Fanmix: Charles & Erik, 'Saints Who Kill People.'
Hey, chaps and chapettes!
You know that boring fucker who dumps massive lists on you whenever you ask for a simple song-recc? That's me, that is! ^_^ So, it's gone 4.am, and I've literally just thrown this together - more fuel to toss on the fire-that-is my new obsession with Charles & Erik, of X-Men: First Class fame. It's not your typical fanmix - no Mumford & Sons here! As usual with me, it's a bizarre mix. Johnny Cash, Motorhead and Joni Mitchell, in the same sentence, I hear you cry? Yeah, well, go with it. Hopefully you'll find something you like. ^_~
[ saints who kill people : a charles + erik fanmix ]
1. LINE IN THE SAND -- MOTORHEAD.
'Evolution is a mystery / Full of change that no one sees / Clock makes a fool of history...'
'I see the line in the sand / Time to find out who I am / Looking back to see where I stand / Evolution.'
[GENRE: HEAVY METAL. This, of course, is the scene on the beach - where Charles & Erik stand on opposite sides of a literal line in the sand. Also, I liked the feeling of retrospection - you can imagine Charles thinking back on that day.]
2. MERCY NOW -- MARY GAUTHIER.
'Every living thing / could use a little mercy now / Only the hand of grace / can end the race / towards another mushroom cloud.'
'My brother / could use a little mercy now / He's a stranger to freedom / Shackled to his fears and his doubt /
The pain that he lives in / It's almost more than living will allow. And I love my brother / He could use some mercy now.'
[GENRE: FOLK.This is a funny one. I kind of imagine that it’s Raven singing it, although it’s definitely a Charles/Erik song. I think of Charles as the ‘father’ in the song, since he’s always the protective, paternal one. Erik is that hurting ‘brother’ who’s shackled to his fears and doubts. And that ‘hand of grace’ is Charles wisdom; knowing that it will take good deeds and good people to avoid another, nuclear, holocaust.]
3. NOTHING WITHOUT YOU -- VIENNA TENG.
'All my books are lying useless now. / All my maps will only show me how to lose my way. / Oh call my name. / You know my name. / And in that sound, everything will change.'
'I am nothing without you, but I don't know who you are.'
[GENRE: ALTERNATIVE/INDIE. This, to me, is Charles post X:1C, feeling listless and useless when he thinks about Erik, wondering whether he was right to place his faith in him - and realising that right or wrong is irrelevant when all he wants is to have his friend back. Or, you could say that the references to no one else in the room speaking the singer’s native language come from Erik’s point of view?]
4. BIRDLAND -- PATTI SMITH.
'Oh, I couldn't hear them before, but I hear them now, / It's a radar scope in all silver and all platinum lights / Moving in like black ships, they were moving in, streams of them, / And he put up his hands and he said, 'It's me, it's me...'
'Up, up to the belly of a ship. / Let the ship slide open and we'll go inside of it / Where we are not human / We're. Not. Human.'
[GENRE: SOFT PUNK-ROCK/SPOKEN WORD. This is a strange, trance-like song from the godmother of punk, almost like a stream-of-consciousness, and I thought it was like a transcription of Charles, reading the psychic run-off pouring from Erik’s mind. There are lots of small little references that just seemed to chime - the references to dead parents, New England farms, etc. - and my favourite part of the melody is the most striking: ‘We’re not human.’]
5. I SEE A DARKNESS -- JOHNNY CASH.
'Many times we've shared our thoughts, / But did you ever, ever notice / The kind of thoughts I got?'
'Well, you know I have a love, a love for everyone I know. / And you know I have a drive to live, I won't let go. / But can you see this opposition comes rising up sometimes? / That its dreadful imposition comes blacking in my mind. / And that I see a darkness...'
[GENRE: COUNTRY/AMERICANA. Johnny covering Bonny Prince Billy. This song. Kills me. I vidded it, once, to Sam and Dean from Supernatural, and never got such a powerful response from another vid - If someone vidded this to C&E I think I’d die! The references to ‘brother’ and ‘friend’ fit Charles & Erik perfectly. Cash had such an old, quavering broken-down sort of voice, can’t you just imagine an old Charles & Erik, sitting down to a game of chess, feeling the regret and nostalgia. To me, this is Erik singing to Charles, reassuring him that his failure to redeem such a broken soul was sweet but inevitable. It’s the last lines that are the killers: ‘Do you know how much I love you? / There’s a hope that somehow you / Can save me / From this darkness…’]
6. SATELLITE HEART -- ANYA MARINA.
'I'm a satellite heart / Lost in the dark. / I'm spun out so far, / You stop, I start, / But I'll be true to you. / No matter what you do.'
