Some people look at me in a weird way when I tell them I can’t write in silence. Listen, it’s a thing. There’s science behind it and everything. Whatever is going on in my crazy wee brain, I need noise to perform at my best. This comes in very handy when I’m on a deadline and have three kids and two dogs providing a constant soundtrack. Kids and dogs aside, the type of noise doesn’t really matter. I had Friends on loop during my last big edit and I think it worked pretty well. As far as I know, I didn’t change a character’s name to Chandler, not once.
When I’m not writing to deadline, when it’s all about creativity and seeing what happens and that feeling, deep in my belly, when there’s the first hint of something that might actually be good, I want to have music in my ears.
I switch up what I listen to a lot, but the writing playlist below is one I go back to again and again. (I listen on shuffle, so the order means nothing. And sometimes I’ll play a particular song on repeat, ad infinitum, because at that precise moment in time there’s a beat or a lyric that literally makes my heart swell or captures what I’m feeling about a scene or a character or a beginning or an ending… it just works.)
Do you listen to music when you write? Let me know your favourites.
The Postal Service, Such Great Heights
Rilo Kiley, Silver Lining
Rex Orange County, Loving Is Easy
Orange Juice, Rip It Up
Oasis, Songbird
The Charlatans, The Only One I Know
Stereolab, Lo Boob Oscillator
The Kinks, All Day and All of the Night
Lou Reed, Satellite of Love
Callum J Wright, Savage Love
Alfie Indra, Monday Again
Taylor Swift, Shake It Off
Powfu, death bed (coffee for your head)
Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds, Dead to the World
Youssou N’Dour feat. Neneh Cherry, 7 Seconds
Arlo Parks, Black Dog
slowthai, Feel Good
Tom Grennan, Remind Me
Santigold, L.E.S. Artistes
The Flaming Lips, Do You Realize?
The Marcels, Blue Moon
The Lemonheads, Into Your Arms
Caroline Polachek, Sunset
Natasha Thomas, Why (Does Your Love Hurt So Much)
First Aid Kit, A Feeling That Never Came
Jurassic 5, Concrete Schoolyard
Sister Nancy, Bam Bam
Callum J Wright, Ain’t No Sunshine
Alien Ant Farm, Smooth Criminal
HAIM, If I Could Change Your Mind
Nina Nesbitt, Dinner Table
Novaé Lita, Double Je
The Kid LAROI, Thousand Miles
Liam Gallagher, Everything’s Electric
X Ambassadors, Renegades
Kate Nash, Mariella
Catfish and the Bottlemen, Outside
Blind Melon, No Rain
Xavier Rudd, Follow The Sun
The Cars, My Best Friend’s Girl
Blue Öyster Cult, (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
Stevie Nicks, Edge of Seventeen
Eurythmics, Hello I Love You
The Coral, Dreaming of You
Liam Gallagher, Once
The Raconteurs, Steady, As She Goes
Saint Etienne, He’s on the Phone
Freya Ridings, Lost Without You
Johnny Cash, Hurt
Gonzales, I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet
Gillian Hills, Zou Bisou Bisou
M.I.A., Paper Planes
The Reindeer, Section, You Are My Joy
Climax Blues Band, Couldn’t Get It Right
Fleetwood Mac, Landslide
Danny L Harle, Broken Flowers
Chance the Rapper feat. Knox Fortune, All Night
The Chainsmokers, Paris
Rachel Zegler, The Hanging Tree
SIX, Haus of Holbein