Soul Music

This article is about the novel Soul Music. For the type of music, see Soul music.

Soul Music is a Discworld novel by Terry Pratchett, published in 1994. Like many of the Discworld novels, it introduces an element of modern society into the magical and vaguely late medieval, early modern world of Discworld, in this case, Rock and Roll music and stardom, with nearly disastrous consequences.

It also introduces the recurring character Susan Sto Helit, daughter of Mort and Ysabell.

An animated adaptation was produced by Cosgrove-Hall Productions for Channel 4 in 1996. The soundtrack was also released on CD and is now out of production and highly sought-after.

Story outline

The story of the book follows The Band with Rocks In through their short-lived but glamorous musical career. A pun on the Rolling Stones, the band consists of the following members:

• Imp Y Celyn, a young lad from Llamedos (Sodemall backwards, see Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood) who sings and plays the guitar. His name is a Gaelic translation of bud Y holly ("bud of the holly"). He looks rather "Elvish" (Elvis), which is remarked upon several times in the books.
• Lias Bluestone, a troll who does percussion, which in typical troll fashion consists of banging rocks together. He later takes on a more rocky name, Cliff.
• Glod Glodsson, a dwarf that blows the horn
• The Librarian joins the Band for a little while to play the organ.

Following the band's amazing popularity, a large number of other bands appear, such as:

• We're Certainly Dwarfs (They Might Be Giants)
• A Big Troll and some other trolls
• Trollz
• &U (U2)
• The Whom (The Who)
• Lead Balloon (Led Zeppelin)

One of the bands keeps changing its name and at one point buys a deaf leopard (Def Leppard) as a mascot.

During the Band's popularity, Blert Wheedown's Guitar Primer (play your way to succefs in three easy lefsons and twenty hard lefsons) [sic] becomes a temporary bestseller in Ankh-Morpork. Also, C.M.O.T. Dibbler tries to make big business by selling Band with Rocks In shirts and assorted memorabilia.

Soul Music translations

• Музика на душата (Bulgarian)
• Težké melodično (Czech)
• Zieltonen (Dutch)
• Hinge muusika (Estonian)
• Accros du roc (French)
• Rollende Steine (German)
• Muzyka duszy (Polish)
• Музыка души (Russian)
• Duševna muzika (Serbian)
• Levande musik (Swedish)

External links

• Annotations for Soul Music
• Quotes from Soul Music