Whedon Wednesday :: Alpha Meet Omega [an Alpha/Echo fanmix]

1. Here I Dreamt I Was an Architect (The Decemberists)
And I am nothing of a builder but here I dreamt I was an architect, and I built this balustrade to keep you home, to keep you safe from the outside world.  But the angles and the corners, even though my work is unparalleled, they never seemed to meet, this structure fell about our feet and we were free to go.  And try one, and try two, guess it always comes down to alright, okay, guess it’s better to turn this way.

2. She’s Just Like Me/Taking Time (The Apples in Stereo)
She’s just like me, but she can see the sad faces, she knows they’re there, always aware of empty spaces.  She knows me well, and she can tell slight changes, she’s just like me, and she can see time wasted.  Turn your eyes away from here, she yearns to fly away from here.  I know her well, and I can tell when she’s restless.  I’m a lot like her, but I can’t answer all her questions.

3. The Wake Up Song (The Submarines)
We try our best, it’s our big test.  You’re looking east and I’m lost out west, can’t you hear me?  We’re moments away, moments away, let’s burn the house and run away.  Moments away, just seconds too late.

4. Animal (Jenny and Johnny)
We must rearrange reality, shuffle all the cards, play the joker with the queen just to make her scream.  To destroy all our enemies must investigate our friends, find the ones who don’t believe, hang them from the trees.  If you lose your fear of God you are an animal at heart.

5. Forever For Her (Is Over For Me) (The White Stripes)
Well, everybody’s reaction is changing you, but their love is only a fraction of what I can give to you.  So let’s do it, just get on a plane and just do it, like the birds and the bees and get to it, just get out of town and forever be free.  Forever, I wonder we could stay together, it could change if you want for the better, just turn down my shirt and lay down next to me.

6. Birthday Song (Ben Lee)
And you, you know what it means to be true and searching like me.  You’re the only thing I need, the only thing I need, the only thing on my mind all the time.  And you gave me a reason to give you my soul, I’ll give you it all.

7. You Will Be Mine (The Narrative)
Well I talked and I learned and my tongue couldn’t turn its tricks on you, so I tripped and perspired and fled from your island to plan my next move.  And all this time I’m waiting for a taste of what you hide, but I’ll know better when I am in too deep, you will be mine.  You will be mine, you will be mine, you will be mine.

8. Date With The Night (Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
Don’t tell me to fix her, don’t tell me to fix her, just take a bite.  No hanging no picture, blind out my sight.  Dropping brides at the altar, both thighs squeeze tight, choke choke choke choke choke choke choke choke choke choke.  I’ll send it to you, I’ll set it off.

9. Soulmates (Placebo)
This one world vision turns us into compromise, what good’s religion when it’s each other we despise?  Damn the government, damn their killing, damn their lies.  Hush, it’s okay, dry your eyes, soulmate dry your eyes, dry your eyes, soulmate dry your eyes, ’cause soulmates never die.

10. Map of the Problematique (Muse)
Life will flash before my eyes, so scattered and lost.  I want to touch the other side and no one thinks they are to blame.  Why can’t we see that when we bleed we bleed the same?  I can’t get it right, get it right since I met you.

11. Store Bought Bones (The Raconteurs)
Waiting on the rising sun, clutching at your holstered gun, praying on a shooting star that I can be wherever you are.  Looking through a telescope, maybe there’s a sign of hope, leaving everything behind, stirring a store bought mind.

12. Summer Skin (Death Cab for Cutie)
On the night you left I came over and we peeled the freckles from our shoulders, our brand new coats so flushed and pink and I knew your heart I couldn’t win.

13. Let’s Call It Love (Sleater-Kinney)
My dear, look at my face. I’ve been waiting for you in the same old place. I’ve got a long time for love. Jewels could spill from my cup but it’s all locked down and I’m all locked up. I’ve got a long time for love. A woman is not a girl, I could show you a thing or two. I’ve got a long time for love. Come on let’s go to the mat, hit the floor honey, let’s battle it out. I’ve got a long time for love.  Slow moves and dirty tricks, want it like you never have.  Timing and tiger strength, strategy will put you past.  Show me your darkest side and you better be my bloody match.

Alpha Meet Omega at 8tracks.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: Apocrypha and Acumen [a Nora Gainesborough fanmix]

1. Taller Children (Elizabeth and the Catapult)
So you think you know, think you know, think you know better?  Is it just because, just because, you’re older and wiser?  Don’t you know, don’t you know you don’t get smarter?  You’re the same as you started, you just jump a little higher.

2. Ballad of a Politician (Regina Spektor)
But I am, but I am, but I am a carefully laid plan.  Shake what your mama gave you, you know that it won’t last.  You’re gonna taste the ground real soon, you’re gonna taste the grass.  A man inside a room is shaking hands with other men, this is how it happens, our world under command.

