Line #149 Literature/SoulMusic


1	[[quoteright:283:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/n1987_3616.jpg]]
2	->''Other children got given xylophones. Susan just had to ask her grandfather to take his vest off. Yes. There's a Death in the family. It's hard to grow up normally when Grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe – especially when you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy. And especially when you have to face the new and addictive music that has entered the Discworld. It's Lawless. It changes people. It's called Music With Rocks In. It's got a beat and you can dance to it, but... It's alive. And it won't fade away.''
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4	The 16th ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novel, and third in the Death theme: much more a sequel to the first Death book, ''Literature/{{Mort}}'', than the second, ''Literature/ReaperMan''.
5
6	There are two interconnected plots: in the first, the deaths of Mort and Ysabell in a car(t) crash cause another case of DeathTakesAHoliday after a HeroicBSOD, leading to his "granddaughter" (Mort and Ysabell's daughter) Susan taking over The Duty, and incidentally becoming one of Disc fandom's favourite characters. She only met her grandfather once or twice as a young child, and afterwards was raised by her parents to take a very cold and rational view of things, which is not much of a survival trait on the Disc.
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8	In the second, young Llamedosian musician [[MeaningfulName Imp y Celyn]] comes to Ankh-Morpork to make his fortune and ends up becoming a musical sensation when he inadvertently invents the Discworld's equivalent of Rock & Roll.
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10	Unfortunately for the young [[TheRockStar "Musics With Rocks In" Star]], supernatural forces have conspired that he should live fast... and die young. Can Susan fight fate and save his life?
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12	Was made (along with ''Literature/WyrdSisters'') into an AnimatedAdaptation. The L-space entry is [[http://www.lspace.org/books/apf/soul-music.html here]], and explains the numerous sly references to famous bands and songs. A fan-created expanded version is [[https://wiki.lspace.org/Book:Soul_Music/Annotations here]] and picks up the slack since the official annotated Pratchett file has not been updated for several years.
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14	[[DontExplainTheJoke This novel's title is a pune,]] [[RunningGag or play on words,]] on (of course) [[{{Soul}} the kind of African-American music]] that arose in TheFifties and TheSixties and [[GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff enjoys a high level of popularity in Britain today]]. According to certain Australian fans, the inspiration for the book came during Pratchett's visit to Australia, when, upon discovering that Pratchett had never seen ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'', the fans promptly "abducted" him and took him to a midnight screening of the film.
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16	Preceded by ''Literature/MenAtArms'', followed by ''Literature/InterestingTimes''. Preceded in the Death series by ''Literature/ReaperMan'', followed by ''Literature/{{Hogfather}}''.
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18	[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] the genre of [[Main/{{Soul}} soul music]].
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20	----
21	!!''Soul Music'' provides examples of the following tropes:
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23	* AbsurdlySharpBlade: Death's scythe. (Which is temporarily converted to Death's [[spoiler:guitar pick.]])
24	* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
25	-->"[Music With Rocks in It] made you want to kick down walls and ascend the sky on steps of fire. It made you want to pull all the switches and throw all the levers and stick your fingers in the electric socket of the Universe to see what happened next. It made you want to paint your bedroom wall black and cover it with posters."
26	* AssKicksYou: Asphalt the troll got so short and squat because the circus elephants he used to tend kept sitting on him.
27	* AssShove: It's never stated outright, but very clearly implied, that this is what the Musicians' Guild will do with your instrument if you're caught performing without a membership. It's especially bad for the piccolo player.
28	* BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor: More like be careful what you ''swear'': Imp, yelling at his father before he leaves home for Ankh-Morpork, vows that "One day soon ''everyone'' will say I was the greatest musician in the world!" [[spoiler: The Music evidently picked him because he hadn't properly thought out the implications of the "soon" and "was", i.e. that it'd mean he ''had'' to die young to make good on this vow.]]
29	* BeQuietNudge: Attempted in vain by Ridcully, trying to make Ponder shut up about the sound-trapping boxes. Not only does Ponder keep right on blabbing to Dibbler, but he openly and cluelessly calls attention to how the Archchancellor'd kicked him.
30	* BewitchedAmphibians:
31	** The music shop keeper threatens to invoke this trope on Glod and Cliff because she belongs to the Neighborhood Witch scheme.
32	** When the Librarian is scrounging for parts to build a new ride, he rips a wheel off a man's carriage. When the man comes demanding compensation, Ridcully has him cool his heels in the pond for a little while.
33	** Ridcully has this to say about a boy who dared to post a Music With Rocks In poster on the University gates: "I told him to hop it, which was quite appropriate."
34	* BilingualBonus:
35	** Imp y Celyn is Welsh for "Bud of the Holly". And if you haven't got it yet, don't translate the middle bit. [[spoiler:Made all the better that the entire end of the book is an allusion to the song "American Pie", which was about Buddy Holly's death.]]
36	** Imp's first song is called "Sioni Bod Da". Sioni is Welsh for Johnny and "Bod Da" is gratuitous Welsh for "be good" (the imperative mood is "bydd yn dda"). So it's [[Music/ChuckBerry "Johnny B. Goode"]].
37	* BleakBorderBase: '''DEATH''' goes to one of these when signing up for the Klatchian Foreign Legion.
38	* BrawnHilda: The Valkyrie.
39	* BrickJoke:
40	** The one thing the men in the Klatchian Foreign Legion can remember is sand, because it's all around them. When the Death of Rats tries to sense where Death has wandered off to, the one memory of his that ''it'' can tune into is also sand.
41	** The Death of Rats is asked early on by Quoth if it just exclusively works on rats, and answers that it also applies to other small, furry creatures destined to end their lives in damp squeaks. [[spoiler:At the end of the book, it also reaps the particularly rat-like Mr. Clete.]]
42	** Due to the new craze for guitars, Blert Wheedown starts selling the old ones his apprentice made early on in his training, despite having said they "sounded like a cat going to the toilet through a sewn-up bum". At the Festival, Crash starts playing his guitar, and Ridcully comments "That sounded exactly like a cat trying to go to the lavatory through a sewn-up bum".
43	* BrownNote: Death is not musical; Death cannot create. But there is one piece of music he knows - one that he has to know by virtue of his Duty. It is the sound that heralds the end of the universe.
