Lyrics First, Melody Second: Linda L. Garnett on Music, Playlists and Writing Red Falls – The Writing Coach Ep. 244

Kevin Johns: Well, you and I share a lot in common when it comes to the literature we like, and the movies and TV and stuff that we like. But we’re also hugely into music. Long before I was a writer, I was a musician, and writing lyrics was really where my writer’s life began, from the time I was about thirteen years old. Writing and music were always tied together in my mind. So how are writing and music tied together in your mind?

Linda: How do they tie together? Well, it started off the same way for me. When I was about fourteen, it started off with lyrics, and with what they now call fan fiction. I don’t think fan fiction was known back then, but I liked a band, and I started writing stories about meeting one of the members and falling in love. You know, that kind of gooey stuff.

Kevin Johns: Dare I ask what band it was, or is that best not said?

Linda: Best not said.

Kevin Johns: It was Bon Jovi, wasn’t it?

Linda: No. No.

Kevin Johns: Okay. Okay.

Linda: He was my later obsession. Oh my God, I was so obsessed with that man.

Kevin Johns: That’s why I was guessing. I knew enough about you to know he was on your list.

Linda: No, that was unhealthy. I remember when the video for “You Give Love a Bad Name” came on. It was just a great video, the way they did it, and I taped it and would literally finish it and play it again. My brother was watching it with me, and finally he goes, “Mom, Linda just keeps watching this over and over again. Make her stop.” And I said, “Nope.” He goes, “Well, what’s so great about it?” I said, “You have to ask me that?” Jon was just a hottie. I mean, he could sing, and I loved the band and I loved the music, and Slippery When Wet, that album was so fantastic.

He’s still a great guy. I finally got to see them, I think seven or eight years ago, and it’s not like seeing them in their heyday. He had a bit of a vocal issue, but he’s had it repaired since then.

But yeah, so fan fiction led to writing lyrics. And then I had a couple of pen pals who put a set of my lyrics to music, and they sent it back to me to listen to. That was pretty cool.

Kevin Johns: Wait, wait, wait. So they recorded it on a cassette and mailed you a cassette?

Linda: Yeah. I still have it.

Kevin Johns: That’s so interesting, because I had Candace on the podcast recently, and she talked about how she got into writing through pen pals. So you’re the second of my writers to be on the show recently to talk about the role pen pals played early in your writing lives. And I love the idea of mailing someone lyrics, and then them writing the music and mailing you back a tape. That’s incredible.

Linda: It was really cool. I miss that. I had a pen pal in Canada who I ended up meeting after about four years. I went up there; he lived in Toronto. So I saw all of Toronto. I was up there for about ten days during the hottest summer they’d ever experienced. The humidity! That was fun.

With him, we would trade cassettes of our favorite music. So in the end, instead of actually writing letters, we would tape the letters and then include music we were listening to.

Kevin Johns: So you would read the letter out loud and tape yourself reading it?

Linda: No, it was off the top of your head, as though you’re writing a letter. You’d go, “Hey Jake, what’s up,” blah, blah, blah, and say what’s going on with your life or whatever. And then you’d go, “Oh, by the way, this is a really cool song I heard recently,” or two songs. Sometimes it’d be two cassettes: one would be the letter, and one would be a whole album he’d taped on cassette, which is totally illegal. But I have a lot of those, and I got exposed to a lot of different music.

That was cool for a long time. I had pen pals in Germany, Switzerland, Canada, everywhere, and it was all based on similar bands we liked. We’d trade music, or trade stories, or “Hey, listen to this.” So it was really cool.

So lyrics were big with me. I did get a guitar and learned to play. I think the biggest song I learned to play was “House of the Rising Sun,” and then I was done.

Kevin Johns: I did a reading at a live event this weekend, and something was running late, and they needed someone to kill stage time. So someone grabbed a guitar and played “House of the Rising Sun.”

Linda: That’s so cool! So you could have played it?

Kevin Johns: Oh, I didn’t do it. I did not play the song, but someone did.

Linda: Oh, okay. But that’s so cool. It’s like a standard. And what else? Oh, I used to play “Country Roads.” “Country Roads” and “House of the Rising Sun” were the two I could really play without stop, start, stop, “What’s that note?” And I still have the same guitar I bought when I was about twelve. It’s in my spare room, and it sits there and just looks at me. It’s all out of tune.

