Music Mundays ♦ Track 3

Have you ever read a book and a certain song seems to pop into your head?

That happens to me all the time. Or I’ll be listening to music and a song comes on that reminds me of something I’ve read.

I thought for this week’s Music Munday I would share a couple of songs/books and the books/songs they remind me of.

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The song that has the biggest book connection for me is One by Metallica. Every time I hear it I can’t help but think of Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. It’s a book I first read in Junior High, and it is the story of Joe, a young man who has been severely injured during his time served in World War I.

Metallica actually created their song based upon the novel, and bought the rights to the film version in order to include snippets of it in their music video. Johnny Got His Gun is an extremely disturbing book about the effects of war on the young men enlisted, or basically forced to give over their lives for the cause. Metallica’s video effectively presents the emotions that the injured soldier must deal with in his solitary and terrifying existence. It is one of the most powerful songs I have ever heard.

I cant remember anything Cant tell if this is true or dream Deep down inside I feel to scream This terrible silence stops me Now that the war is through with me Im waking up I can not see That there is not much left of me Nothing is real but pain now Hold my breath as I wish for death Oh please god,wake me Back in the womb its much too real In pumps life that I must feel But cant look forward to reveal Look to the time when Ill live Fed through the tube that sticks in me Just like a wartime novelty Tied to machines that make me be Cut this life off from me Hold my breath as I wish for death Oh please god,wake me Now the world is gone Im just one Oh god,help me hold my breath as I wish for death Oh please God help me Darkness imprisoning me All that I see Absolute horror I cannot live I cannot die Trapped in myself Body my holding cell Landmine has taken my sight Taken my speech Taken my hearing Taken my arms Taken my legs Taken my soul Left me with life in hell

This was no ordinary war. This was a war to make  the world safe for democracy. And if democracy  was made safe, then nothing else mattered--not the  millions of dead bodies, nor the thousands of  ruined lives... This is no ordinary novel. This is a  novel that never takes the easy way out: it is  shocking, violent, terrifying, horrible,  uncompromising, brutal, remorseless and gruesome...but so is  war. One by Metallica Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo

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The next song, Bring Me To Life by Evanescence came to me while I was reading Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle. For me the connection is in the way the song is sung by both a female (Amy Lee) and male (Paul McCoy) and I found myself thinking of the lead characters from The Gargoyle, who were soul mates, and I thought only together could the two of them fully bring one another to life. Corny yeah?!

On a burn ward, a man lies between living and dying, so disfigured that no one from his past life would even recognize him. His only comfort comes from imagining various inventive ways to end his misery. Then a woman named Marianne Engel walks into his hospital room, a wild-haired, schizophrenic sculptress on the lam from the psych ward upstairs, who insists that she knows him – that she has known him, in fact, for seven hundred years. And so Marianne Engel begins to tell him their story, carving away his disbelief and slowly drawing him into the orbit and power of a word he'd never uttered: love. Bring Me To Life by Evanescence The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

How can you see into my eyes like open doors leading you down into my core where I’ve become so numb without a soul my spirit sleeping somewhere cold until you find it there and lead it back home (Wake me up) Wake me up inside (I can’t wake up) Wake me up inside (Save me) call my name and save me from the dark (Wake me up) bid my blood to run (I can’t wake up) before I come undone (Save me) save me from the nothing I’ve become Now that I know what I’m without you can't just leave me breathe into me and make me real bring me to life Bring me to life (I've been living a lie, there's nothing inside) Bring me to life Frozen inside without your touch without your love darling only you are the life among the dead All this time I can't believe I couldn't see kept in the dark but you were there in front of me I’ve been sleeping a thousand years it seems got to open my eyes to everything without a thought without a voice without a soul don't let me die here there must be something more bring me to life

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And this last one, I think maybe I only made the connection because it’s a song I’ve always loved and I just wanted another excuse to overplay it. John Green’s young adult novel Looking For Alaska brought to my mind, within the first 20 or so pages, The Freshman by The Verve Pipe. While I don’t normally enjoy music with this poppish of a sound, the first time I heard it my heart nearly broke. It’s just so full of hopelessness and that’s how I felt when reading Looking For Alaska.

Miles "Pudge" Halter is abandoning his safe-okay, boring-life. Fascinated by the last words of famous people, Pudge leaves for boarding school to seek what a dying Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps." Pudge becomes encircled by friends whose lives are everything but safe and boring. Their nucleus is razor-sharp, sexy, and self-destructive Alaska, who has perfected the arts of pranking and evading school rules. Pudge falls impossibly in love. When tragedy strikes the close-knit group, it is only in coming face-to-face with death that Pudge discovers the value of living and loving unconditionally.   The Freshman by The Verve Pipe Looking For Alaska by John Green

When I was young I knew everything She a punk who rarely ever took advice Now I'm guilt stricken, Sobbing with my head on the floor Stop a baby's breath and a shoe full of rice My best friend took a week's Vacation to forget her His girl took a weeks's worth of Valium and slept And now he's guilt stricken sobbing with his Head on the floor Thinks about her now and how he never really Wept he says I can't be held responsible She was touching her face I won't be held responsible She fell in love in the first place For the life of me I cannot remember What made us think that we were wise and We'd never compromise For the life of me I cannot believe We'd ever die for these sins We were merely freshmen We've tried to wash our hands of all this We never talk of our lacking relationships And how we're guilt stricken sobbing with our Heads on the floor We fell through the ice when we tried not to Slip, we'd say I can't be held responsible She was touching her face And I won't be held responsible She fell in love in the first place For the life of me I cannot remember What made us think that we were wise and We'd never compromise For the life of me I cannot believe We'd ever die for these sins We were merely freshmen For the life of me I cannot remember What made us think that we were wise and We'd never compromise For the life of me I cannot believe We'd ever die for these sins We were merely freshmen

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© 2008-2010 Joanne Mosher of The Book Zombie. All rights reserved.