I love reading other people’s Top Ten Tuesday posts, a bookish meme from The Broke and the Bookish, but I rarely manage to keep up with it myself.  However–this one was such a great topic I had to go for it: Ten songs I wish were books!

My longest playlist in my iTunes music library is called Story Songs, and I have a tendency to get irritated with songs if their narrative doesn’t make sense to me.  So…I have definite thoughts on this subject!

1) “Viva la Vida” by Coldplay – These are really arranged in no particular order–except this one, which is absolutely crying out to be a novel.  I mean, the opening lines are “I used to rule the world/Seas would rise when I gave the word/Now in the morning I sleep alone/Sweep the streets I used to own.”  How is this not a novel already?

2) “The Downeaster Alexa”  by Billy Joel – This one is mostly about the line “There ain’t no future for a man who works the sea/But there ain’t no islands left for islanders like me.”  And on that theme…

3) “Captain Jack” by Bill Joel – This could be part of the previous novel…  “Captain Jack will get you high tonight/Take you to his special island.”  Yeah, I know that’s probably metaphorical, but if it wasn’t?  Totally have a pirate story here.

4) “Fernando” by ABBA -Despite the female singer, this is definitely the story of two old soldiers remembering their war and their cause–even though they lost.  And there’s something about still taking pride in a lost cause that I especially like (Firefly, anyone?)  “Now we’re old and gray, Fernando/Since many years I haven’t seen a rifle in your hand/Can you hear the drums, Fernando?/Do you still recall the fateful night we crossed the Rio Grande/I could see it in your eyes how proud you were to fight for freedom in this land.”

5) “The Highwayman” by Loreena McKennit – I assume this must be an old legend of some sort, because it’s virtually a novel already.  Well, a short story at least, about the Highwayman, Bess the landlord’s daughter, and the red-coated soldiers: “I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way.”  This story actually was written into one of the Jacky Faber novels, but to be honest, Jacky was kind of a distraction and it didn’t do the song justice.

6) “Highwayman” by Johnny Cash – Maybe connected to the previous one, maybe not…  This would have to be an epic, centuries-spanning story of reincarnation–“I fly a starship/across the universe divide/and when I reach the other side/I’ll find a place to rest my spirit if I can/or I may become a highwayman again./Or I may become a single drop of rain/but I will remain/and I’ll come back again, and again, and again…”

7) “These Dreams” by Heart – One of my all-time favorite song lines is “In a wood full of princes, freedom is a kiss.”  There’s a whole novel, right there.

8) “She Should’a Been Mine” by Barry Manilow – This one’s better if you read the CD liner.  It’s on a concept album about an apartment building, with each song a different apartment; this one is the elevator operator, who sees a resident come in with the wrong guy again and again…”I’m the one that she’s been looking for/I keep hoping for a sign/If it could’a been it would’a been/Still she should’a been mine.”

9) “When Did You Fall” by Chris Rice – There are loads of love songs that could be novels, but I picked this one because I especially like slow burn romances where love takes friends by surprise…”When did you fall in love with me/Because I swear I never knew it.”

10) “The Longest Time” by Billy Joel – This might not look like the seeds of a novel…but I realized recently, looking at songs for inspiration, that I’m basically writing this story.  I pulled out a dozen love songs with relevant pieces for inspiration for the last portion of my Phantom of the Opera retelling, and this one…pretty much the whole thing is spot on.  “If you said good-bye to me tonight/there would still be music left to write…”  …which tells you something about how the story ends! (But who writes a retelling/sequel to Phantom without giving it a happy ending?)

Do you have any favorite songs you’d love to see as a novel?  Can you think of any example where they actually turned a song into a novel?  I’d like to believe there’s hope I could someday read Viva La Vida… 🙂

When I’m looking for bookish topics, I love visiting the archives of The Broke and the Bookish, home of Top Ten Tuesday.  I found this long-ago topic and decided to adopt it: we all love a good protagonist, but how about those minor characters who don’t get much screen–er, page-time, but still steal your heart?  In no particular order, here are ten minor (or at least, supporting) characters I especially love.

