Kage Baker's Music Picks

Donovan, Sutras. I loved Donovan's music back in the '60s. Earlier this year I was working on a fantasy novel, The House of the Stag, and was writing a section from the point of view of a 14-year-old girl --or at least, from the point of view of an old woman remembering her life as a 14-year-old girl. Hunting around for mood music, I ordered some Donovan CDs and came across Sutras, recorded by Donovan not when I was a starry-eyed flower child but a harried middle-aged writer. And, you know what? It's beautiful. Breathtaking. It flowed imperceptibly into what I wrote. Thanks again, Donoleitcho.

Beethoven, The Five Piano Concertos, Murray Perahia on piano, Bernard Haitink conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra. Everyone should have this set. You just can't have too much Beethoveny goodness, can you? I was, again, working on  The House of The Stag and took a weekend holiday to Monterey, to get away from emails and phones so I could just write. The hotel room had a radio tuned to a classical station and they played a lot of selections from this particular collection. Elegant, passionate, gracious, reassuring music. I went out and bought it as soon as I got home.

Jeff Beal, ROME: Music from the HBO series. I'm a fan of the series, historical errata and all, and loved this musical evocation of an alien time and place. A little unexpected treat: a brief clip of dialogue from Ciaran Hinds, who played Julius Caesar.

Hans Zimmer, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, the original soundtrack. Maybe not quite the knockout the soundtrack for Dead Man's Chest was (I want that one played at my funeral, man), but plenty of orchestral color and flame, with the haunting anthem Hoist the Colors.

Captain Bogg & Salty, Prelude to Mutiny. CB&S cut two albums previous to this one, brilliantly silly romps-- imagine if Monty Python got together to write something piratical, suitable for children yet witty enough to make an adult snicker, and then imagine they got hold of Spike Jones to orchestrate it, and you'll have some idea of what CB&S are like. With Prelude to Mutiny, though, they sail away from kiddie territory and get intense. It's good and fairly shivery in places, especially during the Mutiny of the Hispaniola track. But even the kids will enjoy Captain Bogg's rendition of Part of Your World-- yep, the Disney-soulful lament of little Ariel the Mermaid, here rendered as a pirate-rock ballad in a hilarious croaking baritone.