44	* BuffySpeak: Susan remarking when looking at Death's desk in his office that "Whoever had made the desk had seen desks, but hadn't understood deskishness."
45	* BusCrash: The death of Mort and Ysabell, the lead characters of ''Literature/{{Mort}}''. More than just disposing of a couple of characters, it provides the major emotional underpinning of the story. Death actually experiencing bereavement first-hand, and this and his interplay with Susan shows that he has changed a lot since ''Mort''.
46	* CallBack:
47	** One of the assassins sent to kill Imp and co. says that a troll can be killed by a strike to 'a little spot at the back of the neck'. This is how Rincewind (accidentally) killed a troll in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic''. Note that the Assassins' Guild members had no idea how to defeat Detritus when he confronted them in ''Literature/MenAtArms'', so presumably they'd held a refresher course on troll-killing after that professionally-embarrassing incident.
48	** When talking about the times a pocket full of decent spells and a well-charged staff got him out of trouble, the Archchancellor mentions "that dragon, you remember" which may refer to the dragon in ''Literature/GuardsGuards!'', although that would be a bit of a continuity error as Ridcully hadn't come back to Unseen University to be Archchancellor at that point, prior to which he spent the past 40 years in the countryside, and during that book the wizards don't have any part in actually solving the dragon problem besides ineffectually lobbing a few spells at it.
49	** Death made a comment near the end of ''Mort'' about having the wrong kind of knees for a grandfather. This book reveals where he learned that this might, in fact, be an issue: from his time-traveling granddaughter, with whom he'd had a conversation off-camera in the midst of ''Mort'''s climax.
50	* CallForward: Dibbler, regaling the Band about the prospects for future tours, mentions the Counterweight Continent as a possibility ("They're talking about discovering it again real soon"). The later ''Literature/InterestingTimes'' would be set there.
51	* CausedTheBigBang: The first thing ever heard in the universe was "One. Two. One, two, three, four." and then the big bang happened, thanks to "Music with Rocks In". The main theme of the book is that [[spoiler:the music is alive, and wants to be played, no matter the cost to the player]]. This is in contradiction to earlier books, but Discworld is famously loose with its origin stories.
52	%% ** When Rincewind and {{Literature/Eric}} are at the Beginning, there is a noted "harmonius twang" as everything comes into being. Could be they weren't paying attention when the Creator was counting it in.
53	* CharacterDevelopment: In Death, and to a lesser extent, Susan, as both of them grapple with grief for the first time - Susan tries to bottle it up but it seeps out in little things like her outrage at the 'inefficiency' of the way people dying works, while Death just tries to forget, but ''can't'' because of his unique memory. When Susan time travels back to the finale of ''{{Literature/Mort}}'', she and the reader ''immediately'' notice how much Death has changed from the colder and exponentially more intimidating figure he was back then (though the dorkish grandfather isn't far beneath the surface).
54	* CityShoutOuts: Buddy is so out of it, he can't remember what city he's in.
55	-->'''Buddy''': Hello ... [--hells, Glod, tell me where we are--] ... Sto Lat! Yay!
56	* ComicallySmallDemand: Glod is a ''terrible'' negotiator, and doesn't know it. His attempts to haggle on The Band's behalf invariably end up with him just barely keeping the other party from ripping them off ''worse'' than the initial offer. Cliff helps, but isn't much better: the best he can manage is to get an extra 20 dollars out of Dibbler, who was ''expecting'' to be unable to bargain them down to less than a hundred total.
57	* ContinuityNod:
58	** When Susan goes back to Death's house as it was in ''Literature/{{Mort}}'', she notes that the golden harvest fields around it vanish, as Death created those in ''Literature/ReaperMan'' between the two books.
59	** When Susan tells Albert that she's sixteen, he asks her how long she's ''been'' sixteen. This isn't a loony question: in ''Mort'', Susan's mother Ysabell was sixteen years old, and had been (thanks to the timeless state of Death's residence) for thirty-five years.
60	** When the Band With Rocks visits Sto Lat as part of their tour, [[spoiler:[[Literature/{{Mort}} Queen Keli]]]] is briefly referenced.
61	** While pondering on the meaning of the phrase "kick some righteous ass", [[LiteralMinded Ridcully]] recalls [[Literature/SmallGods The Most Holy St Bobby]], an Omnian donkey who was made a bishop for carrying a prophet through the desert.
62	* CoolShades: Cliff wears them. In the AnimatedAdaptation he never takes them off.
63	* CreativeSterility: This is how Death beats the Music at the end -- it's previously been established that he has no grasp of music despite trying to play the banjo and organ, and now it's explained why: [[spoiler:since he's Death, the only chord he can play is the one that is the musical equivalent of mathematical zero, the 'empty chord' that will bring the whole rhythm of the universe to an end unless the Music revives Buddy to play on]]. Susan herself admits she's not very musical when speaking with a Valkyrie, suggesting she may have inherited a bit of this trait. Which explains why [[spoiler:nobody suggested ''she'' play the guitar to avert the universe's end.]]
64	* DeadArtistsAreBetter: The Music's view of things.
65	--> ''You will live forever. They will say you never died.''
66	* DeafComposer: {{Discussed}}, as a footnote reflects on why deaf men made some of the music world's greatest treasures:
67	-->"Deafness doesn’t prevent composers hearing the music. It prevents them hearing the distractions."
68	* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment:
69	--> "mumblemumbledon'tseewhymumble," mumbled the Dean
70	* DeusExitMachina: Death. It doesn't take long for the story to resolve itself once he's done soul-searching.
71	* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Buddy's behaviour when the Music takes him over is ''a lot'' like a musician on drugs.
72	* DumbAndDrummer: Averted with Cliff, who's not too stupid, and played straight with Scum.
73	* DreadfulMusician / GarageBand: Crash, Noddy, Jimbo and Scum and their ever-changing band names.
74	* EarlyBirdCameo:
75	** We see Ponder and Adrian working on the early prototype of what will become the MagicalComputer Hex in the next book, ''Literature/InterestingTimes''. It uses a small version of the stone circle computers seen in ''Literature/TheLightFantastic'' and also ants, as seen in later books ("it may work, if we can get all the bugs into it").
