Songs and Fiction Writing - What's the connection?

Today while spending my precious 40 minutes on my way to office in our company bus, I was listening to songs. Which is not uncommon after the advent of small and cute iPods.

As usual I would keep skipping perfectly good songs in favor of others. Most of the time, the song I want to listen to depends on my mood. Sometimes I choose to listen to all energetic and happy songs, while I majorly choose soothing or sad songs when I am looking for relaxation. So, today I chose songs that helped me relax because the morning was not very bright and gloomy. While skipping through, I decided to listen to the famous Enrique song “Addicted”. Now this was not the first time I was listening to it. I had heard it many times before and enjoyed it as well. Yet today when the notes begun, it tugged to my heart and I could feel each and every pain that the character in the song was going through. And along with it started my version of the story. Yes, I day dreamed about how the hero of my story is going to feel this heartache, frustration, and admittance of his weakness when his beloved is not with him. And out came for me a wonderful scene that is definitely going in to the book and I know it is going to be beautiful.

This is not the first time it has happened to me though. Songs have played a major role in my writing. Always. Even as a child, I could never do any parallel work that would involve using my thought while listening to songs. For example, I could never do maths while listening to music (It’s an entirely different matter that I cannot do maths otherwise as well!) The reason was simple. I cannot afford to think of anything else when a beautiful story would be playing in my head along with the song! There have been so many wonderful stories that were born with so many innumerable songs that I have heard all my life. Each of those imaginations look so lively to me. Most of them are orphaned now because I never realized I could just pick up then pen and write it down. Now I know better!

Earlier I was not sure what to make of it. I was even embarrassed to share that I actually day dream when I listen to songs. That was definitely a weird thing to me because no one ever told me that they do it too. Well, no one told me till this day for that matter. Yet, now I do not feel bad about it at all. In fact, I consider it as a gift. I use this technique excessively to whip up some amazing story ideas for my book that almost always go a long way in making my book better.

Today I am addicted to “Addicted” and I cannot stop thinking about my cute pining hero. I am going to put that down on paper before I forget it.

What about you? Do you feel something similar with songs? I have read few authors do get inspired through songs. Do you feel that too? What fuels your thoughts when you are writing?