Jack Reacher, the protagonist of Lee Child’s novels, often experiences music internally rather than through external devices. He has a deep appreciation for blues music, and songs frequently play in his mind as he moves through different situations. This internal soundtrack reflects his solitary nature and sharp observational skills, with music serving as a kind of mental backdrop to his thoughts and actions.
In Killing Floor, Reacher recalls Smokestack Lightning by Howlin’ Wolf, a classic blues track, as he walks through the town of Margrave, Georgia. The rhythm and tone of the song mirror his mood and the unfolding tension of the story. Instead of listening to music through headphones or a radio, he simply hears it in his head, as if his mind is tuned to an internal jukebox.
‘The arguments flew back and forth. And in the smudgy photographs, the
President was just beaming away like a statesman saying there was nothing he
could do. I stopped reading, because it was just making me angrier.
To calm down, I ran music through my head.
The chorus in Smokestack Lightning. The Howling Wolf version puts a
wonderful strangled cry on the end of the first line. They say you need to ride the
rails for a while to understand the travelling blues.
They’re wrong. To understand the travelling blues you need to be locked down
somewhere. In a cell. Or in the army. Someplace where you’re caged. Someplace
where smokestack lightning looks like a far-away beacon of impossible freedom. I
lay there with my coat as a pillow and listened to the music in my head. At the end
of the third chorus, I fell asleep.’
Child, L. (1997). Killing floor (p. 15). Putnam.