76	** Cliff and Glod make a brief mention of a Golem called [[Literature/FeetOfClay Dorfl]]. With an early TitleDrop, too!
77	** Proposing places to send The Band on future tours, Dibbler lists the Counterweight Continent, saying that "they're talking about discovering it again real soon now". The next book, ''Literature/InterestingTimes'', is set there.
78	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
79	** There's a brief mention of Dorfl the golem (who will make his first proper appearance in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' and become a recurring character). Glod, who has apparently been buying sausages from him for years, is astonished to learn he's a golem. While some versions of the golem legend have them taking on human appearance while active, Dorfl will later be established to look like a very obvious clay statue with glowing red eyes, meaning either this was retconned or Glod is extremely unobservant. Cliff also states that Dorfl's holy word is carved on his head; his later appearances have it written on a chem, which is kept ''inside'' his head.
80	** Princess Gloria Thogsdaughter attends an all-girls school and openly identifies, presents and is addressed as female; in ''Literature/FeetOfClay'' it's a really big deal that Cheery choses to start doing as such. (Then again, considering Gloria's parents sent her to a ''human'' school, it might just be that they're incredibly liberal and progressive.)
81	* EarWorm: The Music With Rocks In isn't just addictive, it's ''contagious''.
82	* ElvishPresley: A recurring gag for Buddy, everyone notes that he looks elvish.
83	* EvenEvilHasStandards: Satchelmouth, a Musicians' Guild enforcer, has done the finger foxtrot and the skull fandango, but is repelled by the idea of actually killing someone. At least, on purpose.
84	* ExactWords: Imp's carelessness with verb tense was just asking for trouble:
85	--> "One day soon ''everyone'' will say I was the greatest musician in the world!"
86	* FantasyCounterpartCulture: Llamedos is Wales turned up to the extreme. It ''never'' stops raining. ("It has rain mines!")
87	* FiveSecondForeshadowing: Glod and Cliff can't see Susan when Buddy can. [[spoiler:They see her in the climax, minutes before they all realise that the band died in the cart crash.]]
88	* ForbiddenFruit:
89	** A noted trend with the girls at Susan's school is that, on being told very emphatically by their teacher about things they shouldn't do, and like all teenagers everywhere they decide they'd like to experience these things in large quantities.
90	** While sitting in the Musician Guild's lobby, Imp sees a sign sternly thanking people for not smoking, and suddenly Imp has a strong desire to start doing just that.
91	* {{Foreshadowing}}:
92	** Subtle enough that it's easy to miss. But asides early in the text talk about the Listening Monks, who have discerned what the words spoken by the Creator were just before he made the universe -- "One, Two, One Two Three Four..." --, which might ''appear'' to be just a thematic gag to go with the musical theme, save for the fact that Buddy's guitar has a single stroke of chalk on it. A single stroke, when every other musical instrument in the shop has a number on it, the order in which they were acquired...
93	** The first version of the studs/sequins on the Dean's leather jacket spell out the misspelt phrase "Live Fats Die Yognu". Written properly, this becomes [[spoiler: "Live Fast Die Young" -- which is not only an actual trope associated with rock and roll stars, but also ''exactly'' what the Guitar intends to happen to Buddy in order to cement him as the greatest musician in the world]].
94	* FreeWheel: {{Lampshaded}} in the description of the crash that kills Susan's parents.
95	--> Then the oil from the coach lamps ignites and there is a second explosion, out of which rolls -- because there are certain conventions, even in tragedy -- a burning wheel.
96	* GenerationXerox: If not for the Music’s intervention, Susan would have saved Imp from being killed, setting off the same chain of events as Mort did. It’s very lightly implied that she feels compelled to save him because she’s remembering what her father did.
97	* GenreSavvy:
98	** The Librarian quits the band the moment Dibbler gets involved.
99	** Glod is too savvy to be fooled by UU students into calling the Librarian [[BerserkButton the M-word]]. He turns it around on them.
100	* GiftedlyBad: Glod repeatedly manages to haggle prices and wages to be ''worse'' than the initial offer. Being a dwarf, he believes haggling is in his blood and does it at every opportunity. The results never discourage him, while even Cliff wisens up to stop him when he tries.
101	* GoneHorriblyRight: The school Susan goes to was founded on the belief that girls, not having anything to do until they got married, could at least spend that time being educated. Turns out giving them fresh air, healthy exercise and a good knowledge of trigonometry makes them especially apt at getting over the very high walls.
102	* GreatBallsOfFire: A wannabe Music With Rocks In star known as Crash tries to form a band with his friends, but one of their many problems is that Crash is more concerned with style over substance. This compounds their other major problem, which is the fact that [[DreadfulMusician they stink on ice.]]
103	* TheGrimReaper: Naturally.
104	* GroinAttack: Binky has good aim with a kick, which is why he isn't stolen when Susan leaves him in an Ankh-Morpork alley.
105	* GroupieBrigade: Acknowledged. Glod worries if the crowd will tear off Buddy's clothes.
106	* HellBentForLeather: The Dean gets a leather jacket with "Born To Rune" on the back. (No, he doesn't know what it means either, it just seemed appropriate.) It comes back in some later books, usually when the Wizards are going to war against something major.
107	* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: Colon and Nobby debate if this applies to Death when they argue over whether he has a first name.
108	* HumanResources: Lias/Cliff pays most of the Band's expenses by knocking out and trading away his own diamond teeth (another ShoutOut: shine on, you crazy diamond....)
109	* HurricaneOfPuns: The book is half homage to the birth of Rock n Roll, half an excuse to come up with as many Discworld-themed puns on every band name in existence.
110	* InnocentlyInsensitive: When [[OurTrollsAreDifferent Cliff]] (still going by Lias at the time) suspiciously asks Buddy if he's elvish and a druid[[note]]Trolls hate druids because druids drag stones for long distances to build stone circles, which sometimes results in essentially kidnapping sleeping trolls, and trolls (and dwarves) homicidally hate elves [[TheFairFolk because they can see elves for the evil bastards they really are]].[[/note]] Buddy's frantic denials include the sentence "I hate rocks!" Long-time readers know that 'rock' is a derogatory slur for trolls in the series, and saying it to a troll usually results in trying to find your head. Fortunately, Cliff is a NiceGuy who correctly parses the context, and merely informs Buddy of his error and advises him not to do it again.