1) Horatio from Shakespeare’s Hamlet – He’s not actually in the play much, but I’ve always loved Horatio.  He doesn’t have that many brilliant lines, but two of the most famous lines are said to him (“Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well Horatio” and “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”).  Mostly I love him because he’s just so loyal to Hamlet.  Everyone else goes off the deep end in one way or another, but Horatio stands by him.  And then there’s what might be my favorite line in all of Shakespeare (really), said…not by Horatio, but to him: “If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart, absent thee from felicity a while, and in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain to tell my story.”  Which, arguably, indicates that Horatio is really the one telling us the whole play.

2) William Cecil Clayton from Tarzan of the Apes – Clayton isn’t an amazing character–but I feel an outsized degree of fondness for him just because I’m indignant on his behalf.  He got one of the rawest deals in literature, and doesn’t even get remembered that way.  He was supposed to inherit the title of Lord Graystoke and marry the beautiful Jane Porter, until a long-lost cousin comes swinging out of the trees and ruins everything for him.  The real injustice of it is that he often gets set up as a villain (I’m looking at you, Disney!) solely because he was an obstacle for Tarzan–but Clayton was actually a really good guy who had the misfortune to not be a superhero.  And then he dies.  Painfully.  It’s all incredibly unfortunate.

3) Gavroche, Eponine and Enjolras from Les Miserables – So this is really more about the play than the book…but it does hold true through both that I like Valjean immensely, care very little about Marius and Cosette, and just love cheeky Gavroche.  And Eponine and Enjolras are less significant in the book, but wonderful minor characters in the play.

4) Higgins from the Jacky Faber series – Jacky is delightful but I also love Higgins, her great good friend and valet who tries to make her look presentable, loves her in spite of her wildness, and somehow stays a very proper British valet while confessing a secret love for adventure.  He’s also, in a somehow very proper British valet way, very clearly gay, making him one of the few men in the series Jacky doesn’t flirt with (which can be a bit of a relief!)

5) Neal from the Protector of the Small series – Kel’s best friend, Neal is wonderful and I desperately want a companion book to the series about his time as Alanna’s squire.  Desperately.

6) MasterHarper Robinton from the Harper Hall trilogy – This is cheating slightly since McCaffrey did write a book with Robinton as the main character…but he began as a minor character in other books, especially the Harper Hall trilogy, and that’s really when he’s at his best.  So charming, so wonderful.

7) Magpie from An Unexpected Apprentice – This was a frankly forgettable book with characters I couldn’t muster much interest in–except for Magpie.  A prince disguised as a minstrel to spy on an enemy king, who then became close with that king while spying, who has a contentious relationship with his own family and the princess he’s betrothed to, he’s witty and roguish and just the kind of character I want to read more about.  Except we don’t actually get his story, he’s just along to support a far less interesting character.  Lost opportunity on that one.

8) Rose from The Magicians and Mrs. Quent – This requires a little context…the book is basically a mash-up of Pride and Prejudice and Jane Eyre (with magic!), and in that framework, Rose is drawn from quiet Mary Bennet, the rather forgotten sister.  And that’s why I love Rose.  Because she’s quiet and sweet and valued by her family in a way that I’m not sure Mary ever was.  In this book, the quiet one is also the perceptive and deeply caring one, and it’s a lovely development on the original character.

9) Anwin from Silver Woven in My Hair – A supporting character in this Cinderella story, Anwin the Monk is one of the few people kind to the heroine, and also one of my favorite portrayals of a religious character.

10) Horace the Lancre Blue Cheese from Wintersmith – I really wanted to think of a Discworld character to include, except most minor characters get to be major characters somewhere…but then I thought of Horace the Cheese.  Lancre Blue always tends to be a bit feisty, but Horace breaks out of the pantry, becomes an honorary member of the Nac Mac Feegles, and hums along when they’re singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” while crossing the Discworld River Styx.  He also cheats wildly during a cheese rolling event in the next book…

11) Meg from The Phantom of the Opera – Bonus #11, because Meg feels so obvious to me that including her seems like cheating, but ignoring her wouldn’t be right either.  She’s so much a minor character in the original novel that she’s virtually a non-entity, she becomes a much more intriguing character in the Webber play, and so I made her the main character of my retelling of the story.  And I’ve convinced my entire writing group that she’s the secret heroine of The Phantom of the Opera!

Do you have any favorite characters who didn’t get the spotlight they deserve?  Or who simply shine best in a supporting role?  I’d love to hear about them!