Love is in the air…and on our shelves…and in our ears! To celebrate the launch of our new romantic imprint Bramble, we’re giving you the ULTIMATE romantic playlist, lovingly put together by our staff at Tor Publishing Group. Whether you’re wildly in love, hating on your ex, or living the single life, we’ve got a song just for you. Check out the playlist here and let us know what you’re jamming to this week! 💕
Do you have a playlist you listen to for writing inspiration? TJ Klune, author of New York Times bestseller Under the Whispering Door, joins us to discuss the musical inspiration behind the book and the role music plays in his writing. Check it out here and don’t forget to snag Under the Whispering Door, now available in paperback!
By TJ Klune
Music has always played a big role in my writing.
This, of course, comes with a caveat. Because I’m weird like that.
You see, when I’m actually writing, I listen to NPR. Yeah, I know how that sounds, but there is something comforting about the low murmur of voices in the background while I’m typing away.
And when I’m editing, I listen to Christmas music. Not necessarily because I have a great love for it (which I do—I’m of the firm belief that there is nothing wrong with putting up Christmas decorations in September), but because of another reason. When I was editing my first book before publication back in 2010, it was around the holidays and all I listened to was old-fashioned Christmas music, particularly the ones recorded in the 1950s-60s. When that first book came out, it sold pretty well, so I decided the music played a role in that (just go with it—superstitions can be dumb like that). So when I edit any book—no matter what time of year it is—I listen to Christmas music.
But when I’m writing the first draft, deep in the story, I tend to curate playlists for the book that remind me of the story. I listen to those playlists constantly when I’m not writing, something that keeps me focused on the world I’m creating. Most of the time, these soundtracks are just for me, something I put together without necessarily thinking about sharing it. I have shared some before for different books, selecting a few out of dozens and dozens that I think really fit with the heart of the novel.
The same is true for Under the Whispering Door, my upcoming novel about ghosts in a teashop. At its heart, Under the Whispering Door is a story about the tremendous power of grief, about looking back on a life through the lens of death, and realizing the opportunities wasted, the chances missed. It’s about trying to become a better person, and giving your all without the expectation of anything in return. It’s about hope and tea and finding a place in the world, even when your heart no longer beats.
The following playlist took me a long time to make, given I needed to pick out these ten songs from a list of hundreds. But these songs are the best representation of the novel and give you a good idea of the journey to come. Please support the artists by streaming their music or purchasing the songs and/or album. Each song I’ve listed is one I’ve bought because creators deserve to be compensated for their hard work. I’ve also included a lyric or two that I feel speaks to me about my ghosts. I hope your ghosts enjoy them too.
Does anybody know what we are living for?
I guess I’m learning
I must be warmer now
I’ll soon be turning, round the corner now
Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark I’m aching to be free
There’s a moment when you understand
You don’t gotta follow all their plans
It’s time to open up your hands
Don’t leave it up to chance
We can do anything
I’ve been awake in every state line
Dyin’ to make it last us a lifetime
Tryin’ to shake that it’s all on an incline
Find me a way, I’ll be yours in a landslide
If the sky that we look upon should tumble and fall
Or the mountain should crumble to the sea
I won’t cry, I won’t cry
No, I won’t shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me
You can get up on some sunny day and run
Run a hundred miles just for fun now
Heartaches and yesterdays don’t weigh a ton now
You can get up on some sunny day and run
Oh, home, let me come home
Home is whenever I’m with you
Oh, home, let me come home
TJ KLUNE is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling, Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Under the Whispering Door, The House in the Cerulean Sea, The Extraordinaries, and more. Being queer himself, Klune believes it’s important—now more than ever—to have accurate, positive queer representation in stories.
Aggie Blum Thompson’s All the Dirty Secrets is a thrilling tale that asks how far you would go to protect your status and your family…and if some secrets should ever be revealed. And what better way to fully immerse yourself in a gripping book like this one than to have a killer playlist that accompanies it? Read below to see Aggie’s incredible list of 90s bops that’ll have you vibing out, reminiscing about your own teenage angst, and feeling all sorts of nostalgic!
By Aggie Blum Thompson:
Some decades are more difficult to define than others. You say 1920s, I say roaring. When we think of the 40s, Rosie the riveter and Victory Gardens come to mind. But the 90s? What is unifying about a decade that started with the fall of the Berlin Wall and ended with the overhyped Y2K threat that the entire world was about to implode?
