SPOILERS Soul Music Discussion **Spoilers**

[Om(nomnom)]

Tony, I think you are right with both of those statements, the teen idol as well as the trousers. And it probably would have felt wrong to force another ending. Still it is kind of unsatisfying to me.

LilMaibe, do you mean when Vetinari is referring to it? (Just got that from this thread, I have no memory of that. )

 

[Anonymous]

Tony, I think you are right with both of those statements, the teen idol as well as the trousers. And it probably would have felt wrong to force another ending. Still it is kind of unsatisfying to me.

LilMaibe, do you mean when Vetinari is referring to it? (Just got that from this thread, I have no memory of that. )

There are various occurences referencing the events of this book in quite a few other books. I think in Hogfather Ridcully remembers Susan etc

 

[Tonyblack]

It's also a kind of reference to all the stories about Elvis being spotted still alive after his death.

 

[Penfold]

I always thought that the line "Does he look elvish"(?) at the end referred to this song;

THERE'S A GUY WORKS DOWN THE CHIP SHOP, SWEARS HE'S ELVIS

Although this has probably been posted before, it's still a great song.

 

[SwordfishTrombone]

Just finished Soul Music this morning.

I think it's way more than just a music version of Moving Pictures. As a newcomer I find the further you read into discworld the stronger the plots seem to get.

Personally it was the scenes with Susan and/or Death that stood out for me.

Hmm, I now have Interesting Times, Men at Arms or Maskerade to choose from next.....

 

[Tonyblack]

Just finished Soul Music this morning.

I think it's way more than just a music version of Moving Pictures. As a newcomer I find the further you read into discworld the stronger the plots seem to get.

Personally it was the scenes with Susan and/or Death that stood out for me.

Hmm, I now have Interesting Times, Men at Arms or Maskerade to choose from next.....

I agree - it's much deeper than Moving Pictures.

 

[=Tamar]

I think it's way more than just a music version of Moving Pictures.

I agree - it's much deeper than Moving Pictures.

Well, sure... MP was about the magic of two-dimensional images and how it works out in our 3-D world. ("Just long enough," as is usual in Pratchett.) SM is about the magical effect of soul in various definitions, and it lasts longer than most images.

 

[Tonyblack]

I'm not sure if this has been mentioned but, this song by Pink Floyd reminds me a lot Dibbler meeting the group.

 

[Who's Wee Dug]

From Wish You Were Here album, excellent concert that was happy days.

 

[RathDarkblade]

Yep, that sounds about right for Dibbler meeting the band. But in contrast, once they're on the road ("HELLO QUIRM!"), the following song is, quite possibly, more appropriate.

 

[=Tamar]

I think Soul Music may have the most allusions per page of any Discworld book, even beating Moving Pictures. I think most of the songs on Pink Floyd's "The Wall" are in there, but more often embedded as story structure than as direct verbal allusions.

 

[=Tamar]

I have come to a very obvious conclusion. Soul Music is more of a Death book than a Susan book, for all it introduces her and focuses on her for half the story. The story structure focuses more on Death. I'm thinking particularly of the Misbegot Bridge where the beggars live.
Classic rock songs have a musical bridge, which is often instrumental though it can have words. It divides the song briefly and adds a different element. After the bridge, the song returns to its main theme but (ideally) the meaning has been affected by the bridge. The story in SM pauses when Death is under the bridge, hanging out with the beggars for a while, to forget and to have some human companionship that doesn't require a history or a memory - existence in the moment. Susan's story has a bridge when she stops following Buddy in order to visit the past. Buddy's story has a bridge when the band is on tour, though in a way, for him the entire book is a bridge. Even Albert has a bridge moment, when his lifetimer breaks and he is frozen in time. Once they are all back in A-M, the story continues, and in each case, they have been changed because of the bridge. The story begins and ends with Death, and Death's experience of a memory-less existence under a literal bridge allows him to forget, however briefly, until he is recalled to his memory by Buddy's song and by the Death of Rats.

 

[Tonyblack]

Not sure if I've mentioned it before, but there's a scene straight out of the terminator films when Death sits on the motorcycle and demands the Dean's clothes. Of course he's also wearing "a coat he borrowed from the Dean".

 

[RathDarkblade]

Hmm. I didn't think about that before, but you're right, Tony. Of course, Death only takes the Dean's leather jacket, not all his clothes (like Ah-nold does in the movie) - otherwise the consequences would be too horrid to contemplate.

And now I need the brain bleach.

 

[=Tamar]

One result of following the comments on MarkReads Soul Music is that I'm learning about the music allusions. I wasn't listening to rock at the time, and the commenters are posting music allusions I never heard of. I've taken to using Google and Youtube to search for phrases and then checking the dates on songs that come up, and I find even more potential allusions that way. I'm not sure whether all of them were genuinely intended or whether it's just that the rock of the time tended to use similar language, but there have been maybe a dozen music allusions identified in every 18 pages. I'm sure there are plenty more that we haven't identified.

 

[=Tamar]

In SM, people were falling over themselves to buy t-shirts with advertising on them. CMOT was thinking that whatever was reversing the normal flow of commerce, he wanted in big amounts. It was like watching sheep shear themselves.
In TLC, the magical mythical requirement for Rincewind to be every hero in UK Aussie history meant that sheep literally did shear themselves, leaping against the shears as Rincewind held them.

 

[RathDarkblade]

In SM, people were falling over themselves to buy t-shirts with advertising on them. CMOT was thinking that whatever was reversing the normal flow of commerce, he wanted in big amounts. It was like watching sheep shear themselves.
In TLC, the magical mythical requirement for Rincewind to be every hero in UK Aussie history meant that sheep literally did shear themselves, leaping against the shears as Rincewind held them.

What did Rincewind do that made him a hero in UK-Aussie history? Let me count some of them off the top of my head...

Spoiler

1. He hears the legend of Tinhead Ned, and uses one of Ned's scribbles to escape from jail.
2. He invents a salty spread very like Vegemite
3. He invents something very much like Melba Toast
4. He shears the sheep, as Tamar mentioned
5. He brings about the Big Wet
6. He becomes a Bush Tucker Rincewind

And my personal favourite... I may be misquoting it, but I know the general feeling, because it cracked me up so very much...

Spoiler

Once a moderately jolly wizard camped by a waterhole under the shade of a tree that he was completely unable to identify. And he swore as he hacked and hacked at a can of beer, saying 'What kind of idiots put beer in tins?'

Oh dear. When I read this for the first time, I was on a train, and I just completely lost it at that point, and got some weird looks from strangers.

Have I missed any others? Feel free to jog my memory...

 

[Tonyblack]

I would correct you on one thing.

Spoiler

Not Melba toast but Peach Melba is the more likely dish - although they were both named for the same person.: Wiki says:"The Peach Melba (French: pêche Melba, pronounced [pɛʃ mɛl.ba]) is a dessert of peaches and raspberry sauce with vanilla ice cream. The dish was invented in 1892 or 1893 by the French chef Auguste Escoffier at the Savoy Hotel, London, to honour the Australian soprano Nellie Melba."