Writing Because of Music

I finished a pivotal chapter, in which my main antagonist arrives in the area.  Kept it short, too--just 2 double-spaced pages.  This WIP is movin' along.

I thought I'd write quickly on images music evokes for me before I've created something for them to go with.  In fact, the creation starts with the music that, unbidden, just jolts me into scenes and images.  They come out of nowhere.  Apocalypse came to me very suddenly when I was 14, when I heard Ravel's Bolero and Tchiakovsky's 1812 Overture (with the Russian male voices in the beginning) in the same half hour.  Tons of images flooded my head that day, I still remember it, and they haven't left me since.  I can't explain it, except you have to go with it.  I'm not yet ready to write those chapters, as they need an expertise greater than what I have right now, but they still flutter around in my consciousness every day--and with the music attached.  (If there came a day when they didn't flutter around in there, I'd write all the scenes and images immediately, calling out of work if necessary.)

So for this new novel, I have music that invokes images fit for the book, and I couldn't begin to tell you why.  A mixture of the NH mountains and Brandi Carlile bring to mind fields and mountains (or hills, or even forests) of isolation and loneliness.  I play her stuff every day and the same images and gestalt flood in.  The WIP wouldn't be the same without her.  Her melodious, strong and sad voice, with a sometimes slight or strong tinge of country, bring all this to me.

Then, more recently, I heard Donovan's "Hurdy Gurdy Man" at the end of the movie Zodiac, and each time I get visions of evil, especially when the lyrics mention that times of horror bring the Hurdy Gurdy Man and he brings times of love.  But what if it just looks that way?  I see huge fires and Death dancing in slo-mo when I hear that song, God knows why.  And the rest of Donovan doesn't work for me like all of Brandi Carlile does.

There are many more examples.  I can't explain it.  I just go with it.  I can work very well to Prince songs, don't know why.