Writing the chapters of All the Dirty Secrets that took place in 1994 thrust me back in time to the last decade that gave us TV shows that were cultural touchpoints – Friends, Seinfeld, The X-Files. To a time when Cable TV news erupted on the scene, crawling its way through our national consciousness with nonstop coverage of events like O.J. Simpson’s white Bronco ride and subsequent trial, of Monica Lewinsky’s blue dress and its implications, of shootouts between the feds and far-right groups at Ruby Ridge and Waco.
The nineties gave us both blockbusters that spawned industries – like Titanic and Jurassic Park — and films showcasing Gen X sarcasm – think Slacker and Clerks. The internet was a just a wee baby and was dominated by AOL. In a world before streaming, Apple Music, or Spotify, a file-sharing giant called Napster allowed strangers to exchange, illegally, songs for free. But my favorite part of writing these chapters was researching the music that rocked the decade. Here is a completely incomplete list of the soundtrack of the 90s.
Freedom 90! by George Michael (1990). Released as the first single from his second solo album, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, Michael sang, “There’s something deep inside of me/There’s someone else I’ve got to be,” ushering in an era of songs that celebrated the LGBTQ community. The 80s were a tough time to be publicly gay, but the 90s saw several commercial artists openly embrace their queer identity — like k.d. lang with her hit Constant Craving, Melissa Etheridge and Come to My Window, and RuPaul’s Supermodel (You Better Work).
Alive by Pearl Jam (1991). The neon colors and big hair of the 80s collapsed at the turn of the decade under the weight of a terrible economy and a war in the Middle East. All of a sudden, grunge emerged from the shadows of the alternative rock scene, as hits like Soundgarden’s Black Hole Sun, Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Man In The Box by Alice in Chains exploded onto the charts. Everyone started wearing flannel, baby doll dresses, and doc martens, and packed the theaters to watch Singles and Reality Bites.
Finally by CeCe Peniston (1991). House and club music may have been around since club DJs began spinning records at a tempo of 120 beats per minute, but they didn’t take America by storm until the early 90s thanks to a series of breakout hits featuring Black female voices — such as Robin S. (Show Me Love) and Martha Wash (Everybody, Everybody) – who often appeared on hits uncredited.
The Rain King by Counting Crows (1993). This buoyant, jangly rock song was a single on the band’s debut album, showcasing their poetic lyrics, singable choruses, and desire to carry the torch of classic rock artists like Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Springsteen into the 90s. The Counting Crows helped us move past grunge into an era of hits the whole family could sing along to in the car, like I Only Wanna Be with You by Hootie and the Blowfish, Run Around by Blues Traveler, and Jealousy by the Gin Blossoms.
Cornflake Girl by Tori Amos (1994). Her brilliant album Under the Pink is an example of the virtuoso women artists who appeared on the music scene in the nineties, often defying categorization – not quite pop or rock, R&B or country. Songs like Sarah McLachlan’s “Possesion,” Erykah Badu’s “On & On,” and Liz Phair’s “Never Said.” For several summers, the performers who gathered at Lilith Fair consisted solely of female solo artists and female-led bands. In its initial three years, Lilith Fair raised over $10 million for charity.
Mo Money Mo Problems by Notorious B.I.G. feat. Mase & Puff Daddy (1997). Rap arrived big-time in the 90s, breaking off into diverse subgenres that dominated the charts with hits like Snoop Dog’s Gin and Juice, Lauryn Hill’s Doo Wop (That Thing), and Eminem’s My Name Is. Mo Money Mo Problems, an infectious danceable mega-hit that sampled Diana Ross’s joyful I’m Coming Out, showcased Biggie Smalls bragging about his fame and success. Sadly, he did not live to reap the rewards of this huge hit as he was murdered a few months before it was released.
I Want it That Way by the Backstreet Boys (1999). Boy bands had been around a while – the 80s had Menudo, New Edition and New Kids on the Block — but the concept really blew up in the 90s. Suddenly, everywhere you turned were attractive but anodyne young men in coordinated outfits who wanted to sing and dance their way into your heart with hits like I Do by 98 Degrees, I Want You Back by ‘NSYNC, and Motown Philly by Boys II Men.
