I believe that music is the greatest time machine available to us today. Not only do songs from our youth transport us back to those days, but we can experience a time before our birth just by listening to music from such an era. Music and books don’t align perfectly, but there’s nothing quite like some background music when reading and writing to better immerse in the scene.
The first time that I “time-travelled” was to 1980s Miami. I was a teenager in a small upstairs room during the mid-2000s, but through a video game, I was taken there. The game was GTA: Vice City, and anyone who’s played it will know the soundtrack. The game does the 80s setting brilliantly but listening to the radio stations as you drive around the sun-soaked boulevards is what truly transports you.
Iconic 80s pop, rock and synth-wave play every time you go from one place to the next. It’s in the background to every cutscene, every pursuit and commute, every mission—it’s the water that fills the cracks of immersion. Now, whenever someone mentions a year in the 80s, I think: “oh, I remember being in Miami then”. While I am all too aware that it’s not real, it feels of similar authenticity to when I try to recall my earliest memories of the mid-to-late 90s.
Recently, when I began writing my 1920s haunted house novella, I turned first to music from the era to help me get into the mood. I knew a little about jazz artists like Al Bowlly and Ruth Etting but never truly listened to them. Their sound is so far from the bombast and instrumental style of modern music that it sat uncomfortably with me for a moment. Modern ears are not accustomed to it and given both artists lean into a melancholy sound, I found a really haunting quality in it too—perfect for writing a ghost story. I have come to love these artists, and hearing them now sends me right back to that haunted house as though I were once there myself.
Finally, my most recent novel has chapters set in the 1970s, and the character feeds off the songs as a means to overcome his inner demons. It’s a more subtle way of showing the historical context than forcing a socio-political commentary. I often think about music like spice in a curry. You can enjoy a meal without it, but it’s the spice that blows your head off.
Music is so distinct that every era, from the modern to the medieval, has a signature sound. Listening to such music, it is near-impossible not to be cast back in some way. Hearing is our second most-dominant sense, and it is possible to completely submerge it with sounds directly from a place in time.
N. P.