111	* ISophagus: Mentioned. Some kid with a penny-whistle played without the Guild's consent. He now plays a scale every time he hiccups.
112	* ItTastesLikeFeet: Ridcully says that Crash's attempt at playing an electric guitar sounds ''exactly'' like a cat taking a crap with a sewn-up bum, much to Ponder's alarm.
113	* JumpingOffTheSlipperySlope: Mr. Clete just starts out as an ObstructiveBureaucrat, who wants to stop The Band from performing music without a Guild license. Over the course of the novel, as The Band becomes more and more famous, he becomes increasingly obsessed with them, seeing their popularity as a threat to the entire Musicians Guild, and attempts several times to have them killed. He eventually loses it completely, leading to his own death.
114	* KilledOffForReal: Mort and Ysabell. The question of why their deaths stick, even though -- or ''especially because'' -- they are part of Death's family, is addressed.
115	* LamarckWasRight: Susan has several of Death's abilities, such as the ability to become invisible; despite the fact that she is only Death's granddaughter by adoption, and some of those abilities shouldn't be inheritable anyway. Death points out that this is probably the result of MorphicResonance rather than heredity.
116	* LamePunReaction: The fat guard reacts this way to Nobby's "harp-lyre" joke.
117	-->'''Sergeant Colon:''' You've just been waiting all your life to say that, ain't you Nobby. I bet you was born hoping that one day someone'd say 'That's a harp' so you could say 'lyre', on account of it being a pun or play on words. Well, har har.
118	* LazilyGenderFlippedName: There's a mention of a student at the girls' school Susan attends being named "Nigella", which apparently means "Oops, we wanted a boy."
119	* LegionOfLostSouls: The Klatchian Foreign Legion.
120	* LiteralMinded: The Archchancellor doesn't understand the phrase "to kick some righteous ass" and wonders where he can find a donkey.
121	* TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday: Buddy's guitar is bought from a little shop that Glod is certain wasn't there last time he was in the neighborhood, which sells magical and mythic musical instruments. Played with: when Glod goes back to look for the shop again later, he's sure it will have disappeared, and he seems to be right until he realizes that it's on the other side of the street from where he was looking for it. This is promptly ZigZagged further when, after he and Cliff leave (Cliff mentioning Glod's mistake to the shopkeeper on the way out the door), the old woman moves the store back across to the other side of the street again.
122	* {{Magitek}}: We get our first glimpse of what will, in later books, become Hex.
123	* MedievalStasis: This is the last book to really use the plot that an alien element threatens to break the Disc's stasis but is then subject to ResetButton. Notably the Patrician mentions it in ''Literature/TheTruth'' in a rare case of being WrongGenreSavvy.
124	* MetaphorIsMyMiddleName:
125	-->'''Glod''': I'm a dwarf. We know about money. Knowing about money is practically my middle name.\
126	'''Lias''': That's a long middle name.
127	* MistakenEthnicity: A fantastic example: On arriving in Ankh-Morpork and seeking a career as a musician, the bard Imp Y Celyn is accosted by the dwarf and the troll who will later become his bandmates and is invited to prove he's not Elvish. Imp is completely human; he just has a rather fey delicate turn of features that makes him look like an Elf, a species loathed and despised by Troll and Dwarf alike.
128	* MoodWhiplash: The same page with a funny moment involving Glod and the band's '''[++FIVE THOUSAND D++]'''--''mmfmmf'' leads into [[spoiler: the spirit of Music making the final parallel between Buddy and real rockstars: Live Fast, Die Young.]]
129	* MookFaceTurn: Satchelmouth eventually gets tired of Clete's obsession with stopping The Band (particularly when he starts to go as far as trying to ''murder'' them) and admits that he actually ''likes'' their music.
130	* MustHaveCaffeine: The Music-influenced wizards become fixated on, not just coffee, but ''frothy'' coffee. This plus overenthusiastic magic results in an entire coffee shop filling up with bubbles.
131	* MyLittlePhony: Susan gets a "My Little Binky" toy for her third birthday from her grandfather, modelled after his pale horse, Binky. His parents return it, fearing that it will make her a less "normal" child.
132	* NecessarilyEvil: Mr. Clete is not, in as many words, an evil person. He's just the logical result of having organised guilds everywhere. Without him, the Musician's Guild would just be a bunch of broke musicians who never pay their fees.
133	* NiceJobBreakingItHero:
134	** Cliff accidentally sits on Imp's harp; if not for that, they would never have found the guitar that starts the story.
135	** Susan's parents raising her to be entirely rational trips her up when they die, DeathTakesAHoliday, and Susan finds herself unprepared to handle the responsibility.
136	* NoodleImplements: Glod is warned about messing with one of the instruments in TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday. "If you blow that, you'd better have a [[VirginSacrifice sacrificial virgin]] and a big cauldron of breadfruit and turtle meat standing by."
137	* NoodleIncident: "The Unfortunate Incident At Dinner" that resulted in the Bursar of [=UU=] being provided wooden eating utensils instead of metal ones. [[spoiler:It's actually a CallBack to ''Literature/ReaperMan'' when the Bursar witnessed the revived Windle Poons walk past. He was so terrified, ''he bit through his spoon.'' At least we ''assume'' that's it, a lot of strange things happen at Unseen University.]]
138	* OnlySaneMan:
139	** Ridcully and Ponder are the only ones of the wizards not affected by the Music. He is happy to find Susan.
140	** For the Band with Rocks in, Glod is by far the one with the most common sense... not that this is saying a whole lot.
141	* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Imp playing "Sioni Bod Da" is so moving that for a brief moment it makes CMOT Dibbler consider that there are some things in the world that should not be bought and sold for money.
142	* OutlivingOnesOffspring:
143	** Death outlives his adopted daughter and son-in-law. He knew it was going to happen, and he offered them immortality, but they preferred to live out their lives. The grief catches him by surprise and causes him to undergo HeroicBSOD.
144	** [[spoiler:Buddy dies in the timeline where he becomes a huge star, like he promised his father.]]