Don’t Look Back in Anger by Oasis (1996). Not all the boy bands were happy and knew how to dance. Some were deeply angry and really wanted you to know. They whined. They growled. They yelled. They would have flipped their lids if you called them boy bands. But some of them — like Bush (Glycerine), Offspring (Self Esteem), and Live (Lightning Strikes) — made pretty good music.
You’re Still the One by Shania Twain (1998). This gorgeous love song crossed over from country and became a huge mainstream hit, aided by a sexy video featuring the Canadian singer. Suddenly, country was cool and showing up on the pop charts with songs like How Do I Live by LeAnn Rimes, This Kiss by Faith Hill, and Amazed by Lonestar.
Mambo No. Five by Lou Bega (1999).Who? you ask. Of course you can’t remember the artist, but there’s no way you don’t remember this earworm. It joins those one-hit wonders of the nineties like Macarena, Barbie Girl, Baby Got Back, and I’m Too Sexy that you hate-love but can’t stop singing along to. In fact, I bet you’re humming one right now. If not, let me help . . . a little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Erica by my side . . .
Click below to order your copy of All the Dirty Secrets, available now!
William Martin is a master of the historical thriller. Nothing proves that more than his gripping new novel December ‘41, the story of a desperate manhunt in the first weeks of the Second World War. Martin has put together the playlist below to take you back to the 40s. Included are artists mentioned in the book like the Andrews Sisters as well as music that evokes locations and events discussed by the characters. All in all, it’s an unforgettable trip to the past.
FDR’s Infamy Speech from Dec. 8, 1941. Click here to see the full video recording.
Max Steiner, Warner Bros. Fanfare. Click here to see the video recording.
Glenn Miller, “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”
Tommy Dorsey and Frank Sinatra, “Blue Skies”
Glenn Miller, “String of Pearls.”
Dooley Wilson, “As Time Goes By”
Benny Goodman, “Sing, Sing, Sing”
Paul Dukas, “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
Beethoven, “Symphony #6, Pastoral” Allegra ma non troppo
James Cagney, “Yankee Doodle Dandy”
Erich Wolfgang Korngold, “Robin Hood Suite”
Gene Autry, “You Are My Sunshine”
Marlene Dietrich, “See What the Boys in the Back Room Will Have”
Benny Goodman, “Moonglow”
Glen Miller, “Sunrise Serenade”
Max Steiner, “Gone With The Wind”
Artie Shaw, “Stardust”
Artie Shaw, “Begin the Beguine”
Andrews Sisters, “Bei Mir Bist du Schoen”
Andrews Sisters, “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy”
Sons of the Pioneers, “Cool, Cool Water”
Marine Band, “Deck the Halls
The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, “Oh, Come, All ye Faithful”
The Band Of H.M. Royal Marines, Chichester Cathedral Choir, “Joy to the World”
FDR and Churchill light the Tree. Click here to see the video recording.
Click below to pre-order your copy of December ’41, coming June 7th, 2022!
Do you love to listen to music when you read? We know we do, and we’re especially excited that Max Gladstone, author of Last Exit, has shared his very own curated playlist to listen along to while we read his latest book. Check it out here!
By Max Gladstone
I wanted to write a road novel. I wanted to write a book about friends grown apart, a book that drew on memories and dreams and journals of bouncing around the country all summer in the back seat of a Plymouth Voyager, a book that understood space and could chew time. So, I needed a mixtape.
I used to do this for every road trip. There was a different art to it when you had to fit your vibe into a forty-five minute A side and a forty-five minute B. Poets know: constraint breeds creativity. You start to understand why radio singles used to have long outros, which lets the DJ choose the right moment to crossfade, and fit the tune to their set. I loved the challenge, and the music would set the tone for the trip. So: why not make a mixtape for a road trip into my own imagination?
This wasn’t a playlist for the process itself, the actual word-by-word writing. In the flow, I drift between ambient albums, chiptunes, soundtracks, games music, jazz. I find tracks that have the right vibe or rhythm and drop them into a giant “writing music” folder, where live ancient OCReMix tracks based on the Morrowind title theme or the Chrono Trigger soundtrack. I do whatever works. But this wasn’t a playlist to write by—this was a playlist to help me think through what I was thinking through. And the road, for me, is songwriter country.
