A Somniscient Playlist

richardlevesqueauthor February 13, 2016 Science Fiction 0

For anyone who likes a little background music with their reading, here are a few songs that will fit nicely with your experience of The Somniscient.

The Beatles, “I’m So Tired.” There’s a lot of sleep deprivation in this story, and this song is a good way to start things off. The characters’ predicament isn’t caused by romantic problems, as it is for the person in the song, but the desperation that comes from lack of sleep isn’t much different.
The Handsome Family, “Sleepy.” This is a different take on being tired. The song has
The Handsome Family. Photo Credit: Erik Joling

just enough creepiness to it and melding of dream-like images with the feeling of being tired that you can’t quite tell if what’s happening is real or not–similar to some of the things characters encounter in The Somniscient.
Talking Heads, “Dream Operator.” The Somniscient character in the novel isn’t exactly a “dream operator,” but the description in the song comes pretty close.
Hidden Charms, “Dreaming of Another Girl.” What good are dreams if you can’t experience things in the dreamworld that you couldn’t or wouldn’t experience in your waking life? This song also does a nice job of contrasting waking and sleeping, the person beside you and the person you’re with when you close your eyes.
Robyn Hitchcock, “I Often Dream of Trains.” The title track from Hitchcock’s
Robyn Hitchcock. Photo Credit: Matt Biddulph

brilliant solo album from somewhere back in the ’80s. The song does a nice job of capturing the longing one sometimes has regarding dreams and the hope that unrealized desires from one’s waking life can turn into much more in the dreamworld. This is an idea that runs throughout The Somniscient.
David Bowie, “Moonage Daydream.” There are so many songs that capture the surreal nature of dreams, but this one really gets the job done and fits in nicely with The Somniscient as Bowie throws in a few science fiction elements like having an “electric eye,” something not too far off from the melding of humans and technology that forms much of the world of the novel.
Gogol Bordello, “Through the Roof ‘n’ Underground.” This song fits perfectly with the situation Nix Nighthawk finds himself in–trapped with no way out. He doesn’t go through the roof, but he does end up in a type of underground, running with underdogs. The song is also about breaking through borders, which Nix needs to do on multiple levels.
Neil Young, “Transformer Man.” This is the Unplugged version since the lyrics are more easily discerned than in the studio cut. The song is about a different kind of border, the melding of human and machine, and the things that such a melding requires of the person who’s gone through it. There are a lot of transitions and transformations Nix has to go through in The Somniscient, but I’m not giving them away here.
The Monkees, “Pleasant Valley Sunday.” While this song was an indictment of middle class suburbia back in the 60s, it also does a nice job of pointing to the Happy Valley theme that runs through The Somniscient. The mundane things that people do in this song are exactly the kind of thing people fantasize about in the world the book portrays.
Elvis Presley, “Peace in the Valley.” Here, too, the valley in the song isn’t the Happy Valley of The Somniscient, but there is some resonance, especially since it starts off talking about being “tired and weary,” which was where we started.

That’s it for now. I hope you enjoyed the music. If you’re reading the book and can think of other songs it reminds you of, I’d love to hear about them. And if you haven’t grabbed your copy of The Somniscient, you can check it out here.