MUSICA! OUR DAUGHTERS PLAYLIST
By Sinéad Crowe, Isabelle Liber and María Tellechea
Every road trip needs a good playlist. Though Betty, the central figure of Daughters, claims to be entirely unmusical, in fact music plays an important role in the novel. After all, the “father” with whom Betty is so obsessed is a professional trombonist, and moments of freedom, joy and reconciliation tend to be bound up with music: take the scene in which Betty and Martha belt out Ciao Ragazzi Ciao in the car, for example, or the touching moment when the fathers sing L’italiano together.
On that note (pun intended), we’ve put together a short playlist of the music that formed the soundtrack to our translation journey. The playlist includes not only songs that are explicitly mentioned in Daughters, but also other music – including music from our home countries – that inspired us while we were working on the novel: songs about driving and escape, for example, and melodies that transported us to the sunny Mediterranean countries in which much of the novel is set.
All together now
“Lasciatemi cantare
con la chitarra in mano
lasciatemi cantare
una canzone piano piano.“