That night, Gally and Alix lay together in a featherbed in the attic of a cozy backstreet inn.
“I still feel like I’m pitching on the sea,” said Alix into Gally’s shoulder, where she had snuggled up.
Gally laughed. “We were onboard for less than twenty-four hours! You’ll get your land legs back, I promise. You don’t go stumbling around every time you finish a ride, do you?”
“Horses don’t tilt sideways.”
They lapsed back into comfortable silence, and for a while Alix listened to Gally’s steady breathing and the beat of her heart. Her own heart, which normally raced along at a gallop, slowed to match Gally’s unflappable rhythms. Her eyes grew heavy. At length she said, “Still impressed as hell you sorted that out.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You enjoyed your big…” Alix paused for a yawn. “Big moment?”
“More than I’d like to admit.”
“S’a vacation.” She was properly sleepy now. “S’good you had fun.”
As she drifted off, she saw the flash of Gally’s smile and heard her say softly, “I couldn’t have done it without you.”
BARD CITY BLUES OFFICIAL PLAYLIST
As a musician writing a book about music, it was perhaps inevitable that I would make a playlist. In fact, I made a few. But this one was built to represent the shifting moods of Bard City Blues.
Music taste is idiosyncratic by definition. So is cozy fantasy, for that matter. So when I set out to find cozy songs, it was inevitable that they’d represent nothing more than my own quirks of taste and feeling. I hope you’ll find them as warm and welcoming as I do, but even if you don’t, perhaps they’ll help capture the mood of each chapter.
One of the biggest challenges in putting this playlist together was not overrepresenting any given band. Jethro Tull, for example, has any number of songs with a pastoral cozy feel, particularly from their folk-inspired duology Heavy Horses and Songs from the Wood. Other bands who vied for too many spots included The Midnight, MUNA, Runrig, and Skipinnish.
In the end, I set a hard limit of one song per band. And I only cheated once (Fish was the lead singer of Marillion).
Chapter 1.
The Midnight - “A Place of Her Own”
The perfect song for a young woman wandering the streets of a new city, alone and looking for her place in the world.
Chapter 2.
Helium - “Cosmic Rays”
Music, beauty, and more than a hint of the weird.
Chapter 3.
Pavlov’s Dog - “She Came Shining”
No song better captures the moment you meet someone new and you just know your life is changing forever.
Chapter 4.
Big Country - “In a Big Country”
Gally’s starting to settle in at the Lifted Gate. She’s earned a big anthem.
Chapter 5.
Blue Öyster Cult - “Celestial the Queen”
“She came from the dark, she came from a dream/all leather and chain the rising queen”—I couldn’t imagine a better theme song for Alix.
Chapter 6.
The Answer - “Pride”
Master Southack punctures Gally’s pride and Gally, in turn, punctures Alix’s.
Chapter 7.
Jethro Tull - “Slow Marching Band”
This song is the highlands anthem, so it comes up when we finally learn Gally’s backstory.
Chapter 8.
Crosby, Stills, & Nash - “Guinnevere”
A song full of magic, both literal and figurative. Of course this chapter is when the big magic of the book happens, but it’s also when Alix’s entrancement of Gally really takes hold.
Chapter 9.
Tommy Keene - “Places That Are Gone”
At first blush this song sounds like a nostalgic lament, but it’s actually about the blossoming of new romance.
Chapter 10.
The 1975 - “Me & You Together Song”
The bright music captures the wonderful innocence of both Tails and Nose Cabbage, but this song is really about an unrequited infatuation, which is of course a big part of Tails’s character.
Chapter 11.
Fairport Convention - “Rosie”
May’s theme song. For what it’s worth, I prefer the version on By Popular Request.