The Animal Years was my first Ritter album. I played it again and again in my bedroom in southeast China late at night as the Iraq War kept on being bad. TheAnimal Years casts a prophet’s eye on America—clear, visionary, angry—and any three of its songs could have made it to this list, but the album resolves on this note of tired, broke-down grace. Even in its earliest iterations, I knew the book that turned into Last Exit would start after what felt like the end—after the breaking point, when the young kids who thought they could save the world tried, failed, and broke up. None of them have yet reached the promise this song holds out—of rest, of, at least, friendship—but it gave me, and them, something to steer toward.
I’m a Dylan fan, but—something magical happens when you give Dylan songs to someone else. Jimi Hendrix’s “All Along the Watchtower” is the iconic version. And the Indigo Girls’ cover of “Tangled Up in Blue” takes this raw and wry tale of wandering around the country, wondering what the hell happened to your generation, and layers in passion and mourning. In Dylan’s version, the narrator feels resigned—of course it all went down like that, it couldn’t have happened any other way, people are just like that and you have to understand. Here, the narrator cares. She misses what she’s lost, and even though she’s getting through, she’s angry about it. That gave me the right touchstone for Zelda, for my main character: memory and loss, regret and anger, and a worn-down determination.
Speaking of prophecies. “It’s coming with the feel that it ain’t exactly real, or it’s real, but it ain’t exactly there.” In this version, gravelly and terrifying, Cohen unsettles. It’s “Democracy” by way of The Future, and you feel the hope, but you have to concede—it is murder. In earlier recordings, this song can feel triumphant, but by Live in London, you can’t tell whether it’s a prophecy of salvation or of Armageddon. Maybe both.
“Galahad,” Josh Ritter, To the Yet Unknowing World
I heard this song for the first time live, and I went home and listened to it a dozen times in the next day. I love that walking-beat drum, like a cane echoing on a marble floor. I love the sly and vicious sense of humor. I love how virtue twists in this song—how nothing’s quite what it sets itself out or up to be. You have to look under the surface. And the King Arthur mythos, as slantwise as we see it here, really speaks to me in an American country/folk/blues setting. It’s the one you read in Steinbeck’s The Acts of King Arthur, or in Tortilla Flat. Kings and knights in a land without knights and kings.
A track about being lost at the end of your part in the American story. Old & In the Way is a tremendous project—Pete Rowan, Jerry Garcia, David Grisman on mandolin, John Kahn, and of course all-star Vassar Clements’s elegant, barn-burning fiddle. I could have a dozen of their songs on this playlist. Speaking of which…
I’m honestly not sure what this song is doing here as opposed to, say, “Land of the Navajo,” which has more of the cosmic vision I aimed for in Last Exit. Maybe it’s just that “Panama Red” is a great name. Maybe it’s that cowboy vibe. Maybe the tape needed a moment to breathe.
You too, perhaps, have heard this one at every bonfire you’ve attended since the mid year-zeroes, and I hope that when you did, you had the fullness of heart to join in and sing. It’s had a lot of play, and it’s probably been used to sell some SUV somewhere, and that’s fine, but for me when I hear this song, it’s late at night, I’m in the middle of the People’s Republic of China, far away from anyone and everything I grew up beside and especially from the Cumberland Gap and Johnson City, Tennessee, and a visiting buddy has just handed me a thumb drive with some music on it, and—well. I worked out the fiddle part that night.
The world is a hard place and there are lots of people hurting, and all that pain is a bright and fearful light. We close down in the face of it. David Rawlings, Gillian Welch’s guitarist collaborator, has a great version of this song, too, which could be on this list, but the O.C.M.S. version is the one I heard first.
You’ll have noticed a lot of doubled artists on this track list, and to be honest, some of that’s because I took out the album looking for one song, saw the other, and couldn’t resist adding it. In this case, I couldn’t pull out the Mark Cohn album without adding “Walking in Memphis”—”She said/ Tell me are you a Christian child?/ And I said ‘Ma’am I am tonight’”—but “Silver Thunderbird” was why I got the album out in the first place. It’s a haunting, brief song about being a kid, about your parents, about shoes you can’t quite grow into—and about a car. I’ve never been a Car Person, and maybe because I’m not, I don’t have the contempt familiarity can breed. For me, a few cars have a mythic heft. The Thunderbird is one, and so’s the Dodge Challenger, which features in Last Exit. I can’t say quite what it is about the Challenger. It’s a haunting design. It’s the car that idles at the corner, as if waiting for something. It’s the car that the man in the hat drives when he comes to town.
