Top Five: Benji Hughes Songs

 

Five Benji Hughes Songs from L Extreme: JL Civi

 

L Extreme is a song-by-song novelization of the cult classic double album A Love Extreme by musician Benji Hughes, an artist Vulture once called “the best songwriter you’ve never heard of.” The book serves as a wild tribute to the music and the muse in the spirit of Being John Malkovich crossed with Yellow Submarine via the 33 1/3 music criticism series.

 

I’m frequently asked a) How does writing a novel based on an album work? and b) Do you need to be familiar with the music to understand the story? This TNBBC top five list seemed like a good place to tackle both questions with examples.

 

The twenty-five track album served as a skeleton outline to build around, split into four sections mirroring the sides of two vinyl records. Names/places/situations were plucked from the entire Benji Hughes catalogue to populate the world of the story as needed. If you approach the book with an “anything goes” mentality typical of bizarro fiction, familiarity with A Love Extreme the album isn’t strictly necessary—but it will help make sense of (and maybe even spoil) some of the abrupt turns the plot takes.

 

That said, we’re talking about my favorite album of all time—why else would I write a book about it? So I definitely recommend listening to A Love Extreme whether or not you have any intention of reading the companion novel. The music is that good. J

 

Without further ado, here are five stellar Benji Hughes songs with a little taste of how they became part of the soundtrack to L Extreme.

 

 

1) The Mummy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IVc6KRiqUo

 

It all started with this charmingly nonsensical indie rocker that name drops classic movie monsters, a Pavement DVD, and Joe Walsh of The Eagles. For years I’ve written short stories based on songs for fun to amuse myself or my friends. Long before attempting this novel was on my radar, I took a stab at a story featuring Frankenstein, Dracula, and the Mummy as roommates in a band with a Monkees style living situation. Monsters felt too obvious, so I shifted to a guy named Frank (who may or may not be Victor’s creation) and another named Count (who may or may not be an adult version of the Sesame Street muppet vampire). For unknown reasons I randomly replaced the Mummy with a fictionalized Benji Hughes, and half of the core L Extreme cast were born. That original story is NOT the chapter that ended up in the final book, but it was the spark that set this album oriented fan fiction project in motion.

 

2) Neighbor Down the Hall

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LStHRFzhH2Y

 

A chill anecdotal story song chronicling the downsides of big city living, this track fleshed out quite a bit of the L Extreme framework—especially Side A. The novel’s primary setting is a small apartment on an okay side of town. Benji & C perpetually play music on a jambox and worry about noise complaints. Neighborhood watch and Halloween become set pieces moving the plot forward in bizarre ways, taking cues from Benji’s lyrics. Halloween conveniently ties back to Frankenstein & Dracula from the aforementioned Mummy tune, drawing dotted lines between two songs/chapters in need of connecting by an author looking for patterns.

 

3) Do You Think They Would Tell You?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KWB25W38aY

 

My favorite Benji Hughes song, and one that unexpectedly became the linchpin of the novel. “A little woman lives in your brain….She wants to meet the man in your heart….She’s over all the ones in your feet.” This fantastical fairytale love song inspired the bulk of Side B, subtitled “The Ballad of Heartman & Songstress.” Some readers have suggested Side B is a more accessible entry point to LX than Side A. It’s a mostly standalone flashback (outside of a framing device intro/outro) that chronologically happens first. If I wasn’t so invested in the stunt of following the album order end to end I may have been inclined to lead with this part also, so I endorse it as a valid alternate reading experience. But oh, what a song.

 

4) Cornfields

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v6aV_QrwgA

 

Five short instrumental jams are included among the twenty-five tracks on A Love Extreme. Without lyrics to mine for ideas, I took inspiration from the titles and musical composition, landing on an idea to unify each one into surreal fever dream chapters that feel jarring in the moment but (hopefully) make sense by the end. The word “cornfields” always reminds me of an old Quantum Leap episode where Sam Beckett leaps into himself as a teenager and twice runs through a field of corn, which paired nicely with the heavy surf rock vibe of the song. (The video is a zany QL parody book trailer  / music video I hacked together to illustrate where my brain went here. Having knowledge of the TV show definitely helps you appreciate this chapter.)

 

5) I Went with Some Friends to See the Flaming Lips

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIv0gp3gEo4

 

Another story song, this time about a real-life road trip to see a concert at the Orange Peel in Asheville, NC on 4/17/03. Benji Hughes often calls it “a play by play” in interviews. I kept the spirit of the subject matter by having the gang watch the Flaming Lips documentary The Fearless Freaks (on DVD—tying back to the Pavement film sung about in “The Mummy”), but plot-wise honed in on a seemingly throwaway line as a crucial turning point and the namesake for two key characters: “Jessica and L dropped by…”

 

Since I’m supposed to limit this to only five songs (my true top list would span multiple albums), I don’t have room to get into how the lyric “I want to be in your book—the front page of your life” subconsciously pushed me deeper into this project or how mis-hearing another lyric as “I’m standing in a cape on your lawn” inspired a Say Anything style segment with the omnipresent jambox held high over Benji’s head outside L’s window. Full chapter by chapter, song by song commentary is available on my blog if you’re intrigued and want to learn more.

 

I’m forever in debt to Benji Hughes for entertaining this unsolicited, out of the blue project and ultimately giving his permission to release it. (He even provided the cover art and wrote an afterword!) If you hate the book, blame me. If you enjoy it, credit the muse and his masterwork for the inspiration. Either way, check out his music. I hope you dig it as much as I do.

 

A Love Extreme — an album by Benji Hughes

 

L Extreme — a novel by JL Civi

 

Special thanks to Lori for inviting me to contribute to the TNBBC Blog author series!

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JL Civi is a music aficionado and time travel geek. Both turn up frequently in his work—often in the same stories—even when he starts off writing about something else. L Extreme is his second novel, following the rock and roll time travel tale Timely Persuasion and the serialized juror stories from the work in progress Duty Calls series. Originally from New England, he currently lives in Texas with his wife and dogs. He hates talking about himself, even in the third person. Why are you reading this bio when you could be reading one of his books? Learn more at www.JLCivi.com