Stephen King, one of the most prolific writers of our time with over 65 novels and novellas under his belt (and a few more as pen name Richard Bachman) and my favourite author of all time… was apparently a huge fan of Mambo No.5.
That’s right, the author behind The Shining, The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, Carrie, Cujo, and Stand By Me – amongst many others – apparently really loved a bit of Angela, Pamela, Sandra and Rita.
King recently said in an interview with Rolling Stone (via Variety) whilst promoting his new novel, Holly, that his wife once threatened to divorce him because he listened to the track too much.
Apparently this had been a rumour for some time, and when asked if it were true, King said:
Oh, yeah. Big time. My wife threatened to divorce me. I played that a lot. I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things and I played both sides of it. And one of them was just total instrumental. And I played that thing until my wife just said, ‘One more time, and I’m going to fucking leave you.’
Welp, he must have got the message, as he and Tabitha have been together since 1971. The now-famous ultimatum occurred whilst he was in the midst of writing 11/22/63 which came out in 2011.
King kindly detailed more of his listening habits during the interview.
When I write, there are things that I can listen to a lot. And a lot of it is techno stuff or disco stuff, but techno in particular. There’s this group called LCD Soundsystem, and I love that. Fatboy Slim is somebody else. I can just listen to that stuff. If you tried to write and listen to Leonard Cohen, how the fuck would you do that? Because you’d have to listen to the words and you’d have to listen to what he’s saying. But with some of the techno stuff, or KC and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, it’s all good.
I suppose it makes sense, although it wasn’t something I’d ever imagined about my favourite author before. Good info, nevertheless!
Stephen King’s new book Holly is available to purchase on Amazon right now.
Source: GeekTyrant
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