Yes, two in particular.
Twin Tower Lovers was inspired by Queen's, Who Wants To Live Forever?
More recently, Never. Always. Forever. was inspired by INXS's, Never Tear Us Apart.
I usually make a different playlist for each story I write
For Be my Valentine my list included
Creep-radiohead
Valentine's day-marilyn manson
I will possess your heart- deathcab for cutie
Obsession- animotion
#1 crush- garbage
Crush- Jennifer Paige
Jenny- studio killers
So Happy together- filter
and sometimes I just listen to the candyman soundtrack
I like rock mostly. So they are the best tracks for me.
Soundtracks are such a part of a film that many would lose their impact without it. Think of the shower scene in Psycho without the shrieking violins in sync with the stabbing sequence. Who doesn't know the famous two-note Jaws motif and not think of Sharks... In college, I had a music class in soundtracks which really opened my ears to many different styles. The leitmotif, which is a melody that can appear every time a character is on the screen was once very popular, coming from Richard Wagner an opera writer in the mid-1800's.
Tom
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
Herbert Spencer
Yes I have sometimes had a song or movie that has sparked an idea, and less frequently thought of a song as I was writing. But I don't really think all that hard about musical links though most of my stories have them.
My first competition story from last year's Winter competition was titled, 'Great Southern Land – Finding Freedom On A Prisoner’s Island,' and as the story was set in Australia it was in part a tribute to the Icehouse song of the same name which ran in my head the entire time I wrote the story.
The same was true for 'My Unexpected Pas De Deux,' where I had the Divinyls "I Touch Myself" on play in my mind.
Some music comes into my mind as I am writing, Springsteen's Born to Run was perfect for including in my latest story Ice and Icing. As was the movie about Queen which I had seen while writing and so changed the second half of my Notorious competition entry Ned Kelly into a comic tribute to Queen. And sometimes the link is an afterthought, the title 'That Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady?' based on the Helen Reddy song was the last thing I thought of and did before hitting submit.
Conversely Hannah (PalindromeRedux) and my story "Butch Cassidy and the Vegemite Kid," began with the title and we strove to include as many references to that movie (and Breakfast at Tiffany's) as we could, including the song 'Raindrops keep falling on my head"