145	* OverlyPrepreparedGag: One could be forgiven, on finishing the book, for thinking that it was all a ploy for Pterry to make the following joke:
146	--> [[Music/KirstyMaccoll "There's a new boy working at the fried fish stall, and I could swear he was Elvish!"]]
147	* PapaWolf: It's implied that part of the reason Death takes on the Music in the climax is because [[spoiler:the Music killed Buddy, and made Susan upset]].
148	* ThePeteBest: In-universe, some of the characters say that this will be the fate of the Librarian, who plays the piano with the Band for one gig before quitting.
149	* PetHeir: One of Susan's first "customers" as acting Death is a grumpy old man who leaves his fortune to his cat instead of his ungrateful, parasitic relatives. Of course, he hates the cat too, so he doesn't set it up with any kind of protection from said relatives.
150	* PickedLast: Susan is always picked last despite her very patiently telling everyone what a great player she is and how much sense it would make for them to pick her (and actually being ''right'') and how ''stupid'' they're being. She can't quite figure out [[InsufferableGenius why they don't catch on]].
151	* PointOfDivergence: Death reveals that [[spoiler:if Buddy had gone to a different city, he wouldn't have become a famous musician and died young. In the alternate timeline, he sends Buddy to a fish shop in another city, where Buddy is happier.]]
152	* ThePowerOfRock: The entire book revolves around a ''literal'' example- Music With Rocks In is a living force of creation which takes Buddy as its host.
153	* PropheticNames: [[spoiler: Buddy, who, like his Roundworld namesake, lives fast, creates rock and roll, and dies young.]]
154	* {{Pun}}: Pratchett is an undisputed PungeonMaster, and in no Discworld book is that more apparent than this one, almost to the level of a Literature/{{Xanth}} book. Every opportunity is taken to make puns based on Roundworld genres, or songs, or lyrics, or musicians. One of the best/worst, bordering on a {{Feghoot}}, is when Glod spins a tale of history's greatest horn player, Brother Charnel, who stole gold from the gods to make his trumpet - which is a setup for Buddy to call Charnel a [[Music/TheloniousMonk felonious monk]].
155	* PunctualityIsForPeasants: Dibbler thinks this is happening after the Band With Rocks In doesn't go back onstage for their encore (having taken the money owed them and escaped). When it becomes clear they aren't coming back, he puts a stupefyingly bad GarageBand on instead. The crowd riots and tears the stage apart.
156	* RedemptionEarnsLife: After Satchelmouth stands up to the manic Mr. Clete and declares that he likes The Band's music, a furious Clete shoves him off the wagon they're using to pursue The Band... which saves Satchelmouth from sharing Clete's fate when the wagon goes off the road and into a ravine.
157	* RelievingTheReaper: Death goes missing in this book and Susan, his granddaughter though his adopted daughter, ends up needing to sub for grandpa.
158	* TheRoadie: Asphalt, the troll who carries the Band's equipment.
159	* RockersSmashGuitars:
160	** Noddy smashes his guitar ''on Scum''. This is the only moment in their careers when any aspect of their performance wins the approval of an audience.
161	** Death, of course, smashes ''the'' guitar at the end. While he can't actually play music on it, he does strike a very rocker-like pose before playing the "empty chord".
162	* RuleOfCool: ''Seriously!'' Death is about to bring down a pick made of his shattered scythe on a magical, sentient guitar that may or may not be the host of an EldritchAbomination. This should probably give a clear sign that this is ''coolness in book form''.
163	* RunningGag: Glod constantly redecorating the rooms he stays in.
164	* SavingTheWorldWithArt: Inverted when Death plays the "empty chord" that sets the end of the universe in motion. Then played straight when the Music spares Imp so he can play the chord that ''started'' the universe again, preserving it.
165	* ScrewTheRulesImDoingWhatsRight: Subverted when Susan decides that if she's going to be Death's replacement, she is going to spend it saving people from dying that deserve a longer life. [[spoiler:Buddy and the band dies in the original timeline, and Death mentions that he doesn't decide who lives who dies, and if he tries, reality has to spend a lot of time repairing itself.]]
166	* SdrawkcabName: Llamedos is a reference to Llarregub from ''Theatre/UnderMilkWood'' -- Sod-'em-all and Bugger-all backwards respectively.
167	* SexDrugsAndRockAndRoll:
168	** Spoofed right at the very beginning. There's no drugs, and the closest to sex is a brief tangent about groupies and hints of Susan having a thing for Buddy. But there's plenty of Music with Rocks In It, and thirty-three percent's not bad.
169	** Glod has an inversion of the [[TrashTheSet rock stars wrecking their hotel room]] trope: he decorates every place the band stays in.
170	** Gets a spectacular payoff at the end, when Jimbo realizes he has finally had the authentic experience of Music With Rocks In: "But next time, thanks all the same, I'd rather try sex 'n drugs."
171	* SexMiseducationClass: Susan Sto Helit attends an all-girls finishing school where the subject of puberty and sex education is so badly handled the girls "left the class with the vague idea that they were supposed to marry a rabbit".
172	* ShapedLikeItself: "You can't see the infinite. 'Cos it's infinite."
173	* ShoutOut[=/=]HurricaneOfPuns:
174	** As with ''Literature/MovingPictures'', an enormous number, particularly band names We're Certainly Dwarfs for Music/TheyMightBeGiants, Insanity for Music/{{Madness\|Band}}, Surreptitious Fabric for the Music/VelvetUnderground, The Whom for Music/TheWho, Suck for Music/{{KISS}}, Lead Balloon for Music/LedZeppelin, &U for Music/{{U2}}, and so on. One band in particular goes through about a half dozen of these, while also missing one of the greatest potential band names of all time, when a member mentions that [[Music/TheRollingStonesBand "a rolling stone gathers no moss"]].
175	*** The German and Hungarian translations were more than happy to put in a nod to that band: The title of the book is "Rollende Steine" and "Gördülő kövek" in German and Hungarian, respectively, both meaning... rolling stones.
176	** The AnimatedAdaptation features a FreezeFrameBonus of a list of crossed-out names rejected by the same band, including the Velvet Underpants, the Rolling Stoats, and Bunny and the Echoboys. The name they go on-stage at the Cavern with? [[spoiler:The Socks Pastels.]]