“Pancho and Lefty,” Townes Van Zandt
I could write whole essays on Townes Van Zandt. He’s a tradition all to himself. Every one of his songs is a vision.
“Across the Great Divide,” Nanci Griffith, Other Voices, Other Rooms
It’s hard to write this entry now—I started and stopped and started and stopped again—because I haven’t come to terms with Nanci Griffith’s passing. Artists exist in strange ways. A writer you’ve never met remains as alive to you in their books as they ever were. We put on an album, and the ghosts sing to us. John M. Ford once wrote: the train stops, but the line goes on.
“The Queen and the Soldier,” Suzanne Vega, Suzanne Vega
In college, I was fortunate to take a class from John Crowley, and in an offhand way as he was trying to make another point in a lecture, he touched on the way certain words gather and hold power—ring, or cup, or sword. I’ve often wished I could go back in time and replay those five minutes of lecture—I knew I was hearing something important, but trying to hold it in my mind felt like trying to hold a river. This song is about that power, I think, and it communicates in those words—the dream we have of the world, and the distance between that dream and the world. There’s something young about the magic of those words. For a kid, the dream that a word like sword suggests can be clear and bright, even (especially?) because of its distance from the world we know. Do we ever look for the truth behind the dream? What happens when we do? Can we bear to leave the old world behind? Even as it strangles us?
This is a drifting dream-song for me, not so much the storm as the darkening on the horizon, that feeling in the air before things change. It’s autumn: not as the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, but as a season of coming darkness, as a season of threat and prophecy. For me this is a song for long stretches of road, for weeds and roadside gravel. It’s magic seeping out of the shadows. Calling us.
To be honest, I like to end on a note of contrast. You can’t stay in grim prophecy all the time. I’m not from New Jersey originally, but my dad is, and we did some growing up in Ohio, so a line like—”I’m from New Jersey/it’s like Ohio/but even more so/imagine that”—I can’t resist it. But listening to it again now, I’m struck by the opening and closing line, which is more true than I expected to Last Exit, in its totality: “I’m from New Jersey/I don’t expect too much/If the world ended today/I would adjust.” The end of the world is coming. So: what can we do?
This isn’t the only playlist I could have made for this book—entire Mary Gauthier albums should be on here, for example, and Anais Mitchell’s Young Man in America, and there’s no Alabama 3 (which I think we’re now required to call A3 in the States for trademark reasons?) only because I was listening to them a lot at the time and I wasn’t sure how I felt about including a British project even if they have such intense Americana energy on projects like M.O.R. Tenacious D’s “The Road” belongs on here for pure contrast and humor purposes—I can imagine more than one character in Last Exit saying, “Why can’t I stay in one place for more than two days? Why??”
The music I wrote to, in the end, was silence, and the Mad Max: Fury Road soundtrack, and Makaya McCraven, and, in revision, the truly wild The Comet Is Coming album called Trust in the Lifeforce of the Deep Mystery. But as a mission statement, as a call to adventure, as a map—to the thematic territory, or just to the wall I meant to bash my head against—it did the job. It mapped a few of the cracks in the world. It gave me a cowboy and a car and it gave me loss, and absent friends.
And it left me looking for a tape deck.
MAX GLADSTONE is a fencer, a fiddler, and the winner of the Hugo and Nebula Awards for This is How You Lose the Time War, co-written with Amal El-Mohtar. A two-time finalist for the John W. Campbell Award, he is fluent in Mandarin and has taught English in China. He is also the author of the Craft Sequence of novels—a Hugo Award finalist, a game developer, and the showrunner for the fiction serial, Bookburners. Max lives and writes in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Set in Laguna Beach, 1968, T. Jefferson Parker’s A Thousand Steps takes you right back to the Age of Aquarius. No trip to the 60’s is complete without a killer soundtrack. T. Jefferson Parker has given us the perfect playlist to accompany A Thousand Steps and some memories to go with it!
By T. Jefferson Parker
Here’s my personal playlist from 1968. I still love these songs and play them often. Sometimes for real, and other times they just drift through my mind like butterflies from the past…
Sunshine of Your Love by Cream
This was my personal favorite song in 1968. I saved up $2.99 from my allowance to get it on a stereo vinyl album of “Disraeli Gears” at the Sound Spectrum in Laguna Beach.
