Character Theme Songs

I love theme songs, and at a tender young age, I decided that if Princess Leia, Shaft, James Bond, and... heck, even Gilligan could have one, so could I (Voco's cover of the Jr. Walker classic "Cleo's Back" was my choice at the time, since I sometimes went by the nickname Cleo. I still wish I were half as cool as that song.)



Since that time, many of my books' characters have had their own personal theme songs. From HEAT LIGHTNING, community crusader Luz Maria Montoya rocked to Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down." As I wrote another heroine from an upcoming book, I repeatedly played Tracy Chapman's "Change" because the lyrics represented the character's journey so beautifully.

The cool thing is, even years and years after I've written a manuscript (and I'm including a small mountain of unpublished work here), whenever I hear a song I've come to associate with a particular character, I'm instantly snapped back to that individual and his/her story. Most of the time, there's no mention of the music in the book itself, but it serves as a valuable, evocative anchor, a touchpoint for emotion.

But now I'm curious. Do any of your characters have theme songs? Or does the story itself? Anyone brave enough to share here, just for fun?