3. Attention (The Raconteurs)
Hey, now that you have my attention, what are you gonna do?  You might have good intentions, but they’re not coming through.  You’re very pleased with yourself, I see, it’s like a walk in the park.  You weren’t lying by anybody else ’cause you can see in the dark.

4. Sweet Religion (Imogen Heap)
My sweet little religion, how does it feel?  Written in that book of love, now does it say your name above the name by which they call me?  And is it written in liquid red, ‘cause nothing else will do instead for reassuring eternity.  Will you be there when I need you?  Will you be there when I need you?

5. No Room to Bleed (Ben Lee)
What did you mean when you said that I was bleeding in vain, wait, and I’m moving underwater.  Watch while I burn my bridges down, the words that I say and the hurt goes away.  You leave me no room to bleed, but somewhere inside I’m still on the line.  You leave me no room to bleed.  Wait on the landscape that I’m breaking, watch as I burn my bridges down and I’ve tried to run but now I’m all done, you leave me no room to bleed, you leave me no room to bleed.

6. Youth Without Youth (Metric)
Hangman, we played Rubber Soul with a razor blade behind the church, hiding place, it was a long joke ’til the punch line came.  Can you read my mind? Read my mind, follow along to the end of the song.  Hangman, we played Double Dutch with a hand grenade behind the church hiding place, apathetic to the devil’s face.  Wear the sheriff’s badge, put your toys away, they let us go, saying, “Let us pray!”

7. 1940 (The Submarines)
You couldn’t sleep for the awful fright that kept you up in bed last night.  While curious shapes shift in the dark, they vanish with the sunlight’s spark.  So rise and shine, now’s the time to be alive, to stay awake with me a while and smile.

8. What Are We Gonna Do (Glen Hansard)
What are we gonna do if we lose that fire?  What are we gonna do if we start to doubt, if that fire goes out?  I don’t wanna change you, but you’re a long, long way from the path you came.  I’m trying to show you something: good, good heart will always find love.

9. Megalomania (Muse)
Useless device it won’t suffice, I want a new game to play.  When I am gone – it won’t be long before I disturb you in the dark, and paradise comes at a price that I am not prepared to pay.  What were we built for?  Will someone tell me please, take off your disguise: I know that underneath it’s me.

10. Ritual (Ellie Goulding)
Into the death and shoots as far, too late to be with you’d from high.  You see it’s a thought those guys was he our faith he’ll hear our cries a ghost.  And he won’t stop here, acting with my fear, there’s a raging fire and it burns so mean.  But I’m ready now, but I’m ready now.

11. Only In Your Head (Marketa Irglova)
Maybe our actions are what counts and not all that we might think or feel or say, but don’t they all relate?  And I know it’s easier said than done, but has there ever been a struggle you thought you wouldn’t overcome?

12. Beautiful (Eisley)
This is a good day for a revolution of the mind, voices ride the wind and take me to the night.  I crawled over broken glass to find a place in the sun was with me all along, the circle had begun.

13. World Gone Mad (Missy Higgins)
Standing on the roof my daddy built, looking at the rising of the silt, everything I ever loved is underneath, but what the river wants, the river keeps.  I used to believe in fortune and that in the hands of God everybody gets no more than they deserve, but the more I see the less I understand.  Watching as the water swallows the land, I’m starting to believe there was never a plan, that the world’s gone mad.

Apocrypha and Acumen at 8tracks.

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: mixing a soundtrack, with a theoretical film soundtrack I once compiled

Because I think it’s interesting to look at, and despite the fact that this was a soundtrack to a movie I wrote in high school, where my creative writing teacher said “write about superheroes in a week” and I… inadvertently wrote a movie that was basically about Sookie Stackhouse (no, seriously, she was a telepathic Southern waitress played by Anna Paquin in my head; I’d never heard of the Southern Vampire Mysteries and the series was two or three years away) it’s still, in my opinion, a pretty cool soundtrack, or at least one that made sense.  Mixing soundtracks is fun.  And songs should at least make sense in some way.  You shouldn’t just throw them in ’cause they’re cool.