Kevin Johns: But it’s not like you abandoned music in any way, right? It’s fascinating to hear that some of your earliest cultural engagement was talking and writing about music with other people, and you went on to be a novelist and a radio host, right?

Linda: And building a platform for women musicians, where again, I had to talk to people about their music and what it means and how they started. So I’m still talking music, and I’m still listening to music in all genres. It’s always been like my DNA.

I like lyrics. Lyrics are DNA to me. It’s lyrics first, melody second. If you can catch me with a lyric, that reels me in. It’s rare that the melody will strike me first.

That’s how I build the playlists. I listen to the lyrics and go, “Oh, wow, that’s like Grace and Zach on their last day together.” Or, “Oh, wow, that’s Victoria having a temper tantrum,” whatever. And then that goes on whatever playlist I have, or it gets dumped into the character one. I’ve got a great one for Jesse. One just stuck out, and it was like, “Ah, that’s Jesse singing this.” So sometimes it’s the melody. But I’m not a big “Ooh, that’s a great guitar opening, man” person.

Kevin Johns: So when you’re writing, let’s say Red Falls, the first book, or the second book, like you’re doing right now, are you actively looking for songs to inspire scenes or characters, or does it happen the other way around?

Linda: No, it happens the other way around. I can be listening to whatever for the day. I just pick different playlists, or I ask Spotify to come up with something, and I’ll be listening, and I’m like, “Whoa, that’s perfect. That’s exactly Zach. That’s exactly Grace.”

There’s a song for Grace called “Whiskey and Grace,” and it talks about a woman whose favorite drink is whiskey, but who was raised by women who were strong and resilient, and that’s who she is. And I thought that was perfect. That’s Grace, right there.

Kevin Johns: And one of the first things Grace does upon arriving in Red Falls in book one is go to a music festival, right?

Linda: Yes, Nevermore Nights.

Kevin Johns: And your character Elijah is also a musician. So clearly you’re listening to music and it’s inspiring you as you write, but the music is also working its way literally into the story, in terms of locations and characters and those sorts of things.

Linda: Oh, yeah, definitely. I’ve woven it all the way through, because that’s part of me, and it’s part of Red Falls. You can’t have a town without music. And Elijah gets introduced at that music festival. He’s the grunge guitarist stuck in 1994.

Kevin Johns: You mentioned to me before we hit record how many minutes of music you listened to last month.

Linda: Last month, Spotify told me I listened to 12,600 minutes of music. Every year it comes out with how many minutes of music you listened to during the year, and I’m close to 300,000 minutes. And then they’ll say which songs racked up the most plays. Last time, I think it was Train’s “50 Ways to Say Goodbye,” which is really about fifty ways to off your ex-lover, but they couldn’t use that as a title. I listened to that over a hundred times in one month, because I was writing a story that was inspired by it. So yeah, that’s a lot of minutes.

Kevin Johns: Which means you’re basically listening to music all day, every day, including when you’re working.

Linda: Oh, yeah, definitely.

Kevin Johns: So you don’t find the lyrics distracting in any way when you’re trying to draft a scene?

Linda: No. They actually become the background. I don’t actually hear them; they just kind of melt into the background when I’m writing. It can inspire the scene I’m writing, if it’s the right tempo or the right mood. But otherwise, it just melts into the background while I’m writing.

Kevin Johns: And you also use it to fall asleep, you mentioned to me.

Linda: Yeah, to relax at the end of the day and get a good night’s sleep. I’ll just put my favorites on and let it run.

Kevin Johns: Well, like you, I’m a fairly new user of Spotify. I grew up on cassettes and CDs, and it took me a long time to get Spotify and learn how to use it. So tell me about the sorts of playlists you’ve created in relation to your writing.

Linda: Well, in relation to the book I wrote, I created a playlist for the book itself. Loosely, you can follow the book if you follow the playlist. It’s called “Welcome to Red Falls: A Town with Fangs,” and it’s an emotional undercurrent that takes you through the book.