All Along the Watchtower by Bob Dylan
I’m Looking Through You by the Beatles
This song still plays in my mind, unexpectedly, beautifully, for no apparent reason.
California Dreaming by the Mamas and the Papas
For What it’s Worth by Buffalo Springfield
This iconic 1966 song reminds me so much of 2020 and 2021, with the protests and the shootings and the strife on the streets of the U.S. To me the song is haunting and prophetic.
White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane
I always liked this song, and the name of the band, too!
Tales of Brave Ulysses by Cream
In the novel A Thousand Steps, this dreamy, hard-driving adventure song is protagonist Matt Anthony’s personal favorite. The song reminds me of Matt, on a journey into manhood that feels like Odysseus battling monsters to return home…
Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones
My band lip-synched this song in an assembly in 1966. I was in the sixth grade, and played drums on a drum set I made out of cardboard!
Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys
Little Wing by Jimi Hendrix
This wrenchingly poignant song is featured in A Thousand Steps, in the form of a paper airplane that becomes one of the clues to the mystery at the heart of the novel.
Suzanne by Leonard Cohen
How different, how cool!
Respect by Aretha Franklin
Matt’s beloved sister, Jasmine, gets an Aretha 45 rpm single for her birthday in A Thousand Steps.
Subterranean Homesick Blues by Bob Dylan
Yellow Submarine by the Beatles
I loved this goofy song as a kid, especially Ringo’s droll vocals.
Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan
I love this song so much. When I first heard it I thought Dylan had written just for me!
Foxey Lady by Jimi Hendrix
This song is featured in A Thousand Steps, playing on the ocean breeze as Matt descends the steep concrete stairway to 1,000 Steps Beach in Laguna for the first time, in search of his vanished sister…
Have you read Trouble the Saints, the dazzling adventure from Alaya Dawn Johnson? Get ready for a jazz-age throwback playlist from the author herself, and don’t forget to check out the paperback, on sale now!
“Juju assassins, alternate history, a gritty New York crime story…in a word: awesome.” —N. K. Jemisin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fifth Season
The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson’s timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II.
Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.
Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams.
Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?
Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines—and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.
We are so sad that Dragon Week: Tokyo Drift is coming to a close, but we think we figured out the best way to say ‘goodbye’ to such a fun week…and ‘hello’ to some EPIC ENTRANCE MUSIC!! We asked our favorite dragon experts (AKA the TDA staff) what tunes they would want as their dragon entrance music and wow, we got some winners here. Check it out below!
Anna Merz, Publicity Assistant (she/her)
My dragon song would be “Tokyo Drift” by the Teriyaki Boyz. I mean this song is epic and makes me feel like I can do anything.
Honorable mention: A Calabasas Freestyle by Jaden. The song really speaks for itself, but also has two of the greatest line: “Rap is just one of my fetishes, like a dragon that’s pregnant” and “Shadow boxin’ demons, diggin’ ditches for all of these lizards”. Like let our dragon hearts sing baybeee!
a cat, Marketing Coordinator
“My Shiny Teeth and Me” by Chip Skylark (Kenny Maness). Clearly my prized draconic feature is my massive set of pristine pearly chompers. Ate no less than five vainglorious knights yesterday and three this afternoon without even a chip, and then requisitioned their armor polish to tend my lovely fangs. Their cries echoed throughout my home sweet lava-filled cavern, harmonizing with Chip Skylark as he crooned his ode to perfect teeth from my lair’s sick surround sound speakers. I love being dragon.
Lizzy Hosty, Marketing Intern (she/her)
“Brutal” by Olivia Rodrigo. I want this to play as I enter because the song is so hardcore that everyone would be so terrified of me that they would let me have free reign of their village. As they should.
Sarah Pannenberg, Digital Marketing Coordinator (they/them)
“Through Asphodel” from the game Hades. Why kill the Bone Hydra when you can BE the Bone Hydra? (and yes, the Bone Hydra is a dragon, I will not be taking questions at this time.) I would delight in murdering Zagreus over and over again while the sweet sounds of heavy metal music blares in the background. Hades son ain’t got nothin on me and my dramatic dragon entrance music, Asphodel is mine!