1. Jackie Wilson Said (I’m In Heaven When You Smile) (Van Morrison).  The movie began in 1981, so I needed an older rock song that sounded upbeat.  And considering this song begins with whistling, I thought it would be a good beginning to the film.  In this scene, one of the characters being introduced was being painted as somewhat of an innocent, so whistling suited.
2. Susie-Q (Creedence Clearwater Revival).  This song is also older, but it’s always sounded sort of gritty to me.  Perfect for explaining the sort of bar that the scene was supposed to be set in.
3. After Hours (The Velvet Underground).  I’d loved this song since a friend put it on a mix I wound up in possession of; the exact pretentious phrase I used in the scene directions to describe its effect was “reverberating melancholy.”
4. Gigantic (The Pixies).  A lot of these songs were gifts from friends, a lot of them were from mixtapes, but I used this song because I liked that it was playful and a little naughty.
5. Summertime (Me First and the Gimme Gimmes).  Used in a dinerscene, even though I well knew that no real life diner would play that song.  It’s a cover of the Gershwin tune, and it’s kind of cool, but I liked that it felt old/new at the same time.  This was in a pre-transitional period in my protagonist’s story, so the dichotomy suited.
6. Pretty Ballerina (Left Banke).  La la, another mixtape gift, which the characters actually ended up discussing in the script; it’s another one of those melancholy ones that I just liked and wanted to use, basically.
   
7. Not What You Want (Sleater-Kinney).  My protagonist was angry.  I liked to imagine that there was a radio station that might have actually played some riot grrl.
8. Moonage Daydream (David Bowie).   It had been present day in the story for a while now, but this was during a scene where the protagonist felt like she was sort of giving in and taking the easy way out, following a path laid out for her by her elders.  So an old song needed to happen.
   
9. One After 909 (The Beatles).  The jukebox in the bar where the characters worked was being turned by a character who was a little bit of a hippie.  And I couldn’t not use a Beatles song.
   
10. Little Girls (Oingo Boingo).  Least subtle ever, but the protagonist’s dad was creeping on some twentysomethings.  It needed to happen.
    
11. Jolene (The White Stripes).  Wherein the protagonist was trying to put a new spin on her life, even if it was someone else’s path and she didn’t like it.  Cover song.  Also, this song is fantastic.
    
12. My Slumbering Heart (Rilo Kiley).  The protagonist had been working in this old bar for a while now, but this is the first song we get from her updated jukebox collection.  Modern music with a lady singer.  (Up to this point, all of the lady singers have been consciously chosen by the protagonist.)
    
13. Four Wheeling (Elastica).  One of two tracks I shamelessly stole from the Gilmore Girls soundtrack.  What of it?  I liked that this song was relatively upbeat, though not chipper.
    
14. Strange Kind of Woman (Deep Purple).  There are still some old tracks, classicism and whatnot, but this was chosen by the protagonist in the scene leading up to the revelation of her having superpowers.  So.
    
15. Special Death (Mirah).  Literally I just needed a creepy song for a girl to play on her guitar during a blackout, and I’ve mentioned before that I love this damn song and will use it every way I can.
    
16. Something Borrowed, Something Blue (Ben Lee).  Relatively mellow, tame, but still interesting, bar music. Nothing to see here.
    
17. It’s Alright Baby (Komeda).  Gilmore Girls ripoff, part two.  Again the protagonist’s choice, here a conscious effort on her part to be, well, alright.
    
18. Love Affair (Regina Spektor).  And again chosen by the protagonist, reflecting her relatively rocky reuniting with a former flame.  And I love this damn song so much.  I like the rhythm of it.
    

Hardly an experiment in subtlety, but hardly a disjointed mess either.

–your fangirl heroine.

 

Whedon Wednesday :: Beloved in Hell [a Sierra - Priya fanmix]

1.  Lights (Ellie Goulding)
And I’m not sleeping now, the dark is too hard to beat.  And I’m not keeping up the strength I need to push me.  You show the lights that stop me turn to stone, you shine it when I’m alone.  And so I tell myself that I’ll be strong and dreaming when they’re gone.

2.  Pretty Bird (Jenny Lewis)
Some pity me, yeah, oh, pity me, yeah.  Stars pity me for the blood of the pretty, the blood of the pretty, the blood of the pretty bird.  Pretty bird, pretty bird, who’s starving you still?

3.  Deep Red Bells (Neko Case)
Where does this mean world cast its cold eye?  Who’s left to suffer long about you?  Does your soul cast about like an old paper bag past empty lots and early graves?  Those like you who lost their way, murdered on the interstate while the red bells rang like thunder.

4.  Dream for Me (Eisley)
Night falls…am I dreaming?  The fears are toying with my head and I’m swept away by the wind, and I can’t fight them anymore, anymore.

5.  No Right Angles (Ben Lee)
So dream, let your body play.  Anyone in need, give it all away.  No right angles in my life, there are no right angles in my life.  I’ve been thinking ’bout the straight and narrow, slip sliding round the back of my hand, keep turning and it’s almost tomorrow, find a way to make you understand.

