Paul E. Hardisty

The Music of The Abrupt Physics of Dying

 

I write, much of the time, to music.  There's a chapter in the sequel to Abrupt Phyics (The Evolution of Fear, coming later in 2015, also from Orenda Books) called "Life Set to Music".  

 

The opening chapter of Abrupt Physics (No Way Back From Here) was written to "Semi Automatic" (and "Step Out of the Car") by Boxer Rebellion, looped sometimes for hours on end.  Obsessive?  Definitely.   If they ever make this into a movie, this has to be the opening (or maybe the closing) music.  I'm listening to it now, on Pandorra. 'I am, losing, faith in, what I see you celebratin'...'  Everything about that piece fires me up, takes me back to the long desert days I spent in Yemen, trundling through the endless beautiful spaces of the Empty Quarter, watching the place transforming before my eyes, from Arabia of two hundred years ago to some half wasted nightmare.

 

I reckon somewhere between Chapter 1 and 2 (The Sun) it gets to "Foreign Land" by Eskimo Joe - pretty obvious, I guess, but it works.

 

Clay's flashbacks to the war trigger "White Hot" and "Don't Fight It" by Red Rider - teenage songs that evoke all those things he felt going into what was supposed to be an adventure and ended up as a marathon of regret.

 

As Clay gets to know Rania, songs like "Open Your Eyes" by Snow Patrol, and "City Hall" by Idlewild  were there, in the backgound in my head, and later, when he's searching for her, lost (again), "Vienna" from Matt Costa, and "Funeral" by Band of Horses: 'Is there a ghost in my house?'   When they walk the battlements of old Aden in Chapter 11 (Locked In), "If So" by Imagine Dragons - something in there that captures the setting sun and the waves on the Indian Ocean and the feel of her hand against his.   And how about "Cinnamon Girl" by Neil Young.  Too good.

 

And then, after the massacre, running through the wadi, "Remote Control" by The Age of Electric.  Just the pace of it, the questioning, the complete loss of control.  

 

Part II, Chapter 18 (First Kill), heading back to Aden from Sana'a, leaving Rania behind, cold and distant as she watched him drive away, five hundred miles to come, a new day rising on the remotest place in the world, war coming - "Let it Ride" by BTO (good ol' band from Winnipeg).  This is a man's song, a road song, a goodbye song with hope.

 

Chapter 21 (Cathinone Sprint) -  "Laredo" by Band of Horses again:  '...are you really gone?'

 

Looping through the whole novel:  "Andalucia" by the Doves; "Radioactive" by Imagine dragons; "The Summer" by Josh Pyke ('and time, is like the ocean, you can only hold a little in your hands...'); "Crossed Out Name" by Ryan Adams;  "Young Blood" by The naked and the Famous;  lots of The Tragically Hip, Springsteen, and in the end "I'd Love to Change the World" by Ten Years After, because let's face it, we all would.

 

Happy reading (and listening).

 

PEH