If Maladaptive had a soundtrack...

My IG posts are sometimes inspired by something I blogged about. I think this is the first time I'm blogging about something I posted on IG.

Recently, I took a cue from another post I saw in my feed asking "If your book had a theme song, what would it be?" And immediately, I was like OH I KNOW THIS! Because there was a song stuck in my head the whole time I was writing Maladaptive, and that song was Sedona by Houndmouth.

Musically, it's the exact kind of song I gravitate to. It was already on my longstanding playlist where I put songs that basically give me a braingasm. I've tried to put into words what I mean, but I can't really. I guess it just comes down to my "taste in music", but that doesn't even really capture it. I can describe my taste in music, but I can't describe why certain songs make me go all squiggly inside, while others don't. 

Anyway, Sedona has always made me squiggly, but when I realized that it lyrically aligned with Maladaptive in a lot of ways, it just started playing in a permanent loop in my head until well after the book was finished. And yes, Sedona is a reference to the state of Arizona, which has nothing to do with my book, but literally everything else about it is a perfect match. I mean I could do a line by line explanation of how it relates SO HARD to Maladaptive, but that's only interesting to me, and that isn't really the point of this blog post.

There are a lot of other things I should be doing right now besides making a playlist. I should be writing, first and foremost. I should be reading books, cleaning my house... in fact, right this moment I should be getting dressed to go to a wedding reception. But no, I spent this sunny Saturday on my couch, making the following playlist, because I cannot make my brain do the things it needs to be doing.

(click here to go to the playlist on Spotify)

The playlist expands on the theme song angle and tries to answer the question "What if Maladaptive had a soundtrack?" Obviously, the first entry was Sedona. It was like a place to put that song, officially. The next songs to go on it were songs that are actually mentioned in the book, like Mr. Jones by Counting Crows and It's My Life by Bon Jovi (karaoke scene) and With a Little Help From My Friends by the Beatles, around the evening fire at River's pool party. 

The band Sparks is mentioned (Styles wears a Sparks t-shirt in one scene), and so I had to include This Town Ain't Big Enough for Both of Us, which has more than one reason to be there (could be Styles vs. River, could be Styles vs. Griffin, could be Styles vs. Cara... um Styles vs. Everybody, hello?). After that, there is an unnamed album that Styles recommends Cara, the title of which I didn't divulge in the book, but I know what that album is: Heavy Rockin' Steady by Beatchild and The Slakedeliqs. It's SUCH a California album, and so adding California Coastin' as the first song on the soundtrack was a no-brainer.

The rest of the songs are vibes. Some are more obvious choices than others. I tried to make sure each main character was represented in some way. Nearly every song on the playlist can be applied to Cara at least a little bit, since it's all her story, told in her words. But songs like Dreaming by Blondie, Space Song by Beach House, I Lost Thursday by They Might Be Giants, and Daydream by The Lovin' Spoonful all represent her inattentive ADHD and tendency to slip into daydreams, maladaptive or not. I Touch Myself by The Divinyls is a not-so-subtle nod to Cara's work as a sex toy manual writer, but it's also here for vibes of a sexual nature.

I gave Griffin Santa Monica by Everclear, which doesn't quite get to the heart of him and I'm still thinking about what else I could give him, but this song had to be here. Mr. Brightside by The Killers is also his, but he shares it with Styles. We don't get Griffin's interior thoughts, so this is my attempt to get into his head about his insecurities about Cara and Styles working together. He might have even lived this entire song in his head during the pool rescue moment. Griffin also shares You & Me Song by The Wannadies with Cara, naturally.

River got Rhinestone Cowboy by Glen Campbell, which thematically hits his country music icon status, even if he's not really a sequinned Nudie-suit kind of country music icon, and Beverly Hills by Weezer, for pretty obvious reasons. He also got Mercury in Retrograde by Sturgill Simpson, which he shares with Hannah, for astrological reference reasons, of course, even though he's skeptical of "new age" stuff. But I like it for his storytelling nature, and because it represents his departure from his signature sound toward a new sound, which is a very Sturgil Simpson kind of a thing. 

Naomi's song is a little more on the nose - She's a Rainbow by The Rolling Stones. No explanation needed there.

Willow was harder to pin down. She's such a complex character, and no one song really captures her essence. I gave her Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac, which represents her self-assuredness to the point of not bearing responsibility for anyone else's insecurity even when she's the reason for it. I think what's missing is her softness, though. I'm still looking for a song that captures that aspect of her in a way that represents her. She also got Rub Me the Right Way by Dream Hunter Monster, which she obviously shares with Griffin, the massage guru. 

What about Styles? He's another tough one that I haven't fully captured. He filters into a lot of these songs as well, since he's so connected to Cara's decisions and her life transition throughout the story. He shares Island in the Sun by Weezer with her, their shared fantasy place. Sex and Candy by Marcy Playground belongs to him for vibes. He also owns Heart to Tell by The Love Language, and this is from his perspective, his inner conflict.

And of course Hannah, who completely owns Funky Pretty by the Beach Boys (such an underrated track by them!), about a bohemian new age woman. (I almost gave her New Age Girl by Deadeye Dick because I love that song, but it doesn't really match her vibe. She's the voice of reason and compassion in this story, not the reckless one... that's Cara.) I think Hannah also shares Space Song with Cara, because she sort of represents The Universe, or at least a conduit for messages from The Universe.

What's left are the songs connected to writing, creativity, and Cara's career journey. Two David Bowie songs, both from the Low album - Sound and Vision and A New Career in a New Town both had to be there. Paperback Writer by the Beatles is a little on the nose and I tried not to put it in, but honestly, I kind of had no choice. Writer's Retreat! by Lloyd Cole... I mean, this is an interesting one, because it also belongs to Styles, while bringing Griffin into the mix.

All This and Heaven Too by Florence and Machine represents Cara's creative mindset, while Word Crimes by Weird Al Yankovic is the absurd counterbalance, reflecting her inner monologue about herself as a writer, with her technical writer brain filtering in to call her out for writing something "technically" true without precision, and the fact that she's afraid it's so bad and so wrong that she'll get arrested for it.

Finally, Hold On Tight by Electric Light Orchestra is a Hannah song that directly speaks to Cara's situation, while Overnight Sensation by The Raspberries is the flipside of that, with its ego-inflating, mind-warping hopes and expectations. It's also a nod to her project with River.

My hope is that all together, these songs kind of tell the story. You might not know the exact plot points by listening to it, but you'd kind of get what it's all about. I've sequenced them in a loosely linear way to map to the story, but the way they are shared by multiple characters across multiple moments also blurs it all into a vibe that I'm hoping comes across. What is that vibe? I don't know if I can put words to it. After all, the vibes I get will not necessarily be the same as the vibes someone else gets from their reading of it. I guess if there is one word I'd use to describe the vibe, it's "dreams".

That's a whole blog post for another time, actually. The whole "creative intention vs. observer interpretation" concept is fascinating to me. And that's why I've posted this playlist on Instagram with an invitation to anyone who has read the book to become a collaborator on the playlist. I thought it would be a fun experiment, to allow others to add songs to the playlist that represent the vibes they get from the story.

Now admittedly, not too many people have read it, and so far, none of them have accepted my invitation. But I'm hoping they just need some time to think about it before they get back to me. I love the idea of readers contributing their own spin and interpretation to the story's meaning. A playlist is the perfect way to do that, because it's inherently assigning new meanings to songs that the artists could never have intended.

Dumb idea? Probably. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't go all in on a dumb idea.