If you love these songs I’m sure you’ll love this book!
I loved making this playlist so much. It reminded me of when I was a teenager, way back in the dark ages, when we made mix tapes of our favourite songs and played them again and again and again.
It didn’t take long to come up all the songs. Some of them were in my head all along, the whole time I was writing and others just seemed a natural fit. I always find myself relating lyrics to an experience I’ve had, or an imaginative scenario I make up in my head, so I’ve already got a long list of songs in my head that fit pretty much every emotion out there.
- Bryan Adams, Everything I do (I do it for you): I realise I’ve picked a bit of a cheesy one for my first choice but, really, there’s no other song I can think of that fits the start of Show Stealer so well. Just like Kevin Costner’s Robin Hood (who I was more than a little in love with back in the day) would willingly lay down and die for his Maid Marian, so Ben risks everything save Hoshiko, Greta and Jack. It’s not a big decision he’s suddenly faced with—for him, there’s no choice there to make.
- The Doors, People are Strange: Early in the novel, Hoshi, Greta and Jack are forced to seek asylum in the great London slums which are so lawless and violent that even the police avoid entering them. This song captures perfectly the feeling of paranoia and unease they have as they tread through the sprawling metropolis of decay searching for someone who might be willing and able to offer them asylum.
- The Rolling Stones, Sympathy for the Devil: Once he’s captured, Ben finds himself back in an even darker and deadlier version of the Cirque and comes face to face with more than one old foe. The devil in this song is a “man of wealth and taste” who has manifested himself in various ways across the centuries, looking for souls to tempt and evil to spread. There’s definitely a character in Show Stealer whose behaviour leaves Ben, and Hoshi both wondering more than once if he actually “really is the devil himself.”
- Guns and Roses, Welcome to the Jungle: One man controls the London slums; the ambiguous Kadir, who has a jewelled tooth and maintains order with violence and savagery. In this jungle, he’s the king of the beasts.
- Billy Joel, Angry Young Man: There are two very angry young men in Show Stealer. Fragile and voiceless they’ve grown up watching helplessly as those they love suffer in the cruel and unfair society they live in. Every angry young man started life as a frightened little boy who struggled to be heard. Terrorists, suicide bombers, violent criminals–more often than not they’ve been failed and let down so much in their life that all they know is hatred.
- Richard Gere, Razzle Dazzle: Just like Silvio Sabatini, the savage and syrupy ringmaster who dominates Show Stopper and may, or may not, return in Show Stealer (!), Billy Flynn, the lawyer in Chicago is unscrupulous and immoral but, boy, he sure knows how to put on a show!
- Michelle Williams, Tightrope: My working title for Show Stopper was Tightrope and it symbolises so many aspects of both books. Hoshiko literally walks the tightrope in the circus and Ben and Hoshiko walk it metaphorically in so many ways–always balancing precariously, always at risk, always about to fall. I think this song belongs more to Ben that Hoshi. He gives everything up for her and never regrets it, not for a second.
- Meghan Trainor and John Legend, Like I’m Gonna lose You: When situations are intense, things happen so much more quickly. From the moment they meet, the threat of death looms over Ben and Hoshiko. There’s no time for games, no time for a long and complicated courtship, they just have to love each other as hard as they can for as long as they can.
- Labi Siffre, Something Inside so Strong This song is the one that I listened to again and again when I was writing both books in this series and the song that has inspired me more than any. Labi Siffre wrote it as an outcry against apartheid but it is a song that speaks for all people who resist the yoke of oppression, never allowing it to break them, knowing that right and goodness are on their side.
- Smokey Robinson, The Tears of a Clown: There are clowns in Show Stealer and, just like the sad song in this story, their painted on smiles don’t do a very good job at concealing the pain and anguish they are feeling inside.
- James, She’s A Star: the first time Ben sees Hoshiko, she’s dancing on a wire across the night sky. Her name means child of the stars, and, for him at least she is a star: A light burning bright in the darkness and showing him the way.
- Sara Bareilles, Brave: It’s not always easy to stand up and say what you really think and feel, and sometimes it’s safer not to. In Show Stopper and Show Stealer, Ben and Hoshiko both learn to be brave and to speak out despite the danger it places them into.
- The Beatles, Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite. There’s something about a Circus and the Beatles that so well in this unique and quirky song.
- The Scorpions, Wind of Change: This song was written after the fall of the Berlin Wall and is about the shared sense of joy and reverence felt after something so wonderful that nobody had even really dared hope for it has actually happened. At one point in Show Stealer, a breakthrough is made that’s so significant that Hoshiko says: “There’s something powerful in the air: something palpable, like we’re all connected. It feels like the end of something. It feels like the beginning.” Those lines were directly inspired by this song.
- Pete Seeger; We Shall Overcome”: This song became an anthem of the civil rights movement in America. I use the lyrics directly in Show Stopper because no other words represent so well the determination, unity and self-belief of the circus family which Hoshiko, and then Ben, become a part of.
- Rachel Platten, Fight Song: I hope that both of the Show Stopper novels are, ultimately, uplifting, and that both carry the message that sometimes we all have to stand up and fight for what is right.
- Pink What About Us: A song about voices which refuse to be silenced, which demand answers and call out for justice.
- Les Miserable Cast, Do you Hear the People Sing: The characters in Les Miserables have been part of a revolution and are determined never to “be slaves again.” I hope that some of the sense of unity and liberation this song evokes is also there in some of the later parts of Show Stealer.
- Queen: The Show Must Go On. Every performer in the Cirque has to perform, even if their heart is breaking inside. This song is so sad and beautiful and Freddie Mercury’s voice portrays perfectly the despair and agony of the clown who, under his mask of make-up, is “aching to be free.”
So, that’s my playlist. It’s an unusual one, I know, as eclectic and varied as my own music tastes. Just like I did with my old mix tapes, I’ve played it on repeat pretty much ever since I made it and I haven’t got bored yet. I hope you don’t either.
