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Eowen said:Given all that, I was wondering if Uncle Jim would be willing to answer some questions about some very specific instances where he has used song lyrics in some of his novels.
Okay.
First, how did you come up with the lyrics used in the Mageworlds novels?
Wrote 'em.
Are they in any way inspired by specific real folk songs, or are they wholy original?
In one case, a WWI aviator's song ("Beside a Belgian Staminet"), which was itself a parody of a 19th c. dying hobo song ("Beside a Western Water Tank"). In the other, a song from the Klondike gold rush ("The Young Britsh Rancher"), which was a parody of Kipling's "Young British Soldier."
Second, do any of the songs have verses that were not used in the novels?
In those cases, no. In the cases of other songs, for other books, there are entire songs that aren't used at all.
And for the non-musically inclined, do you have a better explanation than mine for why the song lyrics were more appropriate than a section of prose in the places where they were used? (My explanation is something along the lines of, It Just Fits.)
It was something that was going on at the time (a drunken wake, for example), not the point of the scene. And it was brief. And funny all on its own. And -- if I were writing those books today I might not have used them.
Finally, did you have any particular melodies in mind for any of the lyrics you used? I ask because I can half hear certain folk songs in the back of my mind when I read the lyrics.
I always have melodies in mind; that's what keeps the rhyme and meter working.
One book, (Horror High #7, Pep Rally, by "Nicholas Adams" was based entirely on a song -- but that was special circumstances. The series editor had gone on maternity leave without comissioning the last two books of the series, but without telling anyone, either. So ... one day at the publisher's, they noticed when the printing date was coming up, that they didn't have a text to send to the printer. "Ooops!" they said, and called Known Fast Writers. We landed that one.
The song ...
We decided on a heroine who would be menaced. Her name was Rachel Atmore (changed to Cathy in the finished book, for reasons that ... well, it was stupid, but global search-and-replace fixed it). Story would have worked better with the original name. Y'see, as Rachel, her nickname would have been Rache, which is German for Revenge (Study in Scarlet, anyone?) which was her function in the plot. So, who was going to be dead for her to avenge? Her buddy, Jennie. Who became Jenny Buddy, thence Jenny Brody. Which led to the song, (to the tune of John Brown's Body)
Jennie Brody's bloody body's bundled in a body bag,
Jennie Brody's bloody body's bundled in a body bag,
Jennie Brody's bloody body's bundled in a body bag,
But her legs go marching on.
Gory, gory, Jenny Brody....
Which gave enough plot to drive the story.