Words and music by...

There's no question that songs can connect emotionally with us, which is one reason why music is often used along with other artistic mediums to create a tour-de-force of creative connectivity.

Take movie soundtracks, for example. Sometimes you can’t think of the movie without the song. Hooked on a Feeling now conjures images of Star-Lord and Groot from Guardians of the Galaxy. The orchestral swirl of Richard Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries recalls attack helicopters raining hellfire onto villages in rainforests (in Apocalypse Now).

Jack Black and the kids from School of Rock are linked with ACDC’s Long Way to the Top; Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song with Thor: Ragnarok and The Beta Band's Dry the Rain with High Fidelity. 

But what about a soundtrack for books? Earlier this week, award-winning poet and author Judith Huang took to Spotify to create a playlist – or soundtrack, if you will – for her debut novel, Sofia and the Utopia Machine.

Featuring music meant to convey the narrative of her book, her playlist includes the likes of Ariana Grande (God Is a Woman), Radiohead (2+2=5), iNCH (Granite), Vangelis (Rachel's Theme) and Coldplay (Paradise).

Granted, this idea isn’t new. But Judith chose songs that not only musically reflected the story's narrative, but they also influenced her while she conceived Sofia and the Utopia Machine. For example, Rachel’s Theme by Vangelis for example, helped set the mood when she was writing about the environment that Sofia lives in.

“At one stage while writing the novel I was looping the entire Vangelis soundtrack for Bladerunner, but this theme kept coming back to me for its haunting beauty. The aesthetics and mise en scene from the movie heavily influenced Sofia's Singapore in my head - flying cars (driverless escapods in my book), pyramids housing powerful corporations, a gritty underbelly.”

More authors will add their playlist as the weeks go on, so watch this space. In the meantime, check out Judith’s playlist here.

What soundtracks would you create for your favourite books?  Drop us a line and let us know.

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Get a copy of Sofia and the Utopia Machine here.