[GENRE: ALTERNATIVE/INDIE.This is the satellite dish scene! Of the ‘satellite of love’ scene, as I think of it - but I’m not as fond of the Lou Reed song, and I thought this song’s themes of unconditional clemency and isolation fit the two to a tee.]
7. IF YOU COULD READ MY MIND -- GORDON LIGHTFOOT.
'If you could read my mind, love / What a tale my thoughts could tell...'
'But stories always end / And if you read between the lines / You'd know that I'm just / Trying to understand the feelings that you lack.'
'I don't know where we went wrong / But the feeling's gone / And I just can't get it back.'
[GENRE: FOLK. Time for another old-school song, maybe more era-appropriate than any of the others so far. ^_^ I think this one’s pretty self-explanatory, right?]
8. BALLAD FOR DEAD FRIENDS -- DASHBOARD PROPHETS.
'I really wished I could have saved you / Then who would save me from myself?'
[GENRE: GRUNGE ROCK. Another one that I’ve vidded in the past, always a firm favourite, and when you put it in this context it seems like Charles, decrying his inability to ‘save’ Erik. But then again, if he had stopped Erik killing Shaw, maybe Shaw would have killed Erik. And Erik wouldn’t have been there to stop those missiles…?]
9. COURT AND SPARK -- JONI MITCHELL.
'It seemed like he read my mind. / He saw me mistrusting him / And still acting kind. / He saw how I worried sometimes. / I worry sometimes.'
"All the guilty people," he said / "They've all seen the stain / On their daily bread / On their christian names.
I cleared myself / I sacrificed my blues / And you could complete me. / I'd complete you.'"
[GENRE: FOLK. Another era-appropriate song, this one’s here because I love Joni, and because the rich and strange notes of her chords just ring with the sound of America, to my ear. I think it’s obvious which lines fit Erik & Charles - the mind-reading, Charles ‘still acting kind’ despite Erik’s mistrust because of the ‘guilty people’ - the Nazis, or humans depending on your take.]
10. DEAR AGONY -- BREAKING BENJAMIN.
'I will fight for one last breath / I will fight until the end / And I will find the enemy within / Because I can feel it crawl beneath my skin.'
'Love pull me down / Hate lift me up / Just turn around / There's nothing left.'
[GENRE: GRUNGE-ROCK. Ahh, you can’t have a fanmix without some good old-fashioned grunge-angst, can you? And here it is. This is a definite Erik song, facing the agony of his life and the darkness it’s brought ‘crawling beneath’ his skin.]
11. MILES AWAY -- KIP WINGER.
'It's hard to tell what you're going through / you kept your feelings locked inside of you
open your heart and chances are / what you're feeling / I'm feeling too /
If only just for a moment / hold on to the dreams that we had.'
[GENRE: FOLK-ROCK. Another song from the 90s, though it sounds older. This is a tired and world-weary Charles, thinking back to that day on the beach, and regretting that Erik was so near and yet so completely out of his reach, the things he never said, etc. Maybe I'm biased towards this song because I enjoy playing it on the guitar ^_^']
12. SHELTER -- RAY LAMONTAGNE.
'I left you heartbroken, but not until those very words were spoken /
Has anybody ever made such a fool out of you /
It's hard to believe it / Even as my eyes do see it /
The very things that make you live are killing you.'
[GENRE: FOLK-ROCK. Charles again, speaking to Erik! This is a nice, soft song - mainly because of Ray’s smoky voice. When I heard ‘those very words were spoken’ I thought of two things - Charles’ catastrophic mistake when he said ‘they’re just following orders’ and the line, ‘Oh, I’m sorry my friend, but we do not.’ Gargh! >_< And of course the bitch of it is that all he’s really worried about is Erik’s welfare.]
13. ANYWHERE BUT HERE -- SAFETYSUIT.
'Is this a natural feeling / Or is it just me bleeding / All my thoughts and dreams / In hope that you will be with me?'
'Is this the end of the moment / Or just a beautiful unfolding / Of a love that will never be / For you, and me?'
