Naught published here for a while due to writing the sequel to my first Elizabethan England novel. I just can’t do both, that and this blog. In the evenings I need the unthinking distraction of the TV or the very advanced thinking of wife and family. And cats.
Speaking of TV I recently signed up with Amazon Prime for a second time and came across an excellent series called The Continental. It’s something about providing the backstory of characters from the John Wicks films. I haven’t watched those so I came to the TV show as a stand-alone. It’s over the top with the violence and shootouts but not graphic, Mel Gibson is a hoot as the head bad guy, and the sound track is absolutely STONKING! It’s set in 1970s New York and you get a fantastic mix of ’70s music, even prog rock. I love it when shows get the music right, and for me this is spot on.
On that topic, I am still working my way through The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. I love it but find I need to space the episodes out. I think too much quickfire Jewish humour wears me down. It too has a great set of songs for the credits at the end of each episode. Very often they are 1980s pop songs, all relevant to the episode’s storyline, even though the story is set in the late ’50s and early ’60s. (some may be from the late ’70s, I’m not going back through them to check every single song…).
Of course, like most unpublished writers (published by a company that is) I fantasise at times about which actors I would have in a movie of my books and what music. For the former I always say I would want to give the chance to unknown actors, give them their big break, and see them on the stage at the Oscars (hah hah). Musically, for my last book, set in 1590 England I would go for the prog rock I mentioned above. I think there is a real connection between the period and the music. The second half of the 16th century saw an explosion of literacy in England, fuelled by the Reformation, printing and the theatre. I read somewhere that by 1600 the literacy rate was around 50%, up from about some ridiculous 5% or so in 1500. In the 1590s there was a real ‘fad’ for middling people to write a journal, something fashionable now, and many of these are waiting to be read by historians rather like the hundreds of WW1 soldiers’ diaries held at the Imperial War Museum. I just feel prog rock represented a similar burst of creativity and the long experimental, intricate, and, at times, ridiculous songs match the mood of Elizabethan times. It was my teenage period so I have to admit to a personal bias. I would love to hear YES’ ‘Wonderous Stories’ used as the backing while the theatre troupe get ready for a performance!
Right, better put this up before I lose it through forgetting how to publish on WordPress. Enjoy your writing, your reading, and your music!
Jamie Neve 