Soundtracks - Page 2 of 4 - Julia Quinn

Soundtracks

Some songs remind me of characters, some of plots. Some are the melodies I had on repeat while writing. Every book has a soundtrack...

Soundtrack for Lady Whistledown Strikes Back

  • “Rumour Has It” by Adele

    This one would work for any story with Lady Whistledown…

  • “If I Had $1,000,000…” by Barenaked Ladies

    When Peter falls in love with Tillie, he is very concerned about being thought a fortune hunter. I’d like to think that if he did have $1,000,000 (or whatever the pound sterling equivalent would have been in 1816) he wouldn’t have bought her a monkey. But he probably would have bought her a green dress.

  • “Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes” by Paul Simon

    Continuing the theme… This is one of my favorite songs of all time, off one of my favorite albums of all time…

  • “New Slang” by The Shins

    This is such a beautiful, wistful song. There is a lot that’s fun in “The First Kiss,” but there is also a lot that is sad. Tillie is mourning her brother, who died in the Napoleonic wars, and Peter is trying to adjust to life in London after years as a soldier. The words are rather poetic and can be interpreted in many ways, but the melody fits the story perfectly.

Soundtrack for Because of Miss Bridgerton

  • “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson (feat. Bruno Mars)

    This song came out (and then took over the world) while I was writing Because of Miss Bridgerton. As soon as I heard “Don’t believe me just watch,” I thought, “Well, there’s Billie in a nutshell.”

  • “Bills” by LunchMoney Lewis

    Because A) it’s an awesome song and you can’t help but sing along with sass and B) it kind of fits Billie. She doesn’t really have bills she needs to pay (let’s face it; her family is loaded), but she feels such a responsibility to her family’s estate and truly thinks that if she slacks off, the whole thing will fall apart. So she definitely thinks she has to “work, work, work every day.”

  • “Team” by Lorde

    I love how by the end of the book, Billie and George realize they are on each other’s team.

  • “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon

    Read the book. You’ll see why.

Soundtrack for The Girl With the Make-Believe Husband

Soundtrack for The Other Miss Bridgerton

  • “So Alive” by Love and Rockets

    True story: In 1990 I was in Chang Mai, Thailand with my mother and sister, and we got into a tuk tuk, which, if you’re not familiar with Thai conveyances, is an open-air three-wheeled vehicle that is commonly used as a taxi. We’d taken a lot of tuk tuk rides during our time in Thailand; they were much cheaper than traditional taxis, and the lack of seatbelts wasn’t too concerning since, Thai traffic being what it is, we spent most of the time at a complete standstill. Then the strangest thing happened. The tuk tuk driver turned on the radio. And he had a sound system. In a tuk tuk. (It’s difficult for me to overstate how odd this was.) The song that was playing was “So Alive,” and to this day, it makes me think of being in a foreign land. Kind of like Poppy experiences in Portugal.

  • “Feel it Still” by Portugal. The Man

    Did you think I wouldn’t include a song from a band called with Portugal in its name? (Although the grammar nerd in me is completely flummoxed by the period in the middle.) This song was everywhere when I was writing The Other Miss Bridgerton, and I liked it enough to put it on my Spotify “my songs” playlist, which I’m told by members of my family I overplay.

  • “Just What I Needed” by The Cars

    No particular reason except that I’ve loved this song for decades. And when Ric Ocasek sings, “I don’t mind you hanging out/And talking in your sleep,” it makes me think of Andrew and Poppy sharing his cabin.

  • “We Speak No Americano” by Yolanda Be Cool and DCup

    I was first turned on to this song years ago when I saw a hand-dancing video by Up & Over It. After watching the video about 800 times, I added the song to my playlist, and it’s been there ever since. None of this has anything to do with The Other Miss Bridgerton, but I really did enjoy exploring Poppy’s thoughts about being in a foreign country and not understanding the language. So maybe I can nickname it “We Speak No Portugueso.”

Soundtrack for First Comes Scandal

  • “Sailing to Philadelphia” Mark Knopfler (with James Taylor)

    At first listen, this choice might not make much sense on a soundtrack to a book set in 1791 Great Britain. The lyrics are a dialogue between Charles Mason (sung by James Taylor) and Jeremiah Dixon (Mark Knopfler)–the two English surveyors who established the border between Pennsylvania and Delaware from Maryland and Virginia. This border went on to become the Mason-Dixon line and even now is used to denote the border between the northern and southern United States.