6.  In Sleep (Lissie)
Fast asleep where I keep my memories, he’s calling me out in dreams, he visits me.  What will be, will I see him again soon?  Why am I so terrified of waking?  He’s gone and I feel I’ve been forsaken.  In sleep is the only place I get to see him, get to love him.

7.  Falling Slowly (The Swell Season)
I don’t know you but I want you all the more for that.  Words fall through me and always fool me and I can’t react.  And games that never amount to more than they’re meant will play themselves out.

8.  Spirited (Laura Gibson)
Time is quick to carry on, certain as the morning tends to hollow us and turn our words to smoke.  In all that is escaped us and all that we could hold in place I saw you shining, saw you shining brighter than before.

9.  Lights Inside This Dream (Julia Stone)
I burn myself inside, I found nowhere else to hide.  But the burning caught their eyes and they warm themselves around this dying fire.

10.  Drones (Jed Whedon and the Willing)
Sun melts the snow, gravity kicks in, tributaries drop empty into the sea we go.  We’re drones, happy as we are, thinking our sustain lies in love.  The flow tearing us apart follows the unchanged ancient sun.

11.  The Angels Hung Around (Rilo Kiley)
I been whored and I been gored, I been less and I been more, but I never thought I’d see you as I did today.

12.  After the Bombs (The Decemberists)
And after the bombs subside and this long low campaign calls it good for the night, we meet in the streets where we meet in the bar’s cold light, we grip at our hands where we hold just a little tight.

13.  Two Worlds (Christie Dupree)
And all my darkest memories were seen, but I would swear that by my very name something went wrong in the sky that day.  I can understand if you don’t believe we could be anything more.

Beloved in Hell at 8tracks.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: Still Not Convinced [a Browncoat fanmix]

1. Guns and Horses (Ellie Goulding)
Let’s join forces, we’ve got our guns and horses.  I know you’ve been burned but every fire is a lesson learned.

2. Home is a Fire (Death Cab for Cutie)
Plates they will shift, houses will shake, fences will drift, we will awake only to find nothing’s the same, nothing’s the same.  Home, home is a fire, a burning reminder of where we belong, love.

3. Black Crow (Angus and Julia Stone)
Won’t you help me be on my way?  Won’t you help me be on my way?  So I can set me free.  There’s propagan’ for every man on the paper stand you know.  When will the spinsters face, let give that twist of grace you know?  Do you know, mister, of this place? Do you know, mister? No time to waste.

4. Stood Up (A Fine Frenzy)
‘Cause we are not frightened anymore, we stood up, we stood up.  And there are two of us, there will be more, they’ll show up, they’ll show up. Yeah, they’ll show up.

5. Ready or Not (The Submarines)
‘Cause you are here and who you are and faith can make you wild with hope but now is where you are.  Ready or not we’re gonna be here tomorrow, whether or not you’ve stopped your wondering.  Ready or not we’re gonna be here tomorrow, wild with hope in spite of everything.

6. Black and Blue (Counting Crows)
You’ve been waiting a long time, you’ve been waiting a long time, to fall down on your knees, cut your hands, cut yourself until you bleed, but fall asleep next to me.

7. Mostly Waving (Emily Haines and the Soft Skeleton)
This fall the blues are brown, so turn your horse around now, the blues are brown.  Missing, mostly waving, thought as I was, done, thought as I was, young, thought as I was.

8. Tracks in the Snow (The Civil Wars)
Whoa, I hear the quiet now of paper airplanes falling down.  Whoa, the branches of every tree bend like a cathedral over me, down where the river bends, everyone’s waiting, but that’s not the reason I’m making these tracks in the snow.

9. Ship My Body Home (Ben Lee)
You have to ship my body home, ship my body home.  All I ever wanted was to finish what I started but there’s no way I could do it on my own.  You have to ship my body home, driving through the mountains, cutting through the night time, stopping now and then to wonder why.

10.  White Winter Hymnal (Fleet Foxes)
I was following the pack, all swallowed in their coats, with scarves of red tied ’round their throats to keep their little heads from falling in the snow, and I turned ’round and there you go.  And Michael, you would fall and turn the white snow red as strawberries in the summertime.

11. I’m Not For Love (Carrie Rodriguez)
And if I don’t sleep then you’ll find that I’m fighting in the night for the day.  I’m not for sale, I’m not in line.

12. Foregone (The Decemberists)
Can it be that this is given, this awaking from long dark night of a soul so on and wizened, sleep away to set to rights?  And the reach and the wrecks and the wrong, all would lead to believe that it’s not, but it’s foregone, it’s foregone.  It’s foregone, it’s foregone.

13. Frozen (The Spring Standards)
Still I’m frozen in the tracks again, still frozen, still friends in the end.  Now shoot it to me straight ’cause I’d rather wait up here, and I need some place to settle.  We square hearts on fire, yeah I’m a beggar and a thief for you.

