Songs with your name in them are awesome

My mum's name was Barbara Anne. So whenever we had the opportunity to do so, we would sing Barbara Anne, by the Beach Boys, to her really loud. And of course she loved it. Actually, she hated it.

And in the tradition of hating songs with your name in them, so I hate Mustang Sally. I can say it's not my name, because it's spelled differently, but it all sounds the same when your family's yelling 'RIDE, SALLY, RIDE' at you.

But then something happened. Songs that I actually like started to have my name in them. The first is Long Tall Sally (I am neither long nor tall. Nor is my name spelled Sally - but I digress)- by a lot of people but the versions I love are by the Beatles and the Kinks.

The second is Don't Look Back in Anger by Oasis. And lately it's been one of those songs that I've written about before - songs that inspire scenes for projects I'm turning over in my little brain.

The song has this pervading sense of weariness, and it fits in perfectly with this feeling I want to create in one of my projects. I've written about a story I want to write that's sort of an exploration of the idle rich, or about people who live in a world of no consequence, and whether that's really true. It's certainly not original - the idea's been covered in a lot of texts and films that I admire. Actually, it's mostly in novels that this idea has been examined. And Gossip Girl. Ahem.

At the moment, my idea is about a group of young, rich, Sydney socialites who do nothing but be seen. One of them wakes up one morning, and something feels different. She wonders if she doesn't care about anything. I guess it's sort of an analysis of societal expectations and how we construct meaning - at the moment it feels like a hybrid of Less Than Zero and Nausea. I've thought of a line that I think sums up the entire feeling of the film, and that is, "I don't know. I just can't feel thinking that the party's over."

Which is why Don't Look Back in Anger has been so inspiring. That world weariness seems so perfect for this project. But it has also inspired a scene. I want a character to die, and see how this affects the group. I had an idea that it could be the result of a drug overdose or suicide, but I feel like that suggests that the character's actions have lead them to this - that they are being punished, in effect, and that's not the point. It's really about testing Liriope's ability to connect with her world, I think.

I was listening to this song on the bus, and what it originally inspired was Liriope's reunion with a character outside of her social scene, but to me that was too much like Gossip Girl, or insulting. Why must the problems of her inner self be solved by something external, and by a boy no less! And again, it would be another way in society enforces meaning on her life by dictating what she should care about. Lame.

Lately it's given me a scene in which Liriope, after witnessing the death of one of the people in her circle, is walking in a daze along a motorway, her white lace minidress stained with blood.

That's all I have for that at the moment. I'm listening to Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and Tom Waits at the moment, so I'm sure they'll give me even more material. And of course, Morrissey and the Smiths are a constant source of inspiration for comments on the meaning of life and how people, on the whole, suck.

But cheer up and watch this. Your life will be better for it.