I love books. I love music. So you’ll excuse the narcissism if I say that I feel like this week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic (hosted by The Broke and the Bookish) was tailor-made for me! This week it’s all about music and books that go together—books that could have theme songs, songs that should become books, etc. Obviously I could go on and on about my favorite books and favorite songs but here are ten that really fit together perfectly (at least in my mind).
“Immigrant Song” (Led Zeppelin) / The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson. This is slightly cheat-y since Trent Reznor and Karen O covered this song for the movie. But I feel like you could queue up a lot of Zeppelin as a soundtrack for Lisbeth Salander.
“Crystallize” (Lindsey Stirling) / A Game of Thrones, by George R.R. Martin. I think this fits the wild North.
“Chop Suey!” (System of a Down) / The Broken Empire trilogy, by Mark Lawrence. For some reason this fits the character of Jorg for me: a little self-righteous and feeling forsaken by everyone who should have been loyal to him, clawing his way back up from outlaw to emperor.
“Hurt” (Johnny Cash) / Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle. I feel like both this song and this book are about characters who are self-destructive and in turn hurt those around them, for no really good reason. And it’s that lack of a reason that’s so much more tragic than any made-up backstory.
“Outro” (M83) / Illuminae, by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff. This book didn’t end quite how I envisioned, but if it had, this would have been the song to play over the final scene.
“Indra” (E.S. Posthumus) / The Sellswords trilogy, by R.A. Salvatore. This seems like a perfect theme for the adventures of the assassin Artemis Entreri and the drow outlaw Jarlaxle. (FYI, these books mesh in with The Legend of Drizzt around book #11, so it’s probably better to read that series first and then move on to this trilogy.)
“How You Like Me Now” (The Heavy) / Phoenix Rising, by Pip Ballantine and Tee Morris. I could totally picture feisty Eliza Braun shooting her way through the House of Usher to this song.
“Cosmic Love” (Florence and the Machine) / The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. Because an epic book needs an epic love song.
“Maw” (Chelsea Wolfe) / Station Eleven, by Emily St. John Mandel. I just recently started listening to Wolfe and her songs could be the soundtrack to so many haunting stories.
“Of the Night” (Bastille) / Night Film, by Marisha Pessl. I don’t exactly know why these two go together for me, except that they’re both odd and dark. (Especially the song. It sounds upbeat until you watch the video and after that I don’t think you can hear it as an upbeat song anymore.)
18 Comments
Zach J. Payne
Oooh, some awesome choices here. I’m familiar with some of the music, and half of the books are on my TBR — ha! I’ll be here in music bliss for a while.
Martha
Glad you found some faves here!
mary
Oh, amazing! I agree with you on so many of these!
Martha
Glad you like them!
Tee Morris
I think Paul Oakenfold’s “The Word” from “Swordfish” would pair up nicely with Chuck Wendig’s ZER0ES.
Thank you for the nod, BTW. Good pairing!
Martha
I haven’t read ZER0ES but from the book description it seems like the two would pair up well!
Glad you like the pairing. :)
Bill Blume
After seeing this blog post, I don’t think I’ll ever imagine the gun play in Phoenix Rising (or any of the Ministry books) without hearing the Heavy. Great choice!
Some great selections all around.
Martha
Thanks!
Amanda
I love how you paired things up!
Martha
Thanks!
Yarravy
Lovely post! I haven’t heard most of these songs so I’ll definitely be checking them out :) Of the ones I do know however, they are a nice fit! Thank you for stopping by!
Martha
Glad you like them! And thanks for stopping by :)
Critica @ The Critiquing Critica
The fact that you assigned the masterpiece “Cosmic Love” to Night Circus makes me want to read it. XD
Martha
You totally should! It’s one of my favorite books!
Wattle
There’s some great songs here! Though I must admit, I’ve only read one of the books. I will have to check a few of the others out :) thank you for sharing!
Martha
I hope you find some new titles to love :) Thanks for stopping by!
Brandi
I haven’t read any of these books yet so I can’t wait to do that and see how the songs go with them.
Martha
I hope you find some new faves from the list :) Thanks for stopping by!