Music Match-Up is here again for a record 7th time! This is a celebration of books and music. I take a book and pair it with a song that either reminds me of the book, has a similar feel to it, or maybe just has a random connection that only makes sense to me!
This week, the connection wasn’t clear at first. As I read, I knew there was a song it made me think of, but I couldn’t put a name to it. Finally I realized it was a band name. And when I figured this out, I knew just which song to choose!
Words in Deep Blue || “Between Something and Nothing”
This is THE BEST BOOK I’VE READ ALL YEAR. Okay, now that I have that out of the way, a little about it. Rachel and Henry have been friends for a long time. She leaves a letter for him in his family’s bookstore (in his favorite book) before she moves away, but he doesn’t respond. So, when she comes back to town after her brother’s death and finds herself forced to work at Henry’s family’s bookstore, it’s a bit icy and awkward. The book follows their reentry into friendship and different difficulties each is dealing with all while they are surrounded by books and words and stories.
First, I fell in love with the cover! Then it sold me at the words “working in a bookstore”. This book combined all the things I love: books, talking about books, great writing, and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock! All the words that form a sentence, words that form a phrase in this book were beautiful.
I realized that Words in Deep Blue kept making me think of a band I loved in the early 90s: The Ocean Blue. But it wasn’t simply the word “blue” that forced the connection. I think it’s the synthesizers in the songs of The Ocean Blue that give it a sort of echoey (a word?) sound that reminds me of the ocean– of listening to the ocean in a shell. Plus, I always thought The Ocean Blue had an Australian sound to their voices. I actually had no idea they were from Pennsylvania. LOL. (Disclaimer: for the longest time, I thought the chorus to “Voices Carry” by ‘Til Tuesday was “I’m trapped, keep it down now, voices carry” instead of “hush, hush, keep it down now, voices carry.” Yes, I’m that person who mixes up song lyrics!) So, it should be no surprise that I invented Australian accents for them. But real or imagined, they are in my head and it was yet another reason I connected them to Cath Crowley’s book. (She’s Australian.)
The title of this song captures Rachel perfectly in this novel. And the lyrics the colors fading, they dictate my mood and I long for you to be a part of me, capture how Rachel feels about the loss of her brother Cal and also how Henry feels about a girl named Amy (Amy, ugh. I didn’t like her. lol). The song ends with And you have to wonder, why all great men must die and leave their treasure, and leave their treasure. Indeed Cal was great and he did end up leaving a treasure behind, in many different ways.
