Soundtracks to Scenes

There are a lot of writers who need mood music to write a particular type of scene, or a particular story in the case of a short. I'm not one of them, unfortunately, seeing as my words tend to flow better when I'm in an oddly meditative state. I could into more detail, but a lot of it has to do with my mass amounts of independent reading into Buddhist/Christian spirituality and let's be honest that's not why you're reading this.

Anyway, one of the interesting things I've discovered about my process is that when I'm plotting out a scene in my head, I can sometimes imagine it set to a particular type of music or even a particular song. Sometimes I'll hear a song and imagine a scene not necessarily related to the story itself, but indicative of the characters.

An example: A previous version of CALLARION AT NIGHT opens with a bar fight. Those of you who've read the tale of my spunky superheroine Moriah Rowani, will of course believe that she in no way, shape, or form had anything to do with starting said fight. *pauses for snickering to stop*

Anyway, in writing this bar fight I imagined the song Black Betty (the Ram Jam version, not the Spiderbait one) playing over the scene. I've always been convinced that Black Betty is an absolutely perfect fight scene song for a number of reasons -- mostly because the rhythm is just right to mesh with the martial-arts-based fighting styles my characters almost always have.

A scene I don't have in any of my stories is set to Free Ride by the Edgar Winter Group. This one involves starting up a top-end sports car and zooming away on the highway. I always envision a man and a woman and the woman asking where they're headed. The guy responds with "I don't know yet." And then there's engine revving sounds and the song kicks up.

There's a whole bunch of other songs I've set imaginary scenes to -- a car chase to Fuel by Metallica, proposal scene to the Heaven remix by DJ Sammy, etc. There's a scene in my head for practically every song I hear. Some of them are sheer ridiculousness, and have no place in my writing, but are extremely funny to imagine anyway. The song I Can Do Anything Better Than You Can is the archetypal relationship song for the romantic pairing of Moriah with her ex-fiance Nicolai. A very interesting relationship, that.

What about you? Do you imagine scenes set to music?