[GENRE: ALTERNATIVE. Another soft, lilting song, this one has turned up everywhere, whenever there’s a fandom with a slash-ship a’sail. This is just shmoopy of me, but I imagine it’s Erik (being actually happy, for once) marvelling at Charles: ‘you’re beautiful inside, / so lovely and I / can’t see why I’d / be anywhere but here without you.’]
14. HOLY -- EAGLE*SEAGULL.
'Though I'm with you my life feels strange
Oh but I'm with you, I'm with you, I'm with you in this holy age.
'Cos you make me want to be
A saint who kills people.'
[GENRE: INDIE. Was I the only one who saw a bit of religious imagery in Erik, once he went all Magneto on us? The way he floated down from the wrecked sub, arms outstretched, was sort of messianic - he was like an angel of the industrial age, or something. Well, I thought this song summed up that contradiction: that Erik wants to be good, for Charles. But he also wants to kill.]
15.BODY CRUMBLES -- DRY CELL.
'Finally I fly,
When I lose control inside my body crumbles,
It's like therapy for my broken soul,
Inside my body crumbles.'
[GENRE: FOLK. A dark!Erik song, off’ve my Queen of the Damned soundtrack. This is Erik revelling in his powers, seeing them as an outlet for all the rage he feels. Good vid-fodder!]
16. ANY WONDER -- DANNY BRYANT'S REDEYEBAND.
Is it any wonder why I've been acting strange?
Is it any wonder we've both changed?
Is it any wonder it ain't like it was before?
Is it any wonder, any wonder, any wonder at all?
[GENRE: BLUES/ROCK. More modern music, but this is in an old school, bluesy, ‘arena/anthem rock’ style - just my cup of tea. ^_^ Bryant’s ability to ring every last drop of sound from that guitar just suits the angst perfectly. This is a song for a slightly older Charles & Erik - particularly, Magneto resisting the urge to let Charles reform him, to return to the way things were.]
17. 9 CRIMES -- DAMIEN RICE FEAT. LISA HANNIGAN.
And is that alright with you?
I give my gun away when it's loaded
Is that alright with you?
If you dont shoot it, how am I supposed to hold it?
Is that alright with you?
[GENRE: INDIE. Did anyone else find it a little bit heart-breaking that Erik was so happy to have a gun pointed at his own head? I mean, he literally handed that gun away while it was loaded - but my fangirly heart did flutter at the thought that Charles is the only one he’d trust with the task.]
18. RAPE ME -- NIRVANA.
Hate me.
Do it and do it again.
Waste me,
Rape me, my friend.
[GENRE: GRUNGE. This, let’s be honest, is a song to fuck to. ^_^’ It’s 90’s grunge, totally inappropriate, but I love the idea of Charles wanting Erik’s sadistic side to come out while they’re playing ‘naughty-chess.’ o_O’ Fyi, this song was originally meant to be ironic - iirc, it’s supposed to be about a rapist who goes to prison and drops the soap/suffers the same indignity as his victim.]
19. LETTERS FROM THE SKY -- CIVIL TWILIGHT.
'One day soon I'll hold you like the sun holds the moon
And we will hear those planes overhead
And we won't have to be scared
We won't have to be, we won't have to be scared.
You're coming back for me.'
[GENRE: INDIE/ALTERNATIVE/ROCK. This is more like your standard fanmix-song, and yet again this one made me think of the scene on the beach. The planes being the X-jet and the nuclear missiles, obvs. Also, it breaks my heart just a little to think of Charles out there alone on the beach, stubbornly refusing to believe that Erik wouldn’t come back for him. T_T]
20. STAY -- BRIAN MELO.
'And even though your heart's gone cold again
And even though you try so hard to pretend
That you're on your own
You're not alone.'
[GENRE: POP/ROCK. And one last grunge-angsty/Breaking-Benjamin type song, to finish. This is another old standard of mine, the title being like Charles begging Erik not to go. I loved the idea of him wanting Erik to look at him, one last time, even if he’s never going to see him again: ‘Oh, turn around / So I can see your eyes, while you / Stay with me…’ This is another one of those ones I’d love to see a vid to!]
[Zip file, here][Zip file, here]
Anyway, I've never done one of these before - amazingly - so go easy on me. >_<
! ♥ Comments are ♥ !
Toodlepip,
-CC.