The second one I have is for the town itself. It’s just instrumentals. There are no lyrics, because it’s the atmosphere. It’s the feeling you get when you’re in Red Falls. This is how you would feel.

And then I have a character list that is not public, because it’s what I call my monster playlist. That’s where everything goes that I don’t have a place for. I don’t think it belongs on my main playlist yet, and it doesn’t belong in the town one; it’s definitely a character song. But I haven’t built the character songs out. In other words, I haven’t separated them into playlists for each character. I think that’s a big job, and right now I just like to dump everything into my monster one, and it can sit there.

Kevin Johns: As I said, I’m not that experienced with Spotify playlists, but I understand, like you said, there are private lists and there are public lists. So, folks, we can put it in the show notes for this episode, and you can go listen to that Red Falls public playlist.

Linda: Yes, that one is public. The character one is not, and I believe the atmosphere one is. The Red Falls playlist was originally about eight hours long, and I had to cut it back to something reasonable to listen to.

Kevin Johns: I’m looking at about twenty-one songs right now, I believe, to cover the story. And just looking at the song titles, I can kind of see the story unraveling, especially in terms of acts and major story milestones. So maybe walk us through this playlist a bit, and your thinking about the songs you chose to tell this story through music.

Linda: Oh, let’s see.

Kevin Johns: Are there any favorites, any little bangers on there, that you’d recommend people check out first?

Linda: They all are! Let’s see. Oh, “Somebody” by the Eagles. That reminded me of Zach: “Mr. Paranoid,” “Mr. Everyone’s Coming After Me.” I thought that was perfect.

“I’m Not a Vampire” came to me not in the usual way. I was watching the men’s figure skating at the Olympics, and, oh, what’s his name? Ilia Malinin. I thought he was fantastic. He’s just an incredible skater, and I liked his music choices. So I started going down the rabbit hole and checking him out, and it was like, “Oh, this is a really fantastic song.” It’s called “I’m Not a Vampire,” and it’s about somebody in complete denial of who they are, even though they’re given all the evidence that they are. It’s a very unique song. I put it on there because I thought it fit the book. But that’s the only one I didn’t stumble across in the normal way.

There’s another one, the last one on there, “Beneath the Moonlit Shadows.” That’s very cool. It’s definitely a vampire vibe: the moonlight, how it cuts, my teeth that are sharp. And it’s got a very funky melody to it. It’s not your over-the-top rock thing; it’s got a very different feel.

“Dracula” is about having a night out and realizing (this is how I interpret it) that maybe the person you were with was a vampire, because now the sun’s coming up and they’re gone. They’ve disappeared. I don’t know where they are. That was a really fun one.

They’re all really good. There’s “Fang Slinger.” We Are the Night are a very cool group. Everything they do is vampire themed. It’s all themed around that. It’s really cool.

Kevin Johns: Your radio show was focused on indie women musicians. It sounds like you’re interested in introducing people to new artists. You’ve mentioned some of the biggest artists, like Bon Jovi and the Eagles, but what’s your interest in independent artists, and in helping people discover new ones?

Linda: Oh, I listen to independent artists as well, and there are independent artists on these playlists. These days I discover them through TikTok. I’ve found a lot of interesting indie artists there, and I’ll support them, repost their music. I still have my Indie Music Women Instagram, so I’ll repost and say something about their music. I don’t do the features or anything anymore. That’s all on hiatus because of the book.

Kevin Johns: Books, plural.

Linda: Books. Oh, yes, I’m writing a trilogy, aren’t I? Yeah, a trilogy.

So when I do discover them, I push hard. I’ve watched ones I found explode and get really popular over the last year, and it’s really exciting to see that, and to talk to them and get to know them. It’s finding really good indies and going, “These people really need more attention.” Whether it’s on a playlist—I have the Indie Music Women playlist too, which still goes, and I still add to it as I find people—it’s not always the big stars that grab me.

Kevin Johns: Do you see much of a crossover, or similarities, between indie musicians and self-published authors?

Linda: Yes. We ride the same train. We are so parallel. I was in that industry, and now that I’m an independent author, I’m still facing the same things. I brought what I learned from indie music into publishing. It’s the same thing: how to market yourself, how to find your audience, how to have discoverability with your book versus your music, how to promote yourself.