Still Not Convinced on 8tracks.

–your fangirl heroine.

Television Tuesday :: He Pulled First [a Justified fanmix]

1. Barton Hollow (The Civil Wars)
Ain’t going back to Barton Hollow, devil gonna follow me e’er I go.  Won’t do me no good washing in the river, can’t no preacher man save my soul.  Did that full moon force my hand?  Or that unmarked hundred grand?  Ooh, underneath the water, please forgive me, Father.

2. The Plains/Bitter Dancer (Fleet Foxes)
You took a room and you settled in, washed off the chalk from your weathered skin.  Daylight sleeper, bloody reaper, you took a room and you settled in.  I should have known one day you would come, all of us walk so blind in the sun.  Midnight feeder, beggar pleader, I should have known one day you would come.  Tell me again my only son, tell me again what you have done.

3. Things That Scare Me (Neko Case)
The hammer clicks in place.  The world’s gonna pay right down in the face of God and his saints.  Claim your soul’s not for sale.  I’m a dying breed who still believes, haunted by American dreams.

4. Out of the Cold (Amos Lee)
Yes, I dug you in a bulletproof vest ’cause you can’t walk straight with a bullet in your chest.  Another man down with a flag to fold, it takes a lot of lovin’ comin’ out of the cold.

5. Little Lovin’ (Lissie)
Tenne saw what you see, Arkan I can’t I be calm.  Hollywood’s old darlin’, gonna move to N’awlins, singin’ psalms.  I gotta lotta lovin’, I gotta lotta lovin’, I gotta lotta love in my heart.  I’m gonna get to heaven, I’m gonna count to seven, I’m gonna get to heaven all right.

6. Carpetbaggers (Jenny Lewis)
“I’m a carpetbagger, baby.  I’m comin’ to your town.  I’m gonna treat you kind, I’m gonna rob you blind, I’ll smile all the time, whoa yeah.”  Whoa yeah, whoa yeah, whoa yeah.  They come to town when the party’s over, books been written and truths been tried.  They’ll take it all if the door’s left open, steal the nose right from under your eyes.

7. I’m Willing (Ben Lee)
I took a lock of golden hair.  I took a look, it was gone.  If living is giving, I’m ready, I’m willing.  I took her heart ’cause she let me.  I took a walk in the dark.  I took some time to decise if it was right. 

8. Wide River to Cross (Carrie Rodriguez f. Buddy Miller)
I’ve come a long, long road; still I’ve got some miles to go, I’ve got a wide, wide river to cross.  I have stumbled, I have strayed, you can trace the tracks I’ve made all across the memories my heart recalls.

9. Don’t Carry It All (The Decemberists)
Here we come to a turning of the season, witness to the arc towards the sun.  A neighbor’s blessed burden within reason becomes a burden borne of all and one.  And nobody, nobody knows.  Let the yoke fall from our shoulders, don’t carry it all, don’t carry it all.  We are all our hands and holders, beneath this bold and brilliant sun, and this I swear to all.

10. Horse and Cart (Angus & Julia Stone)
Suspicious corpse without a face, the screen light’s a hidden dim.  This black hawk can’t find its place, through the night we swim.

11. Top Yourself (The Raconteurs)
Yeah, how you gonna top yourself when your man stops ringing your bell?  You’re right between heaven and hell and you’re gonna need the good lord to help you.  How I’m gonna make you see that this ain’t no way to be free?  See you been getting it all for free, guess you better get a sugar daddy to help you.

12. The Junkie Song (The Be Good Tanyas)
And don’t we all hover between apathy and compassion, fill up all our days with so much distraction?  It makes it easier not to see what we don’t want to.  But we all live here, we all live here, we all live here.

13. The Fall (The Avett Brothers)
Don’t die on me, lady, only good things can come to those who practice reason and recognize good fun.  Your absence is the bullet and the past is your gun and we all fall down, and we all fall down.

14. Hands in Pockets (Laura Gibson)
Tell me you always go before me out along the solemn grate.  Tell me the season is almost over, I can wait.  When in daylight leaves you staring out in another undertow, I’ll be tired conversation, I’ll be waiting, get home.

He Pulled First on 8tracks.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: Always Find You [a Willow/Tara fanmix]

1. Nothing Else Matters (Apocalyptica)
Instrumental.

2. Somedays (Regina Spektor)
They come in all quiet, sweep up and then they leave, and you don’t hear a single floor board creak.  They’re so much stronger than the friends you try to keep by your side.  Downtown, downtown, I’m not here, not anymore, I’ve gone away, don’t call me, don’t write.  I’m in love with your daughter, I wanna have her baby, I’m in love with your daughter, so can I please. 