177	** Buddy's group is often referred to as Music/TheBand, and its troll member takes the stage name [[Music/CliffRichard Cliff]].
178	** The songs by the band are referring to classic rock songs: "Don’t Tread On My New Blue Boots" for "Blue Suede Shoes" by Carl Perkins, also a hit for Elvis; "Good Gracious Miss Polly" for "Good Golly, Miss Molly" by Music/LittleRichard; "Sto Helit Lace" for "Chantilly Lace" by Music/TheBigBopper; "There’s A Great Deal Of Shaking Happening" for "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" by Music/JerryLeeLewis.
179	** ''Film/TheBluesBrothers'':
180	*** "He can't stop us. We're on a mission from Glod."
181	*** Another Blues Brothers reference is mixed with an ''Film/ANightAtTheOpera'' ShoutOut at the diner scene: Glod continually orders "four fried rats," and Cliff is insisting that he would like some coke (as in treated coal). Imp adds a slice of dwarf bread, and eventually throws in "a hard-boiled egg."
182	*** When Glod and Cliff go to the music shop: "Are you the Watch?" "No, ma'am. We're musicians."
183	*** And there's one more when Mr. Clete is at the festival. "There's a hot dog seller over there. Anyone else fancy a hot dog? Hot dog? Hot dog? Right, that's three hot d-"
184	** In the AnimatedAdaptation, Buddy manages to hit the BerserkButton of the entire city of Quirm (FantasyCounterpartCulture of France) by saying "[[Music/TheBeatles We're more popular than cheeses.]]"
185	** Also in the AnimatedAdaptation, after Susan is summoned to the University by Ridcully and are served the burgers, Ridcully tells the three female servers/chefs of the University off for not bringing him a "proper breakfast" -- not knowing what a burger is, he calls it "some sort of beef patty -- ugh, and you've ''fried'' it!" The servers, who had gone to the concert the night before and are dressed in matching pastel-colored [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poodle_skirt poodle skirts]], respond by singing "[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_My_Party_(Lesley_Gore_song) It's my patty and I'll fry if I want to, fry if I want to, fry if I want to!]]" before giggling and running off.
186	** The dwarves and trolls don't get along, but they share a tradition of hole music.
187	** And then there's the Dean's trousers, which will not be named after the Archchancellor...
188	** Speaking of the Dean's clothing, there's an incredibly subtle but allegedly deliberate ShoutOut when Death asks to borrow his coat. Or, to put it another way, it's "[[Music/DonMcLean A coat he borrowed from [the] Dean]]". And he 'borrows' it by striding in and informing him '''"[[Film/TheTerminator I need your clothes.]]"''' And the coat itself reads [[Music/BruceSpringsteen Born to Rune]].
189	** Pterry even managed to ShoutOut to ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' and ''ComicStrip/TheFarSide''! One of the wizards reads books of cartoons of cows and dogs....
190	** [[Music/TheGratefulDead The grateful Death]].
191	** At one point, the Dean was referred to as a "[[Film/RebelWithoutACause rebel without a pause]]".
192	** Once the guitar maker discovers that his guitars are selling like hotcakes, he orders his assistant to hire a troll as a guard, and to make sure that no one comes into his store to try to play "Pathway to Paradise". Not only did Pratchett give a shout out to "Stairway to Heaven", he even brought up the fact that it's the number 1 song that non-musical people will try to play when they enter a guitar store. Not to mention it also references that scene in ''Film/WaynesWorld''.
193	** ''"You can't break somebody's wall down just to make music!"'' - [[Music/PinkFloyd it don't need no education to see what this alludes to]].
194	** The BilingualBonus points out that Imp y Celyn, AKA Buddy Celyn [[spoiler: = Music/BuddyHolly.]]
195	** At the very start it's mentioned that if the Gods want to destroy someone, they hand him "[[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes the equivalent of a stick with a fizzing fuse and]] [[AcmeProducts Acme Dynamite Company]] written on the side."
196	** The constant questions about whether Imp is elvish. Remove the H and you have "are you sure you aren't Elvis?"
197	** Also punning on Kirsty [=MacColl=]'s 1981 UK hit single "There's A Guy Works Down The Chip Shop Swears He's Elvis".
198	** Susan is mentioned to have got a [[Franchise/MyLittlePony My Little Binky]] set on her third birthday.
199	** The [[TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday music shop]] owner warns Glod not to try out a flute, or they'll be "knee deep in rats". Presumably, it's the one used by (the Disc's equivalent of) Literature/ThePiedPiperOfHamelin.
200	** The Librarian is playing [[VideoGame/SpaceInvaders Barbarian Invaders]].
201	** A small dog stops to listen to one of Dibbler's sound-capture boxes, in reference to the dog-and-gramophone painting "[[Creator/HisMastersVoiceRecords His Master's Voice]]", from which British media-outlet HMV gets its name and logo.
202	** According to Glod, the legendary Brother Charnel stole gold from the gods to make a magical trumpet, which means the world's greatest horn player was a felonious monk - Music/TheloniousMonk. (That one borders on a {{stealth\|Pun}} {{feghoot}}.)
203	** The opening says this is a book about sex, drugs, and Music With Rocks In--then adds "one out of three ain't bad," as a shout out to Music/MeatLoaf, who also receives a shout out to the ''Music/BatOutOfHell'' album on the cover.
204	** Because a book called ''Soul Music'' ought to have at least one genuine {{Soul}} Music reference, Susan -- as in Music/SamCooke's "Wonderful World" -- don't know much about history.
205	** Susan shows an assassin his hourglass and tells him '''"This is your life."''', which is the title of a biographical TV documentary series.
206	** Dead Man's Curve is, itself, a song title from 1964.
207	** Crawling out of the stage's wreckage, Crash and his pals drop a reference to the "This Is Your Brain On Drugs" PSA.
208	** Musician's Guild enforcer [[Music/LouisArmstrong Satchelmouth]] Lemon (the last name evokes Blind Lemon Jefferson as well).
209	** The description of the swing Death made for Susan resembles the original [[http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/475752-tree-swing-cartoon-parodies "tree swing" cartoon]], first published in the 1973 newsletter for the University of London Computer Centre.
210	** [[Literature/TheRaven Quoth, the Raven]], who [[Literature/TheRaven refuses to say the N-word]].