If you don’t want to be traditionally published, or you don’t want a traditional record label, how do you go about getting your book published? How do you go about getting your music on Spotify or Apple Music? Putting together a club tour versus a book tour? It’s so parallel.

They’re both very hard industries to make a living in. You have to be pretty thick-skinned to be in either of them, and they both suffer from the same thing. I think it’s getting better for indie authors. You’re not looked down on as much: “Oh, you’re not traditionally published.” The treatment seems to be getting better.

On the music side, I don’t think it’s moved an inch. It’s still, “Oh, you’re indie music? You’re only here because maybe your dad’s a famous producer.” I know one artist who’s going through that right now. He’s very popular; he’s really skyrocketed in the last year. His dad, or stepdad, also happens to be somebody big in the business, and he’s a very talented musician on his own. But he’s facing so much hate and backlash simply because people think he didn’t go the true indie way, that he’s not a true indie.

But yeah, you’re riding the same train. It’s the same issues, just a different industry.

Kevin Johns: Yeah. I think in both, success requires community building, right? Building a real community around the art you create and the people who enjoy it. Seth Godin (I don’t know if he’s ever fully convinced me of this) argues that marketing basically is community building. He says that is marketing.

And I know you said to me that you don’t see sharing your Red Falls playlists as a marketing tool. That said, that was one of the reasons I wanted to have this conversation. I know you and I both love literature and we both love music, but I was also really impressed with your willingness to share music related to your book. I think building community, or marketing, or whatever you want to call it, is most successful when it’s you sharing what you’re genuinely passionate about. And I kind of loved this idea of you finding a way to share your passion for music that ties so nicely into Red Falls, so that hopefully people who are into the book find new music, or people who are into the music find your book.

Linda: Yeah. I hope that if people read the book and come back to the playlist, they can follow the trail. They can say, “Oh, yeah, I remember. This music connects to that scene,” even though the music didn’t inspire the scene. To have the music connect to a particular character or a particular scene.

And if you haven’t read the book, then maybe it will stir up some curiosity: “What exactly is this book? Who are these people?” I know it has a vampire theme running through it, but there are other themes running through those songs too. That’s why I picked them.

So if you’ve read the book, I think you’ll get a lot out of the playlists. And if Elijah turns out to be your favorite character, you’ll definitely get a lot out of his playlist, which is “Elijah: 1994 Forever.”

Kevin Johns: I really resonated with that, Linda, because I was fourteen years old in 1994. They say you spend the rest of your life listening to what you were into when you were fourteen. So all the stuff you associate with Elijah in 1994 hits me right in my sweet spot.

Linda: That’s good, because I am not a grunge fan. So when I put it together, it was like, “How do I put this together? I don’t know this music.” So at one o’clock in the morning, I’m going, “I know: Threads. I can ask.” I went on Threads and threw out a question. I said, “This is a character in my book. I want to create a playlist based on him. He’s a grunge artist stuck in 1994,” with no spoilers as to why, “and I need suggestions.”

Three people got back to me immediately. One of them had a catalog, and she just nailed him. She absolutely got Elijah with very little information. She came up with one song and said, “I don’t know if this is him or not,” and I’d have to go look at the playlist, but it absolutely was him. Elijah’s a tortured, brooding soul, and she just nailed every song for him. Another person had a different take on it, and it was great. I was like, “Thank you so much. I now have a playlist.”

Kevin Johns: Well, if people want to learn more about Red Falls and the music that inspired it, I think you have a bundle that includes a number of things, including some playlists, that people can get.

Linda: Yeah, I do. It’s at lindagarnettauthor.com/bundle. That’ll take you to a page where you can sign up for my newsletter and get the bundle. It has links to both playlists, and more information on the world of Red Falls. And if you want more information on my book, you can go to my website, which is lindagarnettauthor.com.

Kevin Johns: Fantastic. Well, Linda, I get to speak with you on a weekly basis, but it’s fun to hit the record button and, instead of talking about the craft of writing, talk about something we both love, which is music, while still staying within the realm of literature and writing. So thank you so much for taking some time to join me on the podcast today.

Linda: Thank you, Kevin. It was great. This was a lot of fun.