3. You Are a Tourist (Death Cab for Cutie)
When there’s a burning in your heart and you think it’ll burst apart or there’s nothing to feel, save the tears, save the tears, when there’s a burning in your heart.  And if you feel just like a tourist in the city you were born then it’s time to go and define your destination, there’s so many different places to call home.  Because when you find yourself the villain in the story you have written it’s plain to see that sometimes the best intentions are in need of redemptions, would you agree? If so please show me.

4. Do Not Hang Your Head (Elizabeth & the Catapult)
If ever I do hurt you, make your willows bend, if ever I deceive you, darlin’, do not hang your head.  If ever I betray you, cast shadows on your light, I pray that you may pardon and forgive me by and by.  Oh my, baby cast another light.  Oh my, baby cast another light.

5. Under Your Spell (Amber Benson)
I lived my life in shadow, never the sun on my face.  It didn’t seem so sad, though, I figured that was my place.  Now I’m bathed in light, something just isn’t right.  I’m under your spell, how else could it be anyone would notice me?  It’s magic, I can tell, how you set me free, brought me out so easily.

6. Love That Conquers (The Swell Season)
In the time when you word was true, you gave your heart to the ones you knew.  And at the dawn of every day there was a light that you gave to me.  You gave yourself to a love that conquers, gave everything to a love that conquers.

7. Lovesick Mistake (Erin McCarley)
How do I slow down? I can’t relate to my heart now.  I’ve thrown what I known, is it enough for me out?  I’m running on empty.  I’ve gotta find someway to fumble right through this new heartache, it’s torn me apart.  Oh, lovesick mistake, turn me away.

8. Happy Now? (Stretch Princess)
Could you do you feel a little closer, should I be a little high?  I’d give you everything and a little more if they were only mine.  And I’m here for you and you want me to feel things you’ll never feel, you’re tired of my dreaming and your words will set you free.  Oh was it hard for you to say it?  And the world won’t be waiting to turn you around, I can’t keep us together or happy now. Are you happy now?

9. Swan Song (A Fine Frenzy)
Wretched, look at me, I’ve lost it, melting on the table in parking lots and markets.  I cant help it, I love you like a starfish loves the salty water, like a selfish daughter.  Yet I wrote the words to the swan song, the author of the wrong.  And I said what I said and I meant it, but now I regret it.

10. Gamble Everything for Love (Ben Lee)
Love me with an open heart, tell me anything.  We can find a place to start, to gamble everything, we can set this thing apart, ’cause we’re gonna, gonna gamble everything for love.  Tell me do you lose your way each day?  Are there people you don’t recognize?  Do they lie?  Tell me do they make you feel too real?  Tell me the truth and I’ll tell you the truth, if you gamble everything for love you’re gonna be alright, alright.

11. A Sight to Behold (Eisley)
I know that I have taken things, I’ve taken things I had for granted.  I know this one thing’s for sure:  I won’t let you ever walk out my door.  Oooh… Let’s break the walls down and find how to live, ’cause you and I have so much to give.

12. The Past and Pending (The Shins)
Blind to the last cursed affair pistols and countless eyes, a trail of white blood betrays the reckless route your craft is running.  Feed till the sun turns into wood dousing an ancient torch, loiter the whole day through and lose yourself in lines dissecting love.  Your name on my cast and my notes on your stay offer me little but doting on a crime.  We’ve turned every stone and for all our inventions; in matters of love loss, we’ve no recourse at all.

13. Advisory Committee (Mirah)
Heard a shot rang through the woods, couldn’t tell from what direction.  Spun around and tried to see if there were two, if there were three.  The mist came down the ground was wet, I talked with you inside my head. The way I have forgotten back, quickly prepare it’s an attack.  Listen for the sound, feel a shaking underground, to have the weapons and the time, the will to push off from the side.

14. Night Light (Sleater-Kinney)
Oh little light that shines for me in the dark of night.  Oh little sigh, sometimes I follow you all the way home.  I would almost have to ask you, I hate to be led, so give me a spark I can look for instead.  How do you do it: this bitter and bloody world, keep it together and shine for your family?  How do you do it: with visions of worst to come, live in the present and spin off the rays of sun.

Always Find You on 8tracks.

–your fangirl heroine.

Music Monday :: 5 allegedly romantic songs I’ve fanmixed with

Tomorrow is Valentines’ Day, as we all know.  I thought about doing a list of “love songs,” but then I realized that the majority of the songs I associate with romance are really pretty doomed.  This is because of my fanmix habit, because almost everyone that I “ship” in fiction is doomed to one degree or another.  Or at least the ones I’ve mixed for.  I mean… I’m looking at my iTunes right now, counting up how many of my mixes are to do with couples.  Eight, as of right now.

