For me, music is an essential element of my stories. It’s hard to imagine writing a book where the main characters don’t listen to music, talk about it, and go to a concert of some kind. My recently released novel, The Love I Could Have Had, does this, as did my debut last year and the book I’m currently writing is the same.
The Love I Could Have Had is so beachy and summery, set on North Carolina’s coast, that it offers the opportunity for an amazing list of tunes that go perfectly with it. Imagine if it was adapted into a movie – I like to think this would be the soundtrack. So, like last year with The Love of My Other Life, I have compiled a new Spotify playlist for The Love I Could Have Had!
You can find the new playlist on Spotify here.
The list of tunes is below. I won’t go into all the detailed reasons for picking each song, except for a couple where I want to give some context. Obviously, with the North Carolina coastal setting, we’ve got a lot of summer/coast/beach songs, leaning heavy on the folksy/Americana side, but a good mix of pop and soul too, with a generous handful of country tunes that Jake would love, and a couple of songs that are actually mentioned in the book (noted by a *). It’s also roughly chronological, in terms of the order of scenes that the songs would accompany if it really were a movie. We start with Old Pine by Ben Howard, which I love for the opening scene at the quarry in the forest, and we end with White Roses by Flyte and Stars Like Confetti by Dustin Lynch, which will make sense if you read to the end. 😉
Here’s the full discography – enjoy!
- Old Pine – Ben Howard
- The Best Thing – Paper Planes
- I’m With You – Vance Joy
- Arms of a Woman – Amos Lee
- Missing You – Hunter Hayes
- We’ll Make it Through – Ray LaMontagne
- Old Friend – Sea Wolf
- Feels Like Summer – Childish Gambino
- Slow Down Summer – Thomas Rhett
- Coastline – Hollow Coves
- Slow Burn – Kacey Musgraves
- Carolina Can* – Chase Rice (sung by the band at July 4th fireworks – it’s an especially relevant song, give the book’s location and the message about remembering who you are)
- Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop – Landon Pigg (for me, this one is about Detective Banks rather than our two MCs)
- Coast – Ryan Hurd
- Melt – JONES
- I Don’t Want This Night to End* – Luke Bryan (this is playing in the bar, the night of the storm – Liv is also desperate for that night not to end!)
- Summer All Over – Amos Lee
- August – Taylor Swift
- White Roses – Flyte, The Staves
- Stars Like Confetti – Dustin Lynch
CJ Connolly 