Do you associate certain songs with your characters?

A lot of people I know often take inspiration from music when they write, whether from the emotional tone of the piece or the lyrics. Are there any specific songs you associate with specific characters of yours?

I associate: Minoru Sykes with Lilium - Kayo Konishi [1]

Seamus Vescheslav with This Is The House That Doubt Built - A Day To Remember [2]

Oz Evans with Ashes of Dreams - Keiichi Okabe [3]

Jack Wells with To Move On Is To Grow - We Came As Romans [4]

and Tom Reid with I Will Follow You Into The Dark - Death Cab For Cutie [5]

Yes, I do.

'Time Is Running Out' by Muse with Akiko

'S&M' by Rihanna and 'Dancer' by Xandria with Mikami

'Closer' by Nine Inch Nails, 'Animal' by Disturbed, and 'Where Will You Go?' by Evanesence with Inagi

...More to come.

Characters? Not usually. Chapters (which I refer to as scenes, usually)? Oh, yes. I have whole playlists. There's a lot of action in my stories, so I use it for tempo choreography in my head (i.e. how fast it goes, the mood, etc).

An actual list of songs would be far, far too long...

Generally, no. But a Death Metal band called Nile has become associated in my mind with the Eyes and Teeth — Cast Down the Heretic has become the de facto theme song for the creature itself, while To Dream of Ur works for Amu the Liberator.

I have one character... who is currently lacking a name, but can be summed up in a few handy-dandy relevant tropes who is best summarized by the song You're Gonna Go Far, Kid by The Offspring.

He's so fun to write...

I associate Angeline, from my most recently completed project, with "King of Anything" by Sara Bareilles.

And from the previous installment in the same series: Pre-Character Development, "Stay Home" by Self seems quite fitting. Post-development (which encompasses most of her role in the second book), "Royal Pain." Yep, both Shrek songs. To be fair, both have the "reluctant hero" thing going on. Though in the second, she gets way more into it and even has some fun chewing out some bad guys.

Signum, but only angry. Overt rage doesn't suit her; the quiet anger that Rob Dougan's so good at, however...Clubbed to Death has a certain ''methodical'' to it, as well.

Aquanox's ''Like This'' ended up being associated with Otto, more or less completely by accident. I had a scene worked out more or less set to this, with Otto in action, but it wasn't used.

If you never heard this in its natural environment, you have been sorely deprived as a gamer. Surface 1 has ended up associated with a character who hasn't even appeared yet; Captain Muhammed al-Faddil, head of Naval Counterintelligence and the person those associated with Jail Scaligetti check under their beds for.

In my mind, a character isn't complete without a theme song. What better way to capture his/her essence than with music that suits them well?

Need a heroic, triumphantly unlucky swordsman (and Power Rangers nerd) whose ideals are out of place with his futuristic society? "Eagleheart" by Stratovarius has got you covered.

Need a single mom-turned 60-story juggernaut who piledrives dragons and campaigns to wrest control of the world from a battle-hungry emperor to give her son a happy birthday? "Lepcis Magna" by E.S. Posthumus has got your back.

Need a 90's-era, hot-blooded idiot donning a wildcat-themed costume and fighting crime while facing off with the ramifications of his own subconscious chronological destruction? "The Touch" by Stan Bush is the last song you'll ever need.

Wacky as my stuff can get — and it DOES get wacky, believe you me — there's always a song out there that helps ground them in reality. Something that gives them solidarity, and helps me visualize their antics — and with it, their drives and emotions. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't attribute as much as I could in life to guitar riffs and drum solos.

edited 31st Aug '11 9:21:06 PM by Voltech44

I have a hard time finding these, but this fits one of my heroes, and a character who's not quite a villain matches up surprisingly well with this. (Start at 1:38 for the latter.)

edited 1st Sep '11 2:54:46 AM by feotakahari

Yep...actually, "Bizarre Love Triangle" kind of became the leitmotiv of all my series

For me it seems I come up with a bunch of characters just by listening to music or songs. So it's the other way around.

Yes, though it is a bit less concrete than the statement implies...

For example, whenever I imagine Evan walking away from some impressive calamity - as he does fairly often - I always seem to inagine strains of Swans' "No Words/No Thoughts" playing in the background. Which is unsurprising, considering that the lyrics seem to be describing someone very similar in nature.

edited 1st Sep '11 2:46:38 PM by JHM

Yeah, sometimes, when the lyrics and the sound/feel/aesthetic of the song resonate really well with a character.

• April: "Stand In The Rain" - Superchic[k]
• Ignatia: "Just Like Fire" - P!nk
• Forrest: "Prince Charming" - Adam and the Ants
• Γ:^* Technically not my character, but he's significant so I'm including him anyway "I Get Wicked" - Thousand Foot Krutch

There have also been a couple of times when I've associated a song with a group of characters or even an entire story: "We Are The Hearts" by EXGF works really well with the Power Ponies, and the general theme of On the Ground is pretty much summed up by TFK's "The End Is Where We Begin".

Edited by AgentKirin on Apr 30th 2019 at 5:37:54 AM

I have two that work great for my main protagonist and former Pathfinder character Raz:

• The Lament of Eustace Scrubb by The Oh Hellos matches perfectly with his Heel Realization and his inner turmoil over it, largely his regret for abandoning his best friend as a teenager in favor of a life of crime. I especially love the themes of water in the song since a factor in his Heel–Face Turn away from organized crime is his Near-Death Experience upon being nearly drowned by his former boss. The lyric "When I touch the water/ they tell me I could be set free..." especially works.

• Arsonist's Lullaby by Hozier for when he becomes a Vigilante Man to combat the criminal underworld using the same skills he learned from being a part of it. Notably the line "Don't you ever tame your demons/but always keep them on a leash" stands out to me.

