Stephen King (right) and wife Tabitha King during the 54th Annual National Book Awards ceremony and benefit dinner. Photo / Getty Images
Stephen King (right) and wife Tabitha King during the 54th Annual National Book Awards ceremony and benefit dinner. Photo / Getty Images
Stephen King’s wife “threatened to divorce” him over his obsession with Lou Bega’s Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit of...).
The 75-year-old horror writer has a “big time” appreciation for the catchy 1999 single and had it on repeat while writing his 2011 time-travelling tale 11/22/63, much to the furyof his spouse Tabitha.
Asked about his love of the song, he told Rolling Stone magazine: “Oh, yeah. Big time. My wife threatened to divorce me. I played that a lot.”
“I had the dance mix. I loved those extended play things, and I played both sides of it. And one of them was just [totally] instrumental.
“And I played that thing until my wife just said, “One more time, and I’m going to f***ing leave you.”
The Holly writer has always favoured having techno on in the background while he’s working because he prefers songs without words so he doesn’t get distracted.
He explained: “When I write, there are things that I can listen to a lot. And a lot of it is techno stuff or disco stuff, but techno in particular. There’s this group called LCD Soundsystem, and I love that. Fat Boy Slim is somebody else.”
“I can just listen to that stuff. If you tried to write and listen to Leonard Cohen, how the f*** would you do that? Because you’d have to listen to the words and you’d have to listen to what he’s saying.
“But with some of the techno stuff, or KC and the Sunshine Band, Gloria Gaynor, it’s all good.”
However, King admitted he doesn’t listen to music as much as he used to while working because his “thought process” isn’t as sharp as it used to be.
He said: “Oh, I don’t listen to it as much when I write. I think it’s because I’ve slowed down a little bit, or the thought process is not as limber as it was when I was say 30, 35, that sort of thing.”
“But I still do listen to it when I polish, when I rewrite, and I listen to a lot of loud rock’n’roll.
“Lately, I think that I’ve been sort of stuck on Foghat and Bob Seger, people like that. But I’ve also been listening to a fair amount of country music. So a lot of Travis Tritt and Alan Jackson, people like that.”