    But to me, the entire song feels like a journey, like two people setting out on a great and sometimes terrifying adventure. And that reminded me of Georgie and Nicholas setting out for Scotland. Love and partnership is also often a great and sometimes terrifying adventure. But worth it in the end, I think, don’t you?

  • “A Little Respect” by Erasure

    At its core, First Comes Scandal is not so much about Georgie asking for respect, but realizing it is her right to demand it.

  • “Paper Rings” by Taylor Swift

    “Kiss me once ’cause I know you had a long night.
    Kiss me twice because it’s gonna be all right.
    Three times ’cause you waited your whole life.”

    Doesn’t this sound like something Georgie might say to Nicholas? Plus, I feel like this song is so much about two people becoming a true couple, sharing burdens and happiness, and that is what First Comes Scandal is all about.

  • “Saw Lightning” by Beck

    Nothing to do with the book except I love this song SO MUCH and it has been on repeat for long enough to antagonize everyone else in my house. Plus, it makes me dance every time it comes on, and always in a way that makes look like I’ve gone insane. Which, in my opinion, is really the best way to dance.

Soundtrack to Just Like Heaven

  • “Just Like Heaven” by The Cure

    No explanation needed. 🙂

  • “Raise Your Glass ” by Pink

    The lyrics of this song make me think of Honoria, so determined to keep the musicale tradition alive, even though she knows how dreadful they all are.

  • “Teenage Dream” by Glee Cast

    I like Katy Perry just fine, but I much prefer this version with Darren Criss on lead vocals. The line “You think I’m funny when I tell the punchline wrong” reminds me of Marcus. Not that he’s telling the punchline wrong, but I love when Honoria is thinking about how no one else in the world (besides her) realizes what a good sense of humor he has.

  • “Home” by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes

    This song sounds the way happiness feels. It’s as simple as that.

  • “I Want Candy” by Bow Wow Wow

    Reader Jessica picked this one for the line: “I want a guy that is tough but sweet…” To say nothing of Marcus and Honoria’s shared love of dessert! (Note from JQ: “I love this song, too!”)

Soundtrack for A Night Like This

Soundtrack for The Sum of All Kisses

  • “Lovecats” and “Let’s Go to Bed” by The Cure

    After the first two books in this series (Just Like Heaven and A Night Like This) were inadvertently named for Cure songs, someone on Twitter said that if my next book wasn’t called “Lovecats” or “Let’s Go to Bed”, he was going to throw a hissy fit. Naturally, I had to include both on the playlist.

  • “The Cave” by Mumford and Sons

    I love this song. The melody is haunting and yet ultimately hopeful, and the lyrics always make me think of Hugh, broken in body and spirit, wanting to heal himself but not quite sure how to do it.

  • “Einstein on the Beach” by Counting Crows

    Hugh is a bona fide genius, so it seems appropriate to bring Einstein into this…

  • “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers

    The Sum of All Kisses was a very difficult novel to write, and toward the end of my (extended) deadline, I found myself holed up in a hotel room in Vegas, desperately trying to finish the book. (Why Vegas? Cheap rooms and 24-hour Starbucks.) The beat of “Mr. Brightside” is so frenetic and tortured— it matched my mood perfectly, and I played it every time I needed a jolt. (In addition to the aforementioned caffeine.)

Soundtrack for The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy

  • “The Hero Takes a Fall” by The “Bangles”

    “The hero is exposed when his crimes are brought to light of day.”

    Whoa! Sounds like Sir Richard. But I can’t quite agree with: “And I won’t feel sad at all, when the hero takes a fall.” I really did feel sad for Richard. He pulled a doozy on Iris, but it was with the best of intentions…

  • “Left of Center” by Suzanne Vega

    “When they ask me, ‘What are you looking at?’
    I always answer, ‘Nothing much, not much.’
    I think they know that I’m looking at them.
    I think they think I must be out of touch.”

    Like every other Gen Xer who wasn’t the most popular girl in school, this song was my high school anthem. It came on the radio while I was writing The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy and it was like a light bulb going off. It could be Iris singing the above lyrics. Absolutely.

  • “Out of My League” by Fitz and the Tantrums

    Iris thinks that Richard is out of her league, and that’s why she’s so suspicious when he seems to fall in love with her so quickly.

  • “Riptide” by Vance Joy

    I love this song and listened to it repeatedly while writing this book.

Soundtrack for Four Weddings and a Sixpence

The books and the shows come together here.