Misguided: The Soundtrack To My Life

Soundtrack To My Life - IntroductionMusic featured in this post:To Be Free - Glyn Lehmann, sung by Shrewsbury International School childrenStereo - The WatchmenWhen I created the outline for my memoir, Misguided, as a guide for writing the first draft, I found that naming the chapters with song titles or lyrics was a useful way to summarize or foreshadow the subject of each chapter. I did that for every chapter in the first draft of my manuscript. Under each chapter title, I also included a few lyrics from the song. However, I later read in various articles on the subject of writing that using song lyrics in a book can be problematic because of copyright issues. All the advice I read said that obtaining permission to use song lyrics could be very difficult and expensive, and cautioned against citing lyrics to avoid copyright claims.However, it is permissible to use song titles, which can’t be copyrighted. So, to avoid that issue of copyright, I removed all lyrics at the top of each chapter, and in several places in my book where I explain the importance of various songs to my story, I carefully paraphrase the relevant lyrics. It’s unfortunate that I had to do that, because many of the songs I cite in my book, such as Dylan’s “Gotta Serve Somebody”, several Beatles songs, Don McClean’s “American Pie”, and R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” had significant influence on me.Over the several years I worked on writing my memoir, I made many changes to the initial manuscript, including reorganizing and renaming some of the chapters. Although many of the chapter titles in the published book are still named after a song title, or paraphrase a song title (Chapter 3 – He’s Leaving Home) some are not. But as well as the songs I did cite in my book, there are several others that also had an impact on me, or are relevant to certain parts of my story. Often they played in the back of mind as I wrote some of those stories.Although unlikely, if the film rights to my book were ever sold and a movie version was made of my memoir, I have imagined a soundtrack that would be a very entertaining aspect of that movie. So, in this series of articles I provide my suggestions for that soundtrack, with a few lyrics from each song, and links to the songs on YouTube. Each of these posts will cover one chapter of my book, starting with the Preface.In the Preface to my book I cite a section of the United Nations Convention On The Rights Of The Child, and write:Children have an inherent right to freely form their own thoughts and conscience, and choose their own religious beliefs, or have none at all, since freedom of religion necessarily includes the right to be free from religion. ... A parent’s right to religious freedom does not give them the right to deny that same freedom to their child. As the U.S. Supreme Court famously ruled: “Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves. But it does not follow they are free, in identical circumstances, to make martyrs of their children before they have reached the age of full and legal discretion when they can make that choice for themselves.”Song to play while the Preface is being read or shown onscreen.To Be Free - Words and music by Glyn Lehmann https://songlibrary.net/To-Be-Free/Song to play during the opening credits of the film.“Stereo” by Canadian band The Watchmen [crank it up for this one]This poem is also relevant to my story.This Be The Verse By Philip Larkin They f**k you up, your mum and dad. They may not mean to, but they do. They fill you with the faults they had And add some extra, just for you. But they were fucked up in their turn By fools in old-style hats and coats, Who half the time were soppy-stern And half at one another’s throats. Man hands on misery to man. It deepens like a coastal shelf. Get out as early as you can, And don’t have any kids yourself. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit perrybulwer344598.substack.com