I’d like to welcome Tom O’Donnell, author of the super fun looking middle grade book SPACE ROCKS! to Good Books And Good Wine today. As many of you know, I love driving, whether it is my car or a starship. Tom has been kind enough to share a playlist for piloting a starship, hope those of you who have to travel somewhere give it a listen!
A Playlist For Piloting Your Starship
by Tom O’Donnell
At first, I thought about coming up with a playlist of the songs I listened to while writing my humorous middle-grade sci-fi novel, Space Rocks!. But then I realized that all those “songs” were wordless “space ambient” music. If you’ve never heard any space ambient, imagine a fuzzy, seven-minute long version of the Apple start-up noise with the sound of water dripping over it (and maybe a little didgeridoo thrown in for good measure). Personally, I’ve never been able to write and listen to music with lyrics at the same time (I just end up typing the lyrics) so ambient music is a great way for me to set a tone in my head. But trying to force other people to listen to it seems like an act of malice.
Instead I have compiled a practical playlist for actually piloting your starship: Songs to get you pumped up for plotting a course, firing your thrusters, and blasting off into the cosmos.
With Black Sabbath playing on the comm system, you might just “find another world where freedom waits… past the stars in fields of ancient void.”
Other songs on the list will help you remember the hazards of space travel. As “Please Mister Kennedy” notes, you won’t be known as the man (or woman) “of the century” if you “burn up upon reentry”. Even worse, the Misfits tell us that you might just get turned into a Martian out there (Ask your doctor. Insomnia is one of the symptoms!)
A few—like RJD2 and Janelle Monae—are here to give you a chill, spacey vibe as you’re cruising past the ice chunks of the Kuiper Belt.
And at least one of these songs is an insane (awesome) science-fiction Christmas carol which posits that the whole nativity scene can actually be explained with UFOs. Thank you, Chris de Burgh.
Also, just like the universe itself, this playlist begins and ends with Queen. Enjoy!
Flash’s Theme – Queen
Please Mister Kennedy – Justin Timberlake, Oscar Isaac & Adam Driver
Into The Void – Black Sabbath
Things You Can Do – Deltron 3030
High Passage/Low Passage – Slough Feg
Meditational Field – Susumu Hirawasa
Cybertronic Purgatory – Janelle Monae
Rocket Science – RJD2
Fazers – King Geedorah
Hypnotica – Afro Celt Sound System
Suspended Animation – Sync24
Set The Controls For The Heart of The Sun – Pink Floyd
Mars, The Bringer Of War – Gustav Holst
Bad Side Of The Moon – Elton John
Riding On The Wind – Judas Priest
I Turned Into A Martian – The Misfits
A Spaceman Came Travelling – Chris de Burgh
The Return – Deltron 3030
Don’t Stop Me Now – Queen
Listen To This Playlist on YouTube!
You can follow Tom on Twitter and Chorkle on Twitter and Instagram (the Instagram is one I follow, it’s actually really fun!)
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