Yes, I know. Typically a book is written first, then the movie is made based on the book (and the book is inevitably better), and in the process of making the movie, someone throws together a soundtrack from any music included in it. But in the case of Birding in the Face of Terror, the soundtrack was finished before anything else.
Birding began in autumn 2001 a memoir of short story length, as my driving career at the company portrayed as “Eldorado Stages” was winding down to its unceremonious demise. I started expanding the story into a novel soon after by building in more backstory about my bipolar wife and our particular brand of insanity. But the emotional weight of writing about our chaotic lives and her deteriorating health while in the midst of it all –coupled with a complete inability to handle the East Coast “stage” of the story — led me to shelve the project (and all writing efforts) in the summer of 2002. Birding clearly wasn’t ready to be written yet.
It wasn’t until early 2009, four years after the passing of “Nadia,” while settling into a much more stable life in the Finger Lakes region of New York, that I pulled Birding back off the shelf. Adapting it into the multi-textured, semi-fictional novel it became was a slow process at first, so I often turned to related music to help keep the creative juices flowing when they were getting dammed up.
The formal soundtrack idea took off in March 2010 after a trip to revisit the California locations of the story. I was introduced to some key tracks during my travels, like Ray Lamontagne’s “Be Here Now” which was wafting through the dreamy quiet morning air at the hostel in Cambria, and a high energy Christian rock version of “Shine” I discovered while flipping through radio stations in the rental car. A handful of songs, such as Wilco and Billy Bragg’s “California Stars” and Black Sabbath’s surprising instrumental “Laguna Sunrise,” were added for the sense of place they bring to this Golden State story. And then there are songs like “Sugar Mountain” and “How to Disappear Completely” that evoke parts of the story so well, it almost seems like they were written for the soundtrack. A few years later I added the two atmospheric tunes from Slowdive’s “Pygmalion” album, and felt the project had been completed just right.
I’ve always felt fortunate to have been born in 1972, coming of age during the heyday of alternative rock. In particular, the shoegaze genre informed my musical aesthetics and filled the soundtrack of most of my formative travels. This collection reflects that experience, gathered over three decades in pursuit of a hazy dreamscape between the two worlds that is always just around the next bend in the road — a longing this music communicates better than words alone ever could.
Birding itself still had two versions and another revision ahead, but at least I had a soundtrack to inspire it all, and I’ll be ready when the movie rights are sold. I think the soundtrack tells the story of Birding in words, tones and moods amazingly well. Hope you enjoy it. –Cheers, Waldo 1.4.19
Please click here to listen to and follow “Birding in the Face of Terror: the Official Motion Picture Soundtrack” on Spotify.
Track List
1. “Be Here Now, ” Ray Lamontagne
2. “Starlight No. 1,” Mojave 3
3. “Cello Song,” Nick Drake
4. “California Stars,” Wilco and Billy Bragg
5. “Do-Re-Mi, ” Woody Guthrie
6. “The Redtail Hawk,” Kate Wolf
7. “The National Anthem,” Radiohead
8. “How to Disappear Completely,” Radiohead
9. “Treefingers,” Radiohead
10. “Into Dust,” Mazzy Starr
11. “Mogwai Fear Satan,” Mogwai
12. “Shine,” Pillar
13. “Corpus Christi Chorus,” Jeff Buckley
14. “Blue Skied an’ Clear,” Slowdive
15. “Rutti,” Slowdive
16. “Laguna Sunrise,” Black Sabbath
17. “Sugar Mountain,” Neil Young
18. “Erik’s Song,” (unofficially subtitled “Flight of the Golden Eagle”), Slowdive
19. “Mothers of the Disappeared,” U2
Back to Birding in the Face of Terror
Not One, Not Two 
Looking forward to listening to this!
So who will play Nadia?
And who will they cast for Pedro?
😊
Tobie
Really good questions, Tobie. I’ve never had an idea for Nadia. I know the real person so well that maybe it’s hard to imagine someone ACTING as her? She would have to look somewhat like Vera, a natural-looking redhead, and be really good at nailing her bipolar swings. For Pedro, I used to think Emile Hirsch, solely because I loved the way he portrayed Alexander Supertramp in “Into the Wild.” But looking at pics of him, I think he’s too Latin; he could pass for a real Pedro –and the key to this character, of course, is he looks nothing at all like a Pedro. We need someone more Anglo-Saxon. And he’d have to be able to put on 20 pounds to film the present-day scenes, with a pretty slender look in the pre-bus driving flashbacks & an in-between look for the others.
Yep, I agree, he looks like a Pedro. What fun, casting your own movie.
I shall keep my open for an appropriate Pedro!