For my OCs:

• My Harry Potter OC, Vanessa, would have You May Be Right, by Billy Joel as her theme song, for sure!

• I associate the main character from the novel I'm writing with The Logical Song, by Supertramp

For my alternate Killer Frost I roleplay as, I associate her with The Song of Hope from Lord of the Rings: The Musical, particularly the last few lines:

Wandering the empty road/In twilight's silver shade/Following the hidden paths/Lonely and afraid...

Blood on my name by The Brothers Bright has sort of become Moreena's unofficial theme tune. The combination of the ominous religious themes with the oddly upbeat parts of the melody really suit her, imo, and the lyrics apply equally well to the necromancers she hunts as to herself.

For my space captain Zerrimus Garkin, I'm going with I'm gonna be (500 miles) by The Proclaimers. I like the shameless positivity and cheerfulness, and I just kind of associate the song with space travel for some reason. (Probably because of Doctor Who...) Garkin also shares The Longing by Storm Seeker with my sky pirate Gwenafer.

With Veseka and her squad, it's all about Heavy Mithril and other forms of somewhat cheesy, over-the-top "epic" music. I could easily imagine her blasting some alien equivalent of this or this on the dropship's speakers during reentry.

Not a particular character exactly, but I tend to associate the song ‘’Everybody Wants To Rule The World’’ (the original by Tears For Fears) with apocalyptic/Bad Future scenarios and characters I’ve created from there. Particularly if the characters in question had some hand in causing said scenario.

Yes. If you were to look up maybe some of my game videos, where I can insert music to compliment the character, you bet I do this.

One character, I read about the Leitmotif a character might have, and imagine Trivium's Down From The Sky, live (the lyrics and instruments tend to be softer, gentler), the intro, bridge and lyrics I think really help compliment them.

For another I gotta go with Sons of Anarchy's bootleg Stones covers of Gimme Shelter or Sympathy for the Devil. Jane's Addiction's version is a rockin way to introduce yourself to a man of wealth and taste and the song just seems...darker somehow.

A third would be Pick Up The Bones by Alice Cooper, which perfectly fits a horrifically mentally and emotionally tortured woman who had turned into this type of slasher horror villain, like Jason or Michael, or maybe even the more horror stalker aspects of The Terminator. When I did up a little video showcasing this character it really came together in such a way.

Not character related as such but I have a couple of music videos I did up of Forza, cars I did up, police designs. Ladyhawke's The River for the strictly WA models, and Bonfire by Knife Party for when Tasmanian coppers were used. Yes like Breaking Bad, and yes I was kind of taking the mickey doing it.

Eye of the Tiger for Jordan Evan, that six foot pigtailed aboriginal muscle woman cop. Put her in Guitar Hero with that song ten years ago and that was it, that was her.

I would make a lot more UFC fighters if I could get the EA face scan to work but two have great pieces, On Another Level for Karyn Fischer (a brute from Parrell Mexico who looks to be carved out of fiberglass and nearly as hard and strong) and Meltdown, think this is Israeli, for another main, the one who has Down From The Sky.

To cut a very long story short yes I do this, I have numerous examples to show that do this and have a lot more off the record, as such.

Hmm... here's some of the ones for the major characters from my comic project:

Haruko Setoyama: Roots (In This Moment)

Luke Parsons: Romance Me (Disciple)

Mal Hobbs: The Pride (Five Finger Death Punch)

Winter: She gets two- Tainted (Celldweller) and Alive (Sia, covered by Lies of Love)

Victoria Cohen: Red Cold River (Breaking Benjamin)

Mercedes Montoya: Sick Individual (Halestorm)

Vincent Raveling: I Hate Everything About You (Three Days Grace)

Juliet Harper: Everybody Wants to Rule the World (Tears for Fears)

Edited by Ashfire on Jan 17th 2019 at 12:07:43 PM

• Ennui: Itteki no Eikyou and Flower of Hell
• Akashic: This song called "The Marionette's Show",
• Misako's self-loathing: "Hurricane" by 30 Seconds to Mars, Satellite and lastly Reminscence of the Red Lotus
• Olapen/Odaxitar: "Personality Complex" by Hatsune Miku for Olapen
• Hypocrite Justice for Odaxitar

Edited by sabrina_diamond on Jan 23rd 2019 at 1:44:14 AM

Not with any character in particular, but a friend told me that the setting I'm working on reminded them of The Witcher, and after checking it out I just had to adopt the track "Silver for Monsters" from the third game because it captures the feel I'm going for so perfectly.

I have associations of numerous songs for most of the characters (depending on what mood they are in or what they are doing) and/or situations/scenes within the story.

In addition, one of my characters deliberately invokes this by playing songs from his extensive and varied collection in response to situations (e.g. playing uplifting positive songs to counteract a low mood or insisting everyone get up and dance to raise their spirits) - even a written story needs a soundtrack.

Here's a few that generally apply to the characters themselves, though:

James: The British Grenadiers - quite literally, in his case. At least, he used to be.

Kev: Drift Away - Dobie Gray. (Guess which character is the one who plays music to raise everyone's spirits...)

Teri: Young, Gifted and Black - Bob and Marcia

Karl: Muss i' Denn - as befits a Swabian lad who had to leave his love behind.

One time I made a character design choice inspired by the first few lines of "Traitor" by Flyleaf. ^note Pull your window down / Tinted glass is hiding your eyes / It's your favorite disguise It's not the song I'd choose to represent that character (and I haven't yet decided what would be), but it turned out pretty cool.

I have entire playlists for my characters, and new songs get added to them all the time!

I like the idea of theme songs but I'd never know what was best until I heard it. Ironically one of the first decisions was for a secondary character.

Edited by Tightwire on May 3rd 2019 at 3:36:44 AM