I’ve never thought of myself as a songwriter, so this was a new experience. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. What I really wanted was to quote some of those iconic song lyrics from the 60’s in my novel set in 1971. Lyrics that spoke to the heart of my novel, and Lena in particular, that idealistic surfer and anti-war protester who travels to Central America in search of her Maya heritage but ends up in a revolution as a freedom fighter.

Here’s what I wrote originally in Chapter Two:

[Lena] pulls out Joni Mitchell’s Ladies of the Canyon album and drops it onto the spindle. . . . When her favorite song Woodstock comes on about turning bombers into butterflies, she sings along, loving Joni’s airy bell-like voice flouncing up and down the scale.

We are stardust, we are golden
We are caught in the devil’s bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Unfortunately, I found out that you need special permission to use song lyrics, and it can be very expensive and a long wait for approval, if it comes at all.

Yet, Part One of the novel is called Hour of the Garden, eluding to that state of innocence from which Lena eventually emerges in Part Two (titled Hour Up in Arms, referring both the arms of her lover and the arms of the freedom fighters she is about to join). Therefore, I needed a song that would communicate something similar to the “Woodstock” song I had quoted before.

So I changed it to this, adding a fictional singer and my own lyrics:

Lena pulls out Cali Michael’s iconic anti-war album and drops it onto the spindle. . . . When her favorite song “Back to the Garden” comes on, she sings along, imitating Cali’s airy bell-like voice.

We must return to the Garden of Eden
To the innocence we once understood:
Where destroyers were dolphins
And bullets butterflies
And Serpents sang sermons of good.

Later on I had to do the same thing in chapter 11 after quoting the lyrics of the Beach Boys’ “California Girls.” I invented a new surfer band and wrote the lyrics for a new song.

It was a fun scene. A young, brash soldier learns that Lena (now embedded in his camp as a photojournalist) is also a surfer. So he belts out a surf song to a crowd of soldiers gathered in the camp:

Pepe looks closely at Lena. “You’re from California, right? A surfer?”

“How’d you guess?”

He slaps his knee. “I knew it! You look like those California girls the Pipeliners sing about. You know the song, “Surfer Girls,” right?” He grins and then begins singing.

We’ve travelled all around these U.S. towns
And kissed all kinds of girls,
From the City Slickers with their trendy knickers
To the Southern Dolls with their sexy drawls.
But none out there can ever compare
With the gals we find back home.”

By now, others nearby are egging him on, so he gets up to milk the crowd, leaning into a pretend microphone.

With their sun-kissed hair and tan limbs bare,
These wild Wahinis in their French bikinis
Put all the rest to shame.
Why can’t they all be surfer girls?”

He points his thumb over his shoulder at Lena as he sings the chorus, “Why can’t they all be surfer girls?”

By the time he’s finished, all are clapping, and Lena is blushing. “Stop it! You’re embarrassing me.” Pepe plops down beside her again. “You seemed to enjoy that,” she says.

“Immensely,” he agrees, grinning.

I refer to other singers and songs in the novel. Here’s a few you might enjoy, including the ones by Joni and the Beach Boys that, sadly, I couldn’t use:

“Black Magic Woman” is the song playing when Lena enters a pub, hoping to learn more about rebels said to be hiding in the hills and their leader, Raoul, whose posters are plastered all over the streets of San Balanque.

I’m including the following song by The Doors, because Lena thinks Raoul looks like Jim Morrison, whose poster hung on her on her bedroom wall as a teenager. But she decides he’s too pretty to be the leader of the rebels trying to overthrow the regime.

Here’s how that scene plays out:

Everywhere she goes, large posters are plastered on walls, some looking as if they’d been torn away, then pasted back. All feature a man with a mane of dark wavy hair, large dark eyes, and full sensuous lips. He reminds her of Jim Morrison in The Doors poster she has at home. Or Che Guevara in those new posters. For like Che, this man is dressed in fatigues with a bandolier slung over his shoulder.

“Who’s that on the poster?” Lena asks the young woman next to her on the bus.

“Ah, that is Raoul, leader of the Aguileros.” When Lena looks puzzled, she explains, “Leader of the freedom fighters.”

“The rebels hiding in the hills?”

She shrugs. “The hills, the villages, the city—as you can see. He’s what you Norte-Americanos might call a Robin Hood, who takes from the rich and gives to the poor. The people love him!”

“And do you?”

She grins. “But of course! He’s so handsome. All the girls swoon. But,” she adds, her grin disappearing, “his days are numbered. It’s regrettable, but what can you do?” She turns from Lena to scold the little boy sitting on her lap, slapping his hand as he reaches into her satchel to pull out a bun.

Lena looks again at the poster before they drive away, noticing the name Raoul in big block letters below the image. The artwork reminds her of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe, an idealized image silkscreened in three colors. This one’s in orange, gold and maroon—the colors of San Balanque’s flag. He is strikingly handsome, she concedes—too handsome to be taken seriously. Those large dark eyes are like Christ’s on the cross. They’ve already made him into a martyr!

He’s just a figurehead, someone to rally around, she decides. He looks like a model made up to look like a rebel. Sexy and sultry, but certainly not dangerous. He needs a beard or mustache, at least. Or a cocky beret. The bandolier helps, but it’s not enough. She sees why they chose this face though—all the women half in love with him, all the men wanting to look like him. He’s like a movie star, larger than life. All their hopes and dreams pinned on his pretty face. But the real power behind these Aguileros, if there’s any at all, lies elsewhere. She’s sure of it.

I hope you enjoyed this song excursion into the wild and turbulent Sixties, where I (and Lena) came of age.

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