Post written by Rajinderpal S. Pal, author of However Far Away. 

I was an awkward teenager. At the all-boys grammar school in Isleworth, London, I was well-liked but considered to be overly bookish, quiet, and serious. Music never made much of an impression on me until my early teenage years and once it did, it immediately gave me a way to fit in. Relocating to Calgary at age fifteen, music became a necessary refuge, a way to work through the feelings of dislocation and loneliness. I was the new kid with the strange accent who had skipped a grade. So, any breaks in my schedule were spent at the local Kelly’s Records. Sharing music with others became a safe means of communication. A few years ago, I tried to gauge a rough estimate of how many mixtapes I made and gave away to others during the late 1970s and through the 1980s; it was more than three hundred. Music became a way to define myself, and though still shy and afraid to share my emotions, the mixtapes allowed me to reveal myself in a way my own words could not. 

When writing my debut novel, However Far Away, one of the first things that became clear to me were the characteristics of my lead male protagonist, Devinder Gill. He would be friendly, publicly well-liked, he would show an optimistic exterior, and he would be really into music. As I wrote more and more scenes, it was curious how certain songs or musicians found their way into the narrative. Almost all the songs and artists on the However Far Away playlist are mentioned directly in the novel.  

1. “Lovesong” by the Cure. Album: Disintegration, 1989.

This is the song from which the title of the novel is taken. Though the song is not specifically mentioned in the novel, the album Disintegration features in a pivotal scene. The mood of the album is mostly gloomy and dark—hypnotic bass lines, droning keyboards, shimmering bells—so the upbeat “Lovesong” stands apart. It is lyrically simple, a testament to a love that will never die, “however far away” the lovers might be from each other. I understood the “far away” as a reference to both geographical distance and time; a love that would survive over decades. Robert Smith wrote the song as a wedding gift to his wife. I cannot imagine a more beautiful gift.

2. “My Mother the War” by 10,000 Maniacs. Album: The Wishing Chair and Secrets from the I Ching.

I had the notion that my protagonists Devinder and Emily would share a deep connection through music, and that their first unplanned date would be at a music show. I researched past Vancouver concert listings for gigs that might fit the bill and learned that an early 10,000 Maniacs tour stopped in Vancouver in late April 1986, when university students would have been writing their final exams of the school year. For some reason the setlist for that show could not be found on the internet so, on a whim, I sent an email to the 10,000 Maniacs fan club. Within a week I received a response from Steven Gustafson, bass player and founding member. His reply not only included the setlist but a summary of the band’s snowy journey over the Rocky Mountains the next day and a stop at Lake Louise to imbibe in a substance it would be best to not mention here. Emily grew up in Belfast during the peak of the Troubles. “My Mother the War,” a song about the trauma of living through war, was a perfect response when Devinder asks Emily what song she is most excited to hear at the show.

P.S. The next stop on that tour was at the University of Calgary but sadly, I missed the show. Perhaps having these characters meet at a 10,000 Maniacs show is a way to deal with that regret.

3. “A Case of You” by Joni Mitchell. Album: Blue.

I came to appreciate the music of Joni Mitchell rather late. During my years growing up in England, there were very few Canadian musicians being played regularly on the radio shows that I listened to, which almost exclusively played hard rock. It was only in my forties when I heard the album Blue that Mitchell’s music struck a chord with me, and I finally understood the appeal that made her such a legend. There is a scene in Act II of However Far Away in which Devinder and Emily swap mixtapes with each other. Once a mixtape had been made, there was always the important question of what to name it, what would be visible on its spine once the tape was arranged on a shelf alongside others. I imagined Emily naming her mixtape for Devinder after the title of a song that she would surely have included, the lyrics still swirling in her head after their first evening together: “A Case of You.”

 4. “Didi Tera Devar Deewana” by Lata Mangeshkar and S.P. Balasubrahmanyam. Soundtrack: Hum Aapke Hain Kaun.

Devinder and Emily are not the only protagonists in However Far Away. Equally important is the character of Kuldip, who in Act II leaves her life in New Delhi for Vancouver to become Devinder’s wife. She is only nineteen and has never been on a flight before. I recalled the old flip screens on the panel of every bulkhead onto which movies were projected, and the communal experience they enabled, all heads turned toward the shared screen. I am no expert in Bollywood music, so I asked around for what film might be playing on a flight from New Delhi to London, circa late 1995. I was told that the film Hum Aapke Hain Kaun was hugely popular at that time and the song “Didi Tera Devar Deewana,” sung by the legendary playback singer Lata Mangeshkar, was everywhere. The song title translates to, “Sister, your brother-in-law is crazy,” which I thought was both funny and fitting for the situation. I could picture Kuldip, who would sneak out of her New Delhi home to watch movies, singing along, knowing every word, as she travels toward her new life as a married woman in a large and powerful family in Vancouver.

 5. “Love Will Tear Us Apart” by Joy Division. Released as a single in 1980.

For a song that consistently appears on those “greatest songs of all time” lists—which we all hate the idea of but read anyway—and the number of times it has been covered by other artists, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” remains largely unknown in North America. I get it. The painful details of a relationship falling apart are not exactly what most people want to hear in a “love” song. And in my experience, the British are far better equipped to handle that level of introspection. If there is one song that defines the late 1970s and early 1980s it is ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart.” Still to this day, it sounds to me like the encapsulation of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain: divided, cold, and depressed. In a defining moment of reconnection between Devinder and Emily this was the only song I ever considered. For those who have loved this song all these years, even the distinct cover design (an image of a grieving stone angel) is enough to take us back to a certain time and place—a certain age, a past version of ourselves.

 6. “Untitled” by the Cure. Album: Disintegration.

My dream job is to be to a music consultant for film, to find that exact song—emotion, tone, mood—for that specific scene. If However Far Away ever gets a film treatment—surely, I am allowed to dream—I would want the Cure’s “Untitled” to be played over the closing credits.

 You can listen to the full playlist here: