I was NOT the star of that Netflix comedy special you watched the other night.) But I also always had ideas circling in my head, darker ideas, more dramatic ideas. A little less “A priest, a rabbi, and a blonde walk into a bar” and a little more “A demon walks into a bar and with tentacles erupting from the palms of his hands, he snatches the patrons who drink upon brown liquors and drags them into a fiery hole that emerges beneath his ancient feet.” Spoiler Alert: The punchline on the second one is NOT WORTH IT.

But I decided to start working on those types of ideas again. Less with comedic scripts, and more with short stories, novels, some ideas darker, more thrilling, more action-based. And if I need help planting myself in a dark world, I go to some of my favorites, “The Willing Well III: Apollo II: The Telling Truth” by Coheed and Cambria. Yes, the title is a mouthful. And the song is a motivational, pump-you-up-ful. Not only does it get me in the mood to write sci-fi, fantasy, horror, darker themes, it gets me excited to write. Or do anything really. And the creativity by Coheed, taking a threequel to a song, and a sequel to another song, and combining them together for one song, these guys are storytellers too. These are worlds I want to create.

Do I need more inspiration to write? Or even more inspiration to get up and handle life? This time coincided with the early portions of the pandemic. Finances were already a bit rough. They got worse with the pandemic. Luckily, I could work from home. But I needed more money on top of my 40 hours a week from my job. I had to start freelance writing on top of that. It grew and grew, eventually, I got to the point where I’m doing between 15-20 hours a week of freelance writing. Finances have leveled out. But having to work 55-60 hours a week in total, it can be draining. I need energy and inspiration injected into my eardrums. “It Walks Among Us” by Coheed and Cambria helps to serve that purpose.

By the time I get to the start of that second verse, I am indeed, the “Bad guy, motherfucker.” As are my characters. Because, of course, I’m writing again.

Yeah, this recent period of life has required me to have a lot of motivation and inspiration and something to kick my ass out of bed even if I didn’t sleep enough. Another one that gets me going, “Winter Warz” by Ghostface Killah (featuring U-God, Raekwon, Masta Killa, and Capadonna (yes, half of Wu-Tang.))

I can take over the world when this song is playing. Even if “taking over the world” means “freelance writing and quality control work.” But this song, and many by Wu-Tang and its members, has inspired a lot of characters and worlds I have created. (Some soon to come.) Their love of old kung-fu movies and comic books, it’s all quite relevant in their music. And when I work on projects of mine that are in sync with that… this is a fantastic song to have playing. Not to mention, more clever wordplay. A significant percentage of people who have heard their music wouldn’t recognize them as poets, but they are. It’s poetry that reflects their lives and their backgrounds. Each word cleverly chosen. That’s something to always keep in the back of my mind.

Now, it got a bit intense with those last songs there. And I prefer to end it on a high note, perhaps a more mellow note. Just like a satisfying ending to a story in which you rooted for the main character since page 1, paragraph 1, word… let’s be honest… it couldn’t possibly be word 1. It’d be… word 14?

How about a song they’d play when the protagonist falls in love? “Giving up the Feeling” by Work Drugs works for me. It has a hollow sound to it, almost. But the notes that do fill the song, they fill it wonderfully. Simply put, the song makes me feel good. And that’s one of the best things about music.

I distinctly remember playing this song in the car after I proposed to my then-girlfriend. We drove back home, I played one of my favorite new songs, and she had never heard it before. She joked it sounded like something they would play in Forever 21. Maybe they would. Maybe Forever 21 has fantastic taste in music. I don’t know. I just know I love it. It reminds me of that moment, at times. At times it just relaxes me. At times… oh my goodness… you’ll never guess… it inspires me to write something! It inspires me to create a character. A character wanting love, not having love, trying to obtain love.

Who would have thought? That journey, peppered with heartbreak and uncertain turns… ending with heart-full… and certain, solid ground. Alas, that is the beauty of music for you.

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