Editors Note: Bob Pastorella’s latest book, Mojo Rising, has been generating fantastic reviews all over the web. Bob was kind enough to talk about the role that music played in his book, and provides the soundtrack that should immediately fill the music devices of many. Make sure to check out the great sounds that Bob recommends. And do yourself a favour, and check out his fantastic book after. It’s a trip that makes you never want to go near a Southern Crime novel because you’ve read the best one, with extra sprinkles of chaos on top.
When I first conceived my little road trip novella, Mojo Rising, I knew going in that I didn’t want to hit on the songs on any of the Greatest Hits compilations of the Doors. That would have been too easy. It started right after watching season one of HBO’s True Detective. I was thinking about revising an old short story, listening to the Doors, thinking about how my mind was blown away by a kickass TV show, and BAM, the whole story hit me all at once. True story. At first, it was all based on ‘L.A. Woman’, but again, that would have been too easy. I decided that I wanted my playlist to include songs by the Doors that fit the story in some way. There were classic songs I knew would be included, but there were other songs thematically closer in tone to what I wanted that would help push me over the edge. And that’s right where I needed to be with this story—over the edge—straddling it just wasn’t going to do the trick. It was only supposed to be a playlist, something to listen to while I wrote the book, but things have a way of slipping in the story. Instead of trying to force it out of the words, I embraced it, weaving the songs into the story in a way that was organic yet subtle. Once the story was set, and the characters were ready to play their parts, I was ready to go.
Chapter One: ‘Strange Days’. This chapter was originally called ‘Soul Kitchen’, mainly because it dealt with the main character, Juney, trekking through the woods to the meth kitchen. The beginning of ‘Strange Days’—Strange days have found us/Strange days have tracked us down—reminded me that Juney’s descent into madness may have actually began long before he found that dead body at the kitchen.
Chapter Two: ‘The Changeling’. Change is a recurring theme through the story. How many times can you start over? Juney asks himself this again and again. The whole song is about breaking away from the sadness of life and finding yourself again, and it fit the mood I wanted to bring to that chapter perfectly.
Chapter Three: ‘Roadhouse Blues’. Such a nitty, gritty blues romp. This song is dark and nasty and it gets your blood flowing. The Rodeway Inn is the Roadhouse for Juney, who’s more familiar with the territory than he cares to admit. He kinda admires the grime while he tries to wash his hands of it.
Chapter Four: ‘Moonlight Drive’: The first song the Doors rehearsed together. This song is a heavy mix of sex and death and is a good way to cleanse the palate after the hedonistic mindfuck at the end of Chapter Three. The clarity is a little muddy, but it’s enough for our hero to see that the forces he faces don’t play by the same rules.
Chapter Five: ‘The Wasp (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)’: Out here on the perimeter there are no
stars/Out here we is stoned—immaculate. I was always puzzled by Morrison saying he wanted to tell us about Texas Radio and the Big Beat that came out of the Virginia swamps, but then that was just Jim being Jim. There are wasps in the story, closer to the end, but this song was more about a feeling than anything. A feeling that things are heavier than we care to admit, and there’s not much we can do about it.
Chapter Six: ‘Celebration of the Lizard’: The Doors tried to record this, but it became an impossible task. Makes sense, as it is a true performance piece, best experienced live. I envy those that actually saw it in person, how it probably changed their lives forever.
Chapter Seven: ‘Five To One’: No one here gets out alive. Obviously talking about Vietnam, but for my purposes, it fit like a glove. Juney finds himself inside a place he couldn’t have possibly gotten into, and discovers what he’s suspected all along. The apartment room number is 521 for a reason.
Chapter Eight: ‘Crawling King Snake’: Jim’s rendition of this classic John Lee Hooker song will make your skin crawl. This chapter was originally called ‘Gloria’, which the Doors covered as well, and knowing I was channeling The Lizard King for the duration, it didn’t make sense to Crawl to the King Snake, so to speak. But Jim was The Lizard King, and the King Snake, so eventually I came to like it better than ‘Gloria’. It was a better fit for what Morris was planning.
Chapter Nine: ‘End of the Night’: Some are born to the endless night. I write cinematically, very visual, and still try to capture all the senses at the same time. There’s something about movie scenes that use almost inappropriate music to change the whole mood of a scene, and this was what I listened to over and over again while I wrote the big ‘reveal’ scene in this chapter. The song was cast against type, and maybe that’s the reaction. At least I hope it was.
Chapter Ten: ‘When the Music’s Over’: Sorry, but it was never going to be ‘The End’ here. Before I sink/into the big sleep/I want to hear/I want to hear/the scream of the butterfly. This is not a song about dying, but a song about living, about experience, about getting as much out of life as you possibly can, dancing until the music’s over. At the end of the story, Juney chooses, decides he can start over, and sometimes, you have to embrace it all to really live.
Without the Doors, Mojo Rising would not have been possible. No one really knew what Jim Morrison was trying to say with his lyrics, and trying to figure it out is a waste of time. Their music was meant to be experienced, to be lived, and with life, there’s just no figuring this shit out. I went into writing Mojo Rising not knowing all the answers, and walked out of it still not knowing, yet forever changed. The process made me slow down and enjoy life, experience it fully. You should enjoy life as well; this is the only one you’re going to get.
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