Fiction Playlist Challenge

Because why not

How the Challenge Works:

Tag a writer and create a playlist for one or more of their fictions. You can select the songs by plot points, characters, or even by random details that somehow stuck with you. You can stick to genre if you feel that it is important to the fiction or the author prefers that genre, but, otherwise, genre mixing is welcome. Playlists should be five songs or longer. After you’ve done that, tag three other writers to create a playlist for you.

I’ll kick this off by tagging James Finn and creating a playlist for David and the Lion’s Den.

When I saw that the story took place in Greenwich Village during the worst of the HIV plague years, I immediately thought of the musical Rent. David’s struggle as a starving artist and stumbling upon some of the most random people. This story mixes the appeal of fiction and real-life plausibility in one of the best ways possible and shows just what can happen what happens when people meet by chance and move through life together.

The music video for this song as well as the song itself has the same overall vibe as the fiction. Moreover, the main woman in the ermine coat reminds me of Jill in a way that I can’t quite pinpoint.

I don’t normally like country music, but Kacey Musgraves captures the spirit of this fiction beautifully as several people follow their arrows. This song also sounds like something that Howie would sing in his happy-seemingness.

I found Hilda’s anthem. The lyrics were written for the talented Shea Diamond, but, coincidentally, they fit Hilda. Running from Nazis with a starving baby will leave someone feeling like an outcast wondering why they have been treated this way. However, Hilda finds ways to be herself and help others despite her circumstances. It’s not that she hasn’t denied her lot in life, but that she makes the best of it. Although she’s not exactly conventionally attractive by any means, her personality makes her magnetic and continues to draw me in like how a moth flies towards a flame.

I didn’t want to put too many Rent songs in here for the sake of variety, but this song and video captures the types of scenes that I imagine when I read David and the Lion’s Den.

Carla reminds me of Hedwig from Hedwig and the Angry Inch in that one can’t really pinpoint her gender, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s an absence of her. Instead, this state of in-betweenness, while integral to Carla’s character, is not used to further tired gender themes but simply is.

I’m tagging BFoundAPen, neil chapman, and Esther Spurrill-Jones.