50% of which involve a pairing that is somehow unfulfilled (they have the sex but stop; they never actually say how they feel in canon; it’s a largely one-sided obsession).
50% of which involve a pairing in which one of them is brutally murdered.  (There’s some overlap, yes.)
Only 12.5%, or one of these ship mixes, actually gets a happy ending.  (And that after +/- ten years of unhappy.)

But I still think some of the songs on some of my various mixes are really romantic in one way or another.  So here’s five of the most positively romantic tracks.  Not just from shippy mixes.

5. “Gamble Everything for Love,” Ben Lee (on his album Awake is the New Sleep, on my as-yet-unblogged mix “Always Find You”)
That’s my Willow/Tara mix, ’cause those guys are my darlings.  And this is a song that’s about sacrificing things for your love.  It could go down an uncomfortable creepy route, yes, but if you take it nicely, it’s just about giving up things you know are bad (like being addicted to magic drugs, though I don’t think that was Ben Lee’s intention) so you can have your love.  Or something.  And taken in that way, it’s sort of bittersweet and good.

4. “Better Love,” Eisley (on their album The Valley, on my mix “She’ll Fly True”)
This is kind of a love-as-spurred-by-the-battlefield song.  That’s how I’ve always taken it.  It doesn’t have to be a literal battlefield (though the lyrics do include “with a bullet for the bad guys“) but still.  This song is kind of my musical answer to this:

Gif credited to game-of-tardises on tumblr.  It’s not happy, exactly, but it’s got positive results.

3. “Never Had Nobody Like You,” M. Ward (on his album Hold Time, on my mix “Ain’t That Shiny?”)
Another Kaylee/Simon song, what can I say?  (I’m sitting here staring at the listing for “Better Left Unspoken,” the Mal/Inara mix, and while I think a lot of it is really poignant, I’m trying to keep this list semi-happy romance.  Every single song on there is striking me as romantically devastating.)  This song is just really, really cute, and it’s actually happy, which is awesome.

2. “Such Great Heights,” the Postal Service (on their album Give Up, on my as-yet-unblogged mix “A Love Not Erasable”)
That’s my Victor-Anthony/Sierra-Priya mix.  It is, as if that wasn’t somewhat obvious, that 12.5% of happy thrown in there.  This is another one of those cute things.  Even if it can be overused ’cause people use it incorrectly and it’s catchy.  These two, man.  They inspire cute songs.

1. “To Whom it May Concern,” the Civil Wars (on their album Barton Hollow, on my as-yet-unblogged mix “A Love Not Erasable”)
No coincidence that two of these listed songs are from that particular mix.  Because they’re happy, because their dollstated love is perfection.  I think this might have to be “discuss all the fictional romances” week.

That 4 of these 5 songs are either Kaylee/Simon or Victor-Anthony/Sierra-Priya… is unsurprising.  ‘Cause they actually get somewhat happy endings.  They inspire more positive musical messages.  That I had a hard time compiling this list is also unsurprising.  A lot of my “romantic” songs are completely tragic and also really vague; a lot of the songs that I use to perfectly describe fictional romances aren’t “romantic.”  They’re perfect for the various dynamics of the couple as people and as a unit.  They’re not love songs in the strictest sense.  They’re songs about, like, mortality and math metaphors and sometimes sexual relations.  This is the best I can do, I guess.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: I Let You In [a Paul/Echo fanmix]

1. Secret (Missy Higgins)
You said “Where I’m from there is a lock and key, if you’d be so kind as to follow me, I will show you the way to the rest of my sins.”  ‘Cause you’ve got a secret, don’t you babe?

2. Ache For You (Ben Lee)
There’s no rhyme and there’s no reason, you’re the secret at the back of my skull.  There’s no logic, so please believe me.  Our love’s confusing, but it never gets dull.

3. Hold On, Hold On (Neko Case)
It’s the devil I love, and that’s as funny as real love, and that’s as real as true love.  That echo chorus lied to me with its “Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on.”

4. I’m Not Sleeping (Counting Crows)
Spend my nights in self-defense, cry about my innocence, but I ain’t all that innocent anymore, more, more.  I see her on the TV, I see her in the movies, I see her in these animals that dance inside my head.  I’ll follow you down, baby, down into this valley, I’ll follow you down, baby, but I won’t come up again.  But I’m not sleeping anymore, anymore.

5. She Ain’t Me (Carrie Rodriguez)
She might please you, Miss Whoever, she might lead you to think you’re too clever.  She’ll deceive you, you best forget her, ’cause whoever Miss Whoever is, she ain’t me.

