11. Carl OrffCarmina Burana

When I’m working on fiction, or if I’m feeling particularly overwhelmed, I quite often just turn my phone off. I managed to do 40 days once without connection – I had a novel to write and just needed to zone in. The only way I could listen to music on my way to the studio was with this really old iPod – fuck knows where it’s from. 

I’d leave my house at 3am. I couldn’t sleep, I was working 15 hour days to finish this thing, dreaming in character, in this mad dissociative state of exhaustion. Walking to the studio one morning, just before dawn, this piece of music came on this iPod, and I was like ‘what the fuck is this?’ It was revelatory. I have a house phone, so I gave my friend the name of the song and asked what it was. My friend looked it up, and said “it’s on at the Albert Hall in two days – they’re performing it as a Prom.” So, two days later I was at the Albert Hall watching this performance, with 200 people in this choir singing – there were so many singers in the chorus, some of them were just sitting in the seats. It was like being punched in the head by music.