Soundtrack for Writing
When I’m writing, songs pop into my head. One of my favorite forms of procrastination entails spending inordinate amounts of time tracking down the tunes and putting together a playlist—sort of like a “soundtrack” for whatever I’m writing. This is helpful, too, for keeping track of the emotional threads running through the story. Certain songs get tied to certain moods, characters, or scenes that I’m working on. Just listening to them helps me find my place again, like opening the page of a book I’m reading to a favorite bookmark I’ve tucked into the pages.
The playlist for The Sweetness of Tears was ridiculously extensive:
1. “The Mission,” Ennio Morricone
2. “On Earth As It Is In Heaven,” Ennio Morricone
3. “Paradise City,” Guns N’ Roses
4. “Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue,” Crystal Gayle
5. “Brown Eyed Girl,” Van Morrison
6. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” Guns N’ Roses
7. “What Am I to You?,” Norah Jones
8. “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” Guns N’ Roses
9. “Love Me Tender,” Elvis Presley
10. “Ya Hussain Ya Hussain” (“Oh Hussain Oh Hussain”), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
11. “Ali Da Malang” (“Disciple of Ali”), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
12. “Dil-e-Nadaan” (“Naïve heart”), Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh (poem by Ghalib)
13. “Boys Don’t Cry,” The Cure
14. “Superman (It’s Not Easy),” Five for Fighting
15. “Hairaan Hua” (“I was shaken”), Abida Parveen
16. “The Long Way Home,” Norah Jones
17. “Where the Streets Have No Name,” U2
18. “People Are Strange,” The Doors
19. “Seven Years,” Norah Jones
20. “Come Away With Me,” Norah Jones
21. “Bohemian Rhapsody,” Queen
22. “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free,” Nina Simone
23. “America the Beautiful,” Buffy Sainte-Marie
24. “I Am a Patriot,” Burns Sisters Band
25. “My Country Tis of Thy People You’re Dying,” Buffy Sainte-Marie
26. “The General,” Dispatch
28. “People Like Me,” K’naan
29. “Wavin’ Flag,” K’naan
30. “Jailhouse Rock,” Elvis Presley
31. “Hound Dog,” Elvis Presley
32. “Don’t Be Cruel,” Elvis Presley
33. “Teddy Bear,” Elvis Presley
34. “Wooden Heart,” Elvis Presley
35. “All Shook Up,” Elvis Presley
36. “Can’t Be Still,” Booker T. & the MG’s
37. “Until It’s Time For You To Go,” Buffy Sainte-Marie
38. “Dil Hi To Hai” (“It’s only a heart”), Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh (poem by Ghalib)
39. “Aree Logo” (“Oh people”), Abida Parveen
40. “Bazeecha-e-atfaal Hai Duniya Mere Aage”
(“The World Before Me Is a Children’s Playground”), Jagjit Singh and Chitra Singh (poem by Ghalib)
41. “I Am a Patriot,” Jackson Browne
42. “Yeh Jafa e Gham ka chara” (“The solution for this oppression of grief”), Abida Parveen (poem by Faiz Ahmed Faiz)
43. “Allah Hoo” (“The Divine is”), Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
44. “Illahi Aansoo bhari Zindagi Kisi Ko na De” (“Lord, please give no one a life full of tears”), Mehdi Hassan
45. “19 Miles to Baghdad,” Lizzie West & the White Buffalo
46. “Ya Ilahi” (“Oh Lord”), Shaam
47. “Universal Soldier,” Buffy Sainte-Marie
48. “Rock the Casbah,” The Clash
49. “Killing an Arab,” The Cure
50. “Rivers of Babylon,” Boney M.
51. “100 Years,” Five for Fighting
In addition, on my playlist was a selection of nohas and marsias, including:
“Shabbir Ka Pursa” (“Condolence for Shabbir”—a title for Husain), recited by Asad Jahan
“Ghabraye Gi Zainab” (“Zainab will be distraught”), recited by Nasir Jahan
“Hussain Hai, Hussain Hai” (“Hussain, alas, Hussain”), recited by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan
“Hussain, Hussain” recited by Noor Jahan
Most of the above nohas and marsias can be heard/seen on youtube.com. The biggest surprise was finding a scratchy old recording of a marsia by Mir Anees, recited by the famous Lata Mangeshkar.
About Nafisa Haji
I was born and mostly raised in Los Angeles, California—“mostly,” because we moved around a lot and spent some time in other countries, too, including Pakistan, the Philippines, and England. I have a habit of bragging that I never spent more than two years in one school, until I taught at one for seven in inner-city Los Angeles. Before my son was born and after I finished my doctorate, my husband and I resumed the Gypsy lifestyle of my childhood, living in Boston and Chicago for a couple of years each before running away from the snow and home to California, this time to the Bay Area, where we are now settled.
I am the eldest in my family, with a brother behind me and a sister who keeps me feeling young because she’s a good number of years younger than I am.
I live with my partner, Ali, who, even better than overlooking my faults, seems to be truly blind to them; with my eleven-year-old son, Khalil, a budding musician, spelling bee champion, and very sweet guy; and my dog, Giovanni, who I had to get to prevent myself from being a smothering mother to my suddenly independent middle-school son—the added bonus with Giovanni is that he loves being cuddled and never talks back.
In between frenzied bouts of research and writing, I am honored to represent the International Association of Sufism as a member of the board at the Marin Interfaith Council, which is a haven for friendship, community, and understanding in a world where faith is too often the source and object of hostility and violence.
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The Writing on My Forehead
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Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“My Friend” from A Tear and a Smile by Kahlil Gibran, translated by H. N. Nahmud, translation copyright © 1950 by the Estate of Kahlil Gibran. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.
Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, translated by Max Hayward and Manya Harari, translation copyright © 1958 by William Collins Sons and Co. Ltd. Copyright © 1958 by Pantheon Books. Used by permission of Pantheon Books, a division of Random House, Inc.
THE SWEETNESS OF TEARS. Copyright © 2011 by Nafisa Haji.
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