6. Trying My Best to Love You (Jenny Lewis)
But still sometimes you cannot help yourself, you step outside and hear bells ringing for you, for you.  Trying my best to love you, trying my best to love you, trying my best to love you.  They make it so hard on us, baby, it’s so hard on us, baby.

7. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) (The Beatles)
I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me.  She showed me her room, isn’t it good, norwegian wood?  She asked me to stay and she told me to sit anywhere, so I looked around and I noticed there wasn’t a chair.  I sat on the rug, biding my time, drinking her wine, we talked until two and then she said, “It’s time for bed.”

8. If You’re Wondering (Eisley)
And I thought that I had all that, that I wanted, but, boy, was I wrong, as for you, now I know.  If the moon shines on you while you’re sleeping, it will show you all that I’m feeling.  And if I’m wondering then you show me, if you’re wondering I know.

9. Never is a Promise (Fiona Apple)
You’ll never touch these things that I hold, the skin of my emotions lies beneath my own.  You’ll never feel the heat of this soul, my fever burns me deeper than I’ve ever shown to you.  You’ll say, don’t fear your dreams, it’s easier than it seems.  You’ll say you’d never let me fall from hopes so high, but never is a promise and you can’t afford to lie.

10. When the War Came (The Decemberists)
A terrible autonomy is grafted onto you and me, our trust put in the government, they told their lies are heaven sent.  ‘Til the war came, ’til the war came.

11. Worn Out Tune (Elizabeth & the Catapult)
Sounds to me we’re like a worn out tune, oh so sweet, oh so blue.  We know all the words, but we miss the cue, oh so sweet, oh so blue.  Place the needle on the jagged line, play that record, baby, one more time, sounds to me we’re like a worn out tune. 

12. After You Left (Mirah)
I’d like to have one, hold it tight, start a fire, burn all night.  You had to go, I wanted you to stay.  But just like you said, after you left I was OK.

13. The Chain (Ingrid Michaelson)
My room seems wrong, the bed won’t fit.  I cannot seem to operate and you my love are gone.  So glide away and so be healed and promise not to promise anymore, and if you come around again, then I will take, then I will take the chain from off the door.

–your fangirl heroine.

Whedon Wednesday :: When the Floods Roll Back [a Buffy season 4 fanmix]

1. Hail to Whatever You Found in the Sunlight That Surrounds You (Rilo Kiley)
Hail to those who have come from the sunlight that surrounds you.  Pray for those who have gone from the sunlight that surrounds you.  Pretend all the good things are for you.

2. Silhouettes (Swimming With Dolphins)
Who really needs the past with the allure of something new?  So we split apart at last, went back to places that I knew before you.

3. Once Was Love (Ingrid Michaelson)
Don’t delay, something tells me I gotta go away.  Maybe it’s the way we always stay when our hearts have gone, we can’t hold us anymore, no we’ve got to fold down to the floor, yes I know it’s cold but baby our hearts have gone.  Just because there once was love don’t mean a thing, don’t mean a thing.

4. Fisher of Men (M. Ward)
And he put his name in my chorus like the dark before the dawn so that in my hour of weakness, I’d remember it’s his song.  He’s got a line in the water, he’s a fisher of men.

5. Turning Tables (Adele)
Close enough to start a war.  All that I have is on the floor.  God only knows what we’re fighting for, all that I say, you always say more.

6. So Says I (The Shins)
In our darkest hours, we have all asked for some angel to come sprinkle his dust all around, but all our crying voices, they can’t turn it around, you’ve had some crazy conversations of your own.

7. Come Clean (Eisley)
Listen to me, you pull me apart and I know it wasn’t you, ’cause you were not there.  And why do you feel sorry?

8. Gentle Sheep (The Ditty Bops)
Where’s my mystical pan who plays on his flute?  Dancing entrancing those who choose to hear his tune.  There’ll be a man who comes out of hiding, he’ll be the one who forces you to decide.

9. Confide in Me (Ben Lee)
We all get hurt by love, and we all have our cross to bear.  But in the name of understanding now our problems should be shared.

10. Apologies (Christie Dupree)
And it’s taken me a long time this time to find that we’re walking such a fine line between the days that are over and the sun’s sinking lower on a day like today or the one we’re living right now, right now.

11. The Soldiering Life (The Decemberists)
But I, I never felt so much life, than tonight huddled in the trenches, gazing on the battlefield.  Our rifles blaze away, we blaze away, oh.

12.Maybe (The Submarines)
For such a long time now we’re doing battle with our own familiar inhibitions, far away from home.  Our trusty compass fails to find this strange and new position, can we leave this struggle behind?

13. How Sweetly Friendship Binds (Mirah)
How sweetly friendship binds our hearts in brother love, with kindness of forgiving minds, life’s sweetest pleasures prove.

–your fangirl heroine.