Jordan Hanley, Marketing Manager (she/her)
My dramatic Dragon Entrance would be “Children of the Revolution” by T. Rex. Not only is the band a dragon, but the song perfectly encapsulates a hot dog eating song, which I imagine dragons enjoy eating. The strong guitar and drum licks sound rather as if a dragon is walking quickly into a room, or perhaps slithering in, as the case may be. This is also a song from the 70’s, which means this dragon is an Elder Gen X’er, which I am, on the inside.
Caro Perny, Publicity Manager (she/her)
“Careless Whisper” by George Michael. When you think of dragons, you think of a powerfully sensual entity, right? Glistening scales, a razor-sharp danger mouth, muscle and bone working in concert to soar into the heavens, or protect a hoard of treasure with equal grace. Plus, dragons are known saxophone enthusiasts. Every other answer on this list corresponds to lesser dragons, because this is clearly the best dragon entrance music. In my draconic form, I slither into the room and dance so memorably that all my foes have no choice but to proclaim “I am NEVER going to dance again”–that’s right! Their guilty feet have got no rhythm, but my CLAWS surely do! And, “Careless Whisper” works no matter what the situation is: am I entering an arena, wherein I shall set my enemies quite literally on fire? Perfect–I want George Michael to be the soundtrack to my victory. Am I walking into my treasure-cave, where I shall be greeted by my many adopted cryptid children? Excellent, this song represents the sounds of comfort and home. Or perhaps I flying to the dragon bar, where I will be setting some draconic loins on metaphoric fire–in that case, pack it in, because it’s all over for you bitches.
Rachel Taylor, Marketing Manager (she/her)
“Golden” by Harry Styles. Not only is this a certified bop, but the title shows off my main dragon priority, gold. Plus, I think this would be a fun song to dance into a room to, putting all attendees at ease before surprising them with any dragon-y rampages.
Have you read Trouble the Saints, the dazzling new book from Alaya Dawn Johnson? Get ready for a jazz-age throwback playlist from the author herself!
“Juju assassins, alternate history, a gritty New York crime story…in a word: awesome.” —N. K. Jemisin, New York Times bestselling author of The Fifth Season
The dangerous magic of The Night Circus meets the powerful historical exploration of The Underground Railroad in Alaya Dawn Johnson’s timely and unsettling novel, set against the darkly glamorous backdrop of New York City, where an assassin falls in love and tries to change her fate at the dawn of World War II.
Amid the whir of city life, a young woman from Harlem is drawn into the glittering underworld of Manhattan, where she’s hired to use her knives to strike fear among its most dangerous denizens.
Ten years later, Phyllis LeBlanc has given up everything—not just her own past, and Dev, the man she loved, but even her own dreams.
Still, the ghosts from her past are always by her side—and history has appeared on her doorstep to threaten the people she keeps in her heart. And so Phyllis will have to make a harrowing choice, before it’s too late—is there ever enough blood in the world to wash clean generations of injustice?
Trouble the Saints is a dazzling, daring novel—a magical love story, a compelling exposure of racial fault lines—and an altogether brilliant and deeply American saga.
Fountain pens, paper, books, crochet, my laptop, and a blanket for a cozy nap. Also, my cat Elsie would probably be in there, because it is a thing that she can get inside that she should not be inside.
Definitely not a portable hole, or another bag of holding. That’s a good way to rip a hole in space and time, and get sucked into the Astral Plane. What I would keep in my bag of holding? Probably a sword, my wallet, and chargers for my devices. Maybe a pack of soft-baked cookies and a water bottle.
Oh! Can I say another bag of holding whose destruction results in opening a gate to the Astral Plane? No? Hmm…well I imagine it’d probably be pretty similar to the contents of the bag Hermione has in The Deathly Hallows. Books and glamping tents and more books and potions and wands and quills and ink and…have I mentioned books?
A wet bar, an espresso machine, a burr grinder, well, I already have the bag I take on planes that has a sleeping bag, good pajamas, a hot water bottle, an ice pack, footie slippers, an eye mask…I’m the most comfortable man in the sky, so I’ll definitely carry all of that, some really good pens, more spare batteries than is wise, I could go on.
Us: How many spare batteries is wise?
Like, if there was a lithium fire, you’d want it to be terrible but not catastrophic, that’s the wise level.