by: Susan Sloate
Genre: Drama
Release Date: August 19, 2025
Publisher: Covfefe Press
On Halloween Eve, 1961, in his dingy Bronx walkup apartment, seventeen-year-old Jimmy Welton hears the opening notes of a song in his head. Jimmy’s still mourning his firefighter father, who taught him to play the guitar but recently died in a house fire, leaving his family destitute. Jimmy takes this song, about all he misses from his life now, to the New York amusement park where he works after school. There, he meets Mark Morgan, a rebellious teen with his own band, who eventually invites Jimmy to join them. And the rest is rock'n roll history...
Their band, The GooseBumps, become a worldwide phenomenon, and the songs they write and sing together become the backbone of rock musical history. And the song Jimmy first heard on Halloween, "Wrapped in Gauze", becomes the song that not only comforts him in that terrible time but also comforts others: Victoria, recently divorced and dealing with an out-of-nowhere family tragedy; Carolyn, whose final flippant words to someone in pain can't be taken back; and Jack, battling back from unimaginable loss with the help of his cheeky therapist and a song he thinks he hates.
SCENES FROM A SONG is the story of a song that makes us smile, that breaks our hearts, that stays with us forever, and the very special band that started it all.
A few years ago, I went looking for YouTube clips of my favorite Beatles song, “Please Please Me”, one of their earliest hits. I’ve always loved it, and I found a great YouTube clip of Paul McCartney singing the song to close a concert with his band.
McCartney turned that concert tour into a film, so he had cameras filming the audience, and I watched their reactions as he sang. They sang right along—knew every word—and literally danced in the aisles at times. And toward the end, people were crying. And I thought, Why would people cry at such an upbeat song? And then I realized they were remembering other times in their lives, and the song was evoking deep emotions in them.
I loved that clip—watched it more than 100 times—and a few months later, I was planning for Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month), the insane November marathon to write 50,000 words of an original novel in one month. I had done Nano many times before, hit 50,000 words most of the time, but this November I wanted to do something different. So I decided to write about a song that brings out that kind of emotion in people—and when I started, as you often do with Nano, I didn’t really know how the book would evolve. But it became the story of a band and then the individual stories of other people affected by that song. And yes, I did make 50,000 words that November, and I finished the first draft of the book just before the end of that year.
When I found out that reading the book was making my beta readers literally cry, I knew I had something special.
To this day, “Please Please Me” is still my favorite Beatles song (though not my all-time favorite song, but it’s up there). And SCENES FROM A SONG, my new novel, is about that band and that song and what it means to people at various times in their lives; hope you’ll give it a try and hope it makes you cry too!
“Jimmy Welton, meet my good friend, Mark Morgan.”
“Hi,” Jimmy said, extending his hand to the newcomer.
Mark looked at his hand as though he didn’t know what to do with it, then reached out and pumped it with his own. Jimmy noticed his own hand felt bruised when he let it drop.
Mark looked at him, his eyes narrowing. “So what’s your job here—you’re the handsome prince at the park? So all the girls can swoon over you?” His voice, a normal baritone, escalated suddenly almost to falsetto. He batted his eyelashes girlishly at Jimmy.
Jimmy grimaced. He hated being teased about his costume, and now he liked this guy even less.
Luke went on eagerly. “Mark goes to high school downtown, Jimmy. He came out tonight to scout the park.”
“What for?” Jimmy asked, not really interested in the answer. The guy struck him as a bad imitation of James Dean. Jimmy had met plenty like him, and they were all bad news.
“For my band to play here,” Mark answered, his voice cutting through the windy evening.
Jimmy, who had been ready to walk away, stopped dead. “You have a band?”
“Sure as hell do. I play guitar and sing.”
Jimmy had never met anyone, boy or girl, who was in a band. Suddenly he wasn’t mad about being teased anymore; he was starting to get excited. He tried to seem nonchalant as he asked, “Is it a dance band or country-western, or—”
Mark looked amused. “No, Pretty Boy. It’s rock `n roll. Ever hear of it?”
Rock ‘n roll! Jimmy would kill to hear a live rock ‘n roll band.
“Hi,” Jimmy said, extending his hand to the newcomer.
Mark looked at his hand as though he didn’t know what to do with it, then reached out and pumped it with his own. Jimmy noticed his own hand felt bruised when he let it drop.
Mark looked at him, his eyes narrowing. “So what’s your job here—you’re the handsome prince at the park? So all the girls can swoon over you?” His voice, a normal baritone, escalated suddenly almost to falsetto. He batted his eyelashes girlishly at Jimmy.
Jimmy grimaced. He hated being teased about his costume, and now he liked this guy even less.
Luke went on eagerly. “Mark goes to high school downtown, Jimmy. He came out tonight to scout the park.”
“What for?” Jimmy asked, not really interested in the answer. The guy struck him as a bad imitation of James Dean. Jimmy had met plenty like him, and they were all bad news.
“For my band to play here,” Mark answered, his voice cutting through the windy evening.
Jimmy, who had been ready to walk away, stopped dead. “You have a band?”
“Sure as hell do. I play guitar and sing.”
Jimmy had never met anyone, boy or girl, who was in a band. Suddenly he wasn’t mad about being teased anymore; he was starting to get excited. He tried to seem nonchalant as he asked, “Is it a dance band or country-western, or—”
Mark looked amused. “No, Pretty Boy. It’s rock `n roll. Ever hear of it?”
Rock ‘n roll! Jimmy would kill to hear a live rock ‘n roll band.
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Susan has also written young-adult fiction and non-fiction, including the children’s biography Ray Charles: Find Another Way, which won the silver medal in the 2007 Children’s Moonbeam Awards. Mysteries Unwrapped: The Secrets of Alcatraz led to her 2009 appearance on the TV series MysteryQuest for The History Channel. She has also been a sportswriter and a screenwriter, edited the popular Kyle & Corey young-adult book series, managed two political campaigns and founded an author’s festival to promote student literacy in her hometown outside Charleston, SC. She has appeared in multiple volumes of WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA, WHO’S WHO IN ENTERTAINMENT and WHO’S WHO AMONG AMERICAN WOMEN.
Places to find Susan Sloate:
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Thank you so much for featuring SCENES FROM A SONG today.
ReplyDeleteThanks for having me; wonderful to be with you today! Here's a question for your readers: Which songs give YOU goosebumps?
DeleteSounds like a good read.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Rita; hope you'll check it out and decide for yourself!!
ReplyDelete