I have been a bad girl. I have not blogged in a week. I promised you sailing pictures, and I did not deliver. Bad, bad Tessa.

Okay, here is one of our ship firing on the brig Lady Washington. That’s our captain, giving the order.

I’ll post more another day, promise!

Then, Alice Audrey tagged me last week, and I have not yet responded. I was supposed to tell you seven interesting things about myself. Well, if you’ve been reading this blog for the past year or so, you know just about everything interesting there is to know about me. The rest of it is quite boring, indeed.

One other thing I’ve done in the last few weeks is acquired a spiffy new Zen MP3 player, which Mr. Dare has been industriously filling up with songs. I’ve discovered that I have rather embarrassing tastes in music.

And somehow it has rolled around to Tuesday again, and time for TMI. So I’m trying to kill a few goats with one stone here. (And no, Lindsey, I have not forgotten all your marvelous topic suggestions. I’m hoarding them. *g*)

I often listen to music to pump myself up to write a scene. Now, I’d love to say that I’m listening to Mahler and Barber and Puccini and the like, but I’m not. I’m mostly listening to a rather embarrassing mix of alt/pop/rock/emo music that completely shows my age. And the more emotionally manipulative the song, the better.

For example, when Fanlit was going on, the song “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol was in heavy radio rotation and darn near inescapable. Come on, sing it with me: “If I lay here…If I just lay here…Will you lie with me and just forget the world…” That song is pretty much where my winning amnesia chapter, “Forget Me Not”, originated. Explains a lot, doesn’t it?

Lately, I listen to Fall Out Boy’s “This Ain’t a Scene, It’s an Arms Race” when I’m trying to psych myself up to kick some writing butt. Or while I’m washing dishes.

So, interesting or not, here are seven songs I admit to occasionally humming as I write:

1. “Far Away” by Nickelback. Was in heavy rotation while I wrote GOTH.
2. “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls. Just… awwww.
3. “Three More Days” by Ray LaMontagne. The most sexy, seductive song.
4. “Come On, Eileen” by Dexy’s Midnight Runners. A different method of seduction.
5. “Feelin’ Love” by Paula Cole. Way sexy, too; but from the girl’s POV.
6. “My Hero” and “Everlong” by Foo Fighters. I crush so hard on this band. Okay, mostly on Dave Grohl. Mr. Dare and I have tickets for their show in LA in March. Yay!
7. “The Reason”, by Hoobastank. I know, I know…it’s so junior-high semi-formal slow-dance. Revile me if you must.

Oh, but none of this is anywhere near as embarrassing as the soundtrack to my real-life romance with Mr. Dare, which prominently features 80s hit “Build Me Up Buttercup” and that classic Diana Ross/Lionel Ritchie duet, “Endless Love”. That’s a story for another Tuesday.

So, consider yourselves tagged: What songs are the soundtrack for your fictional or real-life romances? What’s the cheesiest love song you just can’t hear too many times?


23 comments to “TMI Tuesday – Tickle Me Emo”

  1. Maggie Robinson
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 5:52 am · Link

    This is where I reveal my advanced age and granny-ness. Bob Dylan and the Beach Boys (for the harmony), the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Did I ever tell you about the time Mr. R and I went to a Rolling Stones concert a couple of years ago with 100,000 people and only 600 porta-potties? Good times.

    I usually write with the sound off, but have been known to play country or classical a time or two.



  2. terrio
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 7:04 am · Link

    I just happen to have brought my new iPod to work today for the first time. I’m loving it! I’ve never had an MP3 player so I’m in musical collection in one place heaven. And I’m going to be searching iTunes for those songs on your list I don’t have. *g*

    I’m a child of the 80s so I admit I love the stuff. But I’m just now starting to make soundtracks for what I write. I heard a song in the movie Lake House called (I think) This Has Never Happened Before by Paul McCartney. It fit my short story so well I had to go find it. So it’s my first find. I’m sure I’ll find more.



  3. Marnee Jo
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 7:36 am · Link

    I love the newish song by One Republic “I Apologize.” Lots of angst.

    I really like “Somebody’s Miracle” by Liz Phair for my WIP too.

    “Feelin Love” is a really sexy song! I love that one.

    In my RL romance, DH and I have two “songs” for us. “Have I Told You Lately I Love You” by Rod Stewart and the “Auld Lang Syne” song from Dan Fogelberg. The second one is probably more of “our” song, but the Rod Stewart song was our song at our wedding.



