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August 11, 2020
Rebecca Watson's Playlist for Her Novel "little scratch"
In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.
Previous contributors include Jesmyn Ward, Lauren Groff, Bret Easton Ellis, Celeste Ng, T.C. Boyle, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Roxane Gay, and many others.
Rebecca Watson's novel Little Scratch is an inventive and massively thought-provoking debut.
Publishers Weekly wrote of the book:
"An inventive, immersive debut... Watson’s clever convention and set pieces are not simply flourishes but integral to the plot and themes... A haunting, virtuosic performance."
In her own words, here is Rebecca Watson's Book Notes music playlist for her debut novel little scratch:
When writing little scratch I would often find myself with internal music: it wasn’t a particular refrain, there was just a beat, a rhythm that I would write into. Once I had found it, writing would come quickly: sped up by the internal metronome. I would find my head, neck, sometimes my torso rocking as I wrote. These were when the best lines came. The novel takes place inside a woman’s head, non-stop throughout a day from when she wakes up to when she falls asleep, so there was a necessary propulsion. When the beat arrived, I would surrender to her voice. (Was she hypnotising me?). Much of what I wrote in those moments remains verbatim in the book.
Writing little scratch was a quick process. I started in January 2018 and finished in December 2018. It was a neat container – the calendar year – and it is also one of the few facts I can now recall of the writing. Much of the rest is lost in the process. I listened to music -- to drown out lively housemates, or to give me a level of distraction that paradoxically kept me focused. Silence was intimidating, music was not. Some of these songs below accompanied me, some just feel right to list. Some are missing.
“Be Your Husband” by Jeff Buckley
Buckley’s Live at Sin-e album, which was recorded in 1993, is something that I have listened to for years. He sings, freestyles, monologues through the 2 and half hour set. If anyone wants a lesson in how to keep the listener engaged, then listen to this set. This set captures what I wanted to achieve with little scratch, building and moving between tones, between raw emotion and off-the-cuff humour. “Be Your Husband” is sang acapella, foot stamping on the ground. It’s alive, rough, catchy.
“Do I Wanna Know” by Arctic Monkeys
I listened to a lot of Arctic Monkeys whilst writing, it was hard not to feel pumped to write when they were playing. “Do I Wanna Know” has that magic duality of assertion and insecurity. I could’ve picked any of AM, but this, being the first track, was the one I was most conscious of (before writing makes music background). The opening notes are Pavlovian, fingers stretching for my pen.
“No Room for Doubt” by Lianne La Havas ft. Willy Mason
“We all make mistakes, we do”. I love the contrast of Mason and La Havas’ voices in this song. So much of little scratch was the importance of contrasts. I can see these two clearly on the page. In the last third of my book, the narrator’s boyfriend appears, lending a different voice, helping build a different, competing tone. I think of this song as a parallel – their voices feeding and supporting each other.
“Pink Moon” by Nick Drake
I remember once being told by a man on first meeting that I shouldn’t listen to Pink Moon, when I could listen to Five Leaves Left. I don’t agree. Drake sings “Pink pink pink pink moon” like the words themselves are plucked notes. I aspire to the way he builds feeling, his voice gifting depth. Songs have more freedom to do that; words can be there to hold a tone, rather than for the word itself. When I was writing little scratch I tried to achieve something similar: repeating words and phrases like musical motifs.
“I Get Along Without You Very Well” by Chet Baker
This song is seducer, a lull of silken devastation. In the words of one YouTube commenter: “I'm drunk alone with my cat and we enjoy this very much”. Something to dream of replicating, something to listen to when you’re miserable at being unable to replicate it.
“Youth” by Daughter
Sometimes, if I was in a rut with writing, sitting down but nothing coming, I would play “Youth” on repeat. I don’t even know if it is a good song at this point. But it shortcuts me into a swelling emotion that I can replicate on the page. It’s helpful.
“Audrey’s Dance” (Twin Peaks soundtrack)
I never really know how to map the intersection of inspiration and enjoyment. If something chimes with me, does that make it inspiration? I struggle to say. I hadn’t heard this until after I had finished little scratch, but I don’t think that matters. I love how this walking bassline -- sexy but unnerving -- encapsulates Audrey’s character in Twin Peaks. It becomes sly, playful as it recurs throughout the series. Can you tell that I love a motif?
“Mr Brightside” by The Killers
There’s a point in little scratch where Mr Brightside starts playing. She is waiting to speak to a travel agent and then suddenly, coming out of my cage leaks into her ears. It winds her up. I empathise. This song has haunted me, at school, in shit clubs at university. There used to be more of it quoted in the book from this moment on the phone, but Universal took so long to get back to me about copyright permissions that I had to change the mention to the legal minimum. There was a certain absurdity to desperately chasing someone so that I could pay them money to quote a song I didn’t like, so maybe it was for the best.
Rebecca Watson writes for publications including the Financial Times, The Times Literary Supplement, and Granta. In 2018 she was short-listed for the White Review Short Story Prize. This is her debut novel.
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