211	** The lines "It will never die. It's here to stay" are a fairly blatant shout-out to the opening lines of the song ''Rock 'N Roll Is Here To Stay''.
212	** Death's declaration '''"I remember everything ... As if it only happened yesterday."''' are the opening lines of Music/JimSteinman's spoken track "Love and Death and an American Guitar" from his album ''Bad For Good'' (which was later repurposed on Music/MeatLoaf's ''Bat Out of Hell II'' as "Wasted Youth").
213	** The name of guitar-maker Blert Wheedown references real-life British guitarist [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Weedon Bert Weedon]], and his apprentice is named [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibson Gibbsson]].
214	** "It had a beat and you could dance to it" paraphrases an expression popularized by ''Series/AmericanBandstand''.
215	** (Almost) the whole hurricane of puns is gleefully cataloged '''[[http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Book:Soul_Music/Annotations here]]''' by fans. Even now, more are emerging from the text... Creator/WaltDisney, the ''Film/CarryOn'' movie genre, even a plausible Music/BlueOysterCult reference over and above the obligatory "Don't Fear the Reaper..."
216	* SoulJar: Albert's hourglass/beer bottle.
217	* StealthPun:
218	** Scum, one of the members with Crash's band is assigned to get leopard-skin trousers. He manages to buy a live leopard, which was cheap, [[Music/DefLeppard because it has hearing problems]].
219	** [[Music/DonMcLean Before he goes to kill the music, Death borrows a coat from the Dean.]]
220	** The troll that Dibbler assigns to move The Band's equipment is named Asphalt. As in road surface. Making him ''a roadie''.
221	* {{Sting}}: The raven ''tries'' to verbally invoke this trope when revealing to Susan that her grandfather is (Dah-dah-dah-DAH!) Death, but the Death of Rats keeps interrupting.
222	* SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic: The Rite of [=AshkEnte=], which in previous books was mentioned to have been refined through research to no longer needing a living sacrifice but only 3 bits of wood and 4 cc of mouse blood, has now been refined even further so Ridcully can do it with 2 bits of wood and an egg. [[RunningGag "It has to be a fresh egg, though"]].
223	* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: While the wizards are discussing potential places to look at with a crystal ball:
224	-->'''Senior Wrangler''': How about the Skunk Club in Brewer Street?\
225	'''Bursar''': Why?\
226	'''Senior Wrangler''': Just a thought. I've never been in there at all in any way, you understand.
227	* TakeThat: Pterry apparently didn't think much of rap, "I'm mean and tuff and I'm mean and tuff and I'm mean and tuff and I'm mean and tuff and me and my friends can walk towards you with our hats on backwards in a menacing way. Yo!"
228	** Death's speech to Susan about how the idea of everyone having their own story is wishful thinking and most people are really nothing more than dumb animals reads a lot like a refutation of the CentralTheme of ''Literature/GoodOmens'' coauthor Creator/NeilGaiman's ''[[ComicBook/TheSandman The Doll's House]]''. On the other hand, there's no real indication we're intended to ''agree'' with him; Susan certainly doesn't, and the implication seems to be that this is just the grief talking.
229	* TechnicianVersusPerformer: Discussed between Glod and Buddy. Buddy sees his role as becoming a star, feeling the allure of fame and fortune through performing for adoring crowds. Glod sees his role as being a gig worker, an unpretentious job requiring good craft for a steady paycheck. Each finds the other's view confusing, although somewhat understandable.
230	* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodSandwich: Ridcully protests when Susan leaves without eating breakfast, which consists of hamburgers. She retorts that she got a good look at it.
231	* TomSwifty: It's used in combination with a ShoutOut to [[RockAndRoll Music with Rocks In]] --"Thank you", said the [[RedundancyDepartmentOfRedundancy grateful Death]].
232	* TookALevelInKindness: Death is a pretty decent guy, but he's a stickler for rules. When Mort accidentally saved a person's life and then vowed to keep them alive, Death got angry and battled him for it. Mort's daughter Susan tries to do the same thing when she's volunteered for the Grim Reaper job; Death manages to wrangle events so that [[spoiler:Imp lives, and he understands why Susan was trying to change Imp's fate]].
233	* UnderlingWithAnFInPR: Ridcully and Stibbons are trying to study the "music with rocks in" phenomenon, which they do by trapping the music in a box. Unfortunately, Cut-Me-Own-Throat Dibbler (the biggest and least successful conman on the Disc) sees them, and Stibbons starts explaining what they're doing "with the undirected excitement of the true discoverer and idiot", despite Ridcully stomping repeatedly on his foot.
234	--> '''Ridcully:''' Never give a monkey the key to the banana plantation.
235	:: Sure enough, Dibbler is next seen trying to replicate the wizards' experiment, but since he's using a crappy GarageBand instead of the actual rock players the results are disappointing.
236	* UnusuallyUninterestingSight: At one point, Dibbler is standing outside the Cavern, thinking of how to make profit out of the free concert. Up comes Susan, in full regalia, scythe and horse, and asks him how to get in. He says quickly that all the tickets are sold out. Susan, then, walks through a wall, while Dibbler calculates. It earns no more thought from him than a passing "... where's she gone, then?" And again, somebody breaks through a [[Music/PinkFloyd Wall]] in the service of Music....
237	* {{Valkyries}}: Susan meets several while reaping a field of slain warriors. They offer her a spot on the team (they could use a soprano), but she declines.
238	* WeirdnessCensor:
239	** As usual, Death and Susan get to take advantage of the fact that anything that doesn't fit into what people consider "normal" (such as Death walking among them) is actively ignored.
240	** A group of musicians hide themselves in a piano and walk out the front door in full view of a Watchman saying they, as a piano, are on break.
241	* WelcomeToTheBigCity: As buskers do, Imp puts a few coins in his bowl as "seed money". The next time he looks down, the bowl's gone.
242	* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: The fate of Glod, Cliff and Asphalt is left even more ambiguous than that of Imp.
243	* WhereItAllBegan: Susan travels back in time to watch her parents' fatal coach accident from the prologue of the book. [[spoiler:Then, in the end, all the principal characters end up on that road as the Band's cart is about to go over the side of the road in the same spot.]]