  4. Janga
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 9:15 am · Link

    Maggie, I go back even further than you. The ones I associate most with the love of my life are “Cherish” by Association and “You’re My Soul and Inspiration,” by the Rightous Brothers, whom we saw in concert. Percy Sledge’s “When A Man Loves a Woman” ranks high in my romantic memories list too. Cheesy maybe, but any one of them can still make me teary and sentimental.

    Since my tastes are eclectic, my mp3 player has a bit of everything on it , from SFSO playing Mahler to Brian Wilson’s “Heroes and Villains” to Jars of Clay’s “There Is a River” to Trisha Yearwood’s “Georgia Rain.”

    Since the hero of my WIP is a country singer and songwriter, its soundtrack is mostly country, mostly his songs that only play in my head.



  5. Tessa Dare
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 9:42 am · Link

    Maggie, those artists are timeless! I love them all, too. I can’t write with music on, either, but I like to listen to it beforehand, and often I’ll find certain bits running through my head as I write.

    Terri, I love 80s music, too. I’ve never heard of that Paul McCartney song – I’ll have to download it!

    Oh, Marnee – Yep, I’m all over the “Apologize” thing. It’s on the radio station I listen to all the time. They have a sort of Coldplay sound to them, don’t they? Mr. Dare would approve of your and your DH’s songs – both those artists are very popular where he’s from.

    Janga, I think you’ll have to release a soundtrack CD to go with your book! And it does not surprise me in the least that you actually do listen to Mahler. I should really download some and get me my dose of high culture every now and then. I love classical music, really I do – but I almost find it too intense to listen to while I go about my daily activities. It requires my full attention.

    You know, speaking of listening to country music while writing about it – do any of you historical writers listen to period music?



  6. MsHellion
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 11:02 am · Link

    I’m a slave to songs.

    Currently on my GOGU “soundtrack”:

    Only Time by Enya
    Wake Up Call by Maroon 5
    Come Undone by Duran Duran

    And pretty much half the songs on the A Lot Like Love soundtrack.

    The cheesier the better. I’m sure I’ll use Steel Bars/Michael Bolton on one of my books. I’m jut that sad.



  7. TiffinaC
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm · Link

    Weird, I’ll be blogging on Romance Vagabonds tomorrow on soundtracks and our WIPs!

    I have a very strange mix of music. Scary might be a more apt description.

    All I’ll say here is–a lot of classical from Baroque to neo-classicism (I did study it for so long) to dead can dance. To some trace/word stuff to edith piaf (a lot of it)



  8. TiffinaC
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 12:24 pm · Link

    forgot to say:

    I always listen to music to read… gets me in the mood *w*



  9. CM
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 12:46 pm · Link

    I am so sorry to have to say this, but….

    Bizet. Rachmaninov. Shostakovich. Mendelssohn. Beethoven. Bruch.

    Not Mahler. Not while I’m writing. Mahler is deeply, deeply depressing. I have to skip him when I’m writing and he comes up in the rotation. And Janga–like you, my Mahler is all SFSO. Oh, MTT, how I love you! I was at the Mahler 6 performance on September 13, 2001, and I don’t think there’s any experience I have ever had that will top the strange sort of collective mourning of the audience that night.



  10. TiffinaC
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 12:56 pm · Link

    Oh… Rachmaninov makes for awesom writing with those intense emotional scenes….

    I had no idea you were such a fan classical CM…

    And I’m sure I own every piece Beethoven wrote… That man… sigh…



  11. TiffinaC
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 12:57 pm · Link

    yes I’m obviously not speaking English today… mind my missing words…



  12. terrio
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 1:49 pm · Link

    Is that “don’t” mind? *g*

    When I read Henry James a few years ago, I could only read at night with classical music playing. And I don’t know enough about it to know if I was listening to music of the right period but that’s the only way I could read and actually absorb anything. Very odd but that’s the only time I’ve ever had that problem.



  13. Lindsey
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 3:42 pm · Link

    That’s why I keep giving you topics, Tessa, so you’ll stop pre-empting RV blogs! 😉 I’m pretty sure we’ll be discussing music Wed & Friday – but it’s all good. It’s a great topic!

    Does Linda Ronstadt earn me cheesiness points? The Stone Poneys’s “Different Drum” sums up every relationship I’ve ever been in!



  14. Darcy Burke
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 4:17 pm · Link

    Tessa, dare I tell you that I just saw Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy on the cover of Cosmo Girl! at the grocery store?

    I don’t listen to music very much while writing. I find it distracting because I get wrapped up in it. I love, love, love the Dave Matthews Band, but the lyrics are usually so provocative to me that I get sidetracked. Perhaps I should try instrumental!



  15. Elyssa Papa
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    · January 22nd, 2008 at 6:55 pm · Link

    For TACOM, it was all EVITA (the Patti Lupone and Matty Patinkin Broadway musical).



  16. Ervin A.
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    · January 23rd, 2008 at 2:42 am · Link

    I don’t know if this counts, but whenever I’m sad because a girl has dumped me or just stopped loving me, I sit and listen to “All Cried Out” by Lisa Lisa & Cult Jam. That song always gets to me, makes me a wreck…anyway, when I think about love, I think about “All Cried Out.”

    ….Ervin….



  17. Lenora Bell
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    · January 23rd, 2008 at 11:40 am · Link

    Oh Ervin, that’s so weird, I have Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam on heavy rotation these days. After I’ve been sitting on the couch hunched over my laptop for four hours straight, I put on “I Wonder If I Take You Home.” It never fails to get me dancing.

    Why would anyone dump Ervin?



  18. Gillian Layne
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    · January 23rd, 2008 at 12:02 pm · Link

    Love Sting. A tad difficult to listen to while typing, but before and after–perfect!

    A bunch of other songs I like, I never know the titles to. I have to chance upon it while in the car and ask my girls “Who is this?” Then they roll their eyes and say things like “do you know what he’s talking about, mom?”

    Nope, and I don’t wanna. I just like the music 🙂



  19. Tessa Dare
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    · January 23rd, 2008 at 12:09 pm · Link

    First, sorry to steal the Vagabond thunder! But there’s plenty to talk about, when it comes to music. It’s a big topic.

    Hellion – Uh, “Wake Up Call” is on your WIP soundtrack?? WTH goes on in your WIP? But I do love that song, and Maroon 5.

    LOL, Tiff at your “scary” collection.

    CM – I knew you would go all high-brow on us. But I know it’s only because you were pop-culture deprived as a child. So sad.

    Terri – I envy people who can have classical music in the background. It always sounds like a good idea to me, but in practice, I just can’t do it. I can only deal with fluffy music in the background. If I have classical on, I will just stop whatever I’m doing and listen. counter-productive.

    Lindsey, Linda Rondstat definitely earns you cheesy points. Oh, and how about those cheesy duets with Aaron Neville?

    Darcy – Petey Wentz is on the cover of Cosmo Girl for a reason, I think. I’m way too old to be into him that way, but if FOB had been around when I was a teenager… ah, the angst and eyeliner and ambiguous sexuality. I would have been all over him. I do think he’s a quite brilliant lyricist, though. And DMB – you know, I do love their songs sometimes, but something about their “sound” just isn’t my thing. I can’t put my finger on it.

    Ely – ah, EVITA!! I had that memorized at one point, in high school or college. that, and Les Mis.

    Ervin – Damn, that is a really wrenching song. And that video, with the rain…and the hair…

    But Lenora stole my question – who is dumping Ervin? Or more to the point, why is he bothering to cry over such heartless wenches? Oh, if only he would send me a readable file of his book so I could find out! (hint – Ervin, check your email)

    Gillian, I so know what you mean. I find myself humming along to all sorts of stuff I am probably way too old for… oh well. My kids aren’t old enough to be embarrassed by me yet, so I have a few more years to enjoy it!

    Thanks everyone, for fessing up to your faves!



  20. India Carolina
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    · January 23rd, 2008 at 8:12 pm · Link

    I adore “Same OL’ Love” by Ricky Skaggs (fess up, ya don’t know who Ricky Skaggs is, now do ya?)

    I could listen forever to “When You Say Nothing at All” Either the Kieth Whitley or the Allison Kraus version.

    And how embarrassing is it that I love , “Love Don’t Feel Like a Ball and Chain to Me”- Paul Overstreet

    and Winnona’s “She is His Only Need”. Now this is primarily because I adore the one line that says, “He didn’t own a car, so it must’ve been lu-u-u-u-vv that drove him up town for a diamond.”



  21. terrio
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    · January 24th, 2008 at 9:48 am · Link

    India – I KNOW who Ricky Skaggs is! He nearly killed me once. LOL! I swear, you live in Nashville long enough, nearly all of them try to run you over. Porter Wagoner almost did me in with a golf cart.

    I hadn’t thought about that Winona song in years. I’m going to have to dig up some of her old stuff (The Judds stuff too!) to put on my iPod. Oh, her voice can break your heart no matter what she’s singing.



  22. Ericka Scott
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    · January 28th, 2008 at 4:41 pm · Link

    I ADORE Come-On-Eileen! Yep… showing my age as well!



  23. MsHellion
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    · January 31st, 2008 at 11:57 am · Link

    Tessa, my hero gets shot in the first chapter… *LOL* Wake Up Call fits.

    He does not get shot by the heroine though.