244	* WorldOfPun: For example:
245	** Quoth the Raven, on why he wanted to come to a battlefield: "Carrion regardless".
246	** The Archchancellor calling music "a world of hertz".
247	* XanatosGambit: Glod's ploy at the Library qualifies, as he approaches some students and asks them where to find the monkey who works there. Had the students been genuinely helpful, they'd have escorted him in with a warning that "monkey" is the Librarian's BerserkButton; as it was, they urged him to call the Librarian "Mr. Monkey" in hope of stirring up trouble for Glod. So he told the ape that the ''students'' had called him a monkey, and still got to meet with the orangutan after the resulting unpleasantness.
248	* XtremeKoolLetterz: A troll band [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin calls itself "Trolls"]]. Dibbler tells them to spell it with a Z.
249	* YouCantFightFate: Even if you are Death, you can't stop people from dying without huge consequences. [[spoiler:Susan fails to save the Band with Rocks from dying in the original timeline, though Death manages to find a solution.]]
250	* YouCannotKillAnIdea: At the end, after Death has smashed the guitar:
251	-->Somewhere, in some other world far away from the Discworld, someone tentatively picked up a musical instrument that echoed to the rhythm in their soul.\
252	It will never die.\
253	It's here to stay.
254
255	!!The animated adaptation provides examples of the following tropes:
256	* AdaptedOut: Vetinari, who has a small role in the book, does not appear in the AnimatedAdaptation. A few more minor characters are also dropped.
257	* AdaptationDistillation: In terms of handling Susan and Death's grief, the adaptation makes it more blatant that Susan is going through the FiveStagesOfGrief, while writing actual songs for Buddy. While Susan grieved at the end of the book, in the adaptation she breaks down in the middle when [[spoiler:watching her parents die and Death claiming he can't do a thing about it.]]
258	* AdaptationalNiceGuy: A slight, but still noticeable case with Susan. She has most of the same character beats and dialogue, and still has a deadpan, emotionally distant attitude -- but she comes across as a little friendlier and much less haughty and disdainful of others. Partly this has to do with how, in the adaptation, we don't actually get the scornful inner dialogue she provides so much of in the book, but it's partly also because the plot has been streamlined a little and a few of her more {{Jerkass}} moments and dialogue have been cut.
259	* AdaptationalRelationshipChange: Gloria Thogsdaughter and Princess Jade make fun of Susan, rather than being her only actual friends.
260	* AnswerSong: The song "She Won't Change Her Mind" is an answer to Music/TheBeatles song "You're Going to Lose That Girl".
261	* BigNo: Susan, when Buddy almost dies.
262	* CanisLatinicus: The series shows Ridcully performing the Rite of [=AshkEnte=] on camera and invents ritual words of this type for it.
263	* ComicBookFantasyCasting:
264	** The witch who owns TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday is based on Auntie Wainwright the terrifying shopkeeper from ''Series/LastOfTheSummerWine''.
265	** CMOT Dibbler resembles the spiv Private Walker from ''Series/DadsArmy''.
266	** Hrolf Hrolfsssonssonsson the BarbarianHero is TheAhnold.
267	** Apprentice Assassin Miguel Portiyo is clearly modelled on the UK politician Michael Portillo.
268	** Crysophrase the Breccia ton is Don Corleone from ''Film/TheGodfather'' as a troll.
269	* CompositeCharacter:
270	** The three wizard students helping Ponder are combined into one single student who gets their combined lines, the appearance of Skazz and the name of "Big Mad Drongo" Adrian Turnipseed. This is the basis for a joke where Ridcully, upon first meeting Big Mad Drongo, angrily demands "Who let a student into my University?!" before changing his mind and deciding "I suppose ''one'' student won't be too much of a problem."
271	** By being portrayed making fun of Susan, Gloria Thogsdaughter and Princess Jade essentially replace Cassandra Fox and Lady Sara Grateful.
272	* DesperateObjectCatch: Susan doesn't just pull out an Assassin's lifetimer and show it to him, she ''tosses'' it in front of him and he has to catch it or die if it shatters.
273	* FiveStagesOfGrief:
274	** Death is way past denial, anger and bargaining. He tried to keep Ysabel in his realm, combining bargaining and denial but she and Mort refused. He's spent his anger on Mort for "seducing" Ysabel. In the middle of depression, he wanders onto the Disc in hopes of forgetting his memories.
275	** Susan in the meantime remains in denial. She doesn't deny that her parents are dead, but she's too emotionally withdrawn to cope. Then she denies the talking raven and Death of Rats, and walking through walls. Doing the Reaper's job makes her more prone to anger and bargaining, where like her father she questions why death has to happen to the young and the good. Finally she breaks down when she travels back to her parents' death, and talks to her grandfather. By the end of the adaptation, after [[spoiler:Death manages to save the Band with Rocks, she's able to accept what has happened.]]
276	* GetAHoldOfYourselfMan: Death of Rats helps Death snap out of his malaise by climbing up to his face and punching it hard enough to knock him onto his ass. Somehow.
277	* MaybeEverAfter: Instead of sending him to a fish shop, [[spoiler:Death arranges that in the alternate timeline Buddy/Imp works as a gardener at Susan's school. Her classmate teases her for spying on him]].
278	* NamedByTheAdaptation: Lord Selachii's fellow assassin is named Miguel Portiyo.
279	* OnceMoreWithClarity:
280	** Susan has a brief flashback of herself playing with a swing as a child and then as a teenager. She finds the swing in Death's realm, and why it was otherworldly.
281	** The flashback to the Sto Lit couple's death's shows Susan there as well, arriving a few minutes too late to save her parents, only to watch them burn.
282	* WeAreNotGoingThroughThatAgain: After she rewatches her parents' death, Susan vows to save Buddy because he's too young to die, and she has the power to save him. [[spoiler:She fails, but Death manages to step in]].
283	* WizardWorkshop: Quoth the Raven says that dribbly candles, "[[TechnicolorScience bubbling green stuff in bottles]]" and "[[ApothecaryAlligator the old stuffed alligator hanging from the ceiling]]" are key parts of wizardry. He scornfully adds that the wizards "get it all out of a catalogue. Believe me, it all comes in a big box."

Context Literature / SoulMusic