YAY! I'm so thrilled to have finished this mix. Romancing Mister Bridgerton is my favorite romance novel of all time, and really, one of my favorite books of all time. I have two mixes planned for it: this one, which has a very modern feel, and a mix comprised entirely of standards for a smooth, old-time-y feel. It's going to be great. Twice the Colin and Penelope, twice the love.
<3
Small disclaimer: I normally try to tag and order all my songs perfectly, but for some reason, track 07 would NOT play between track 06 and track 08. It ended up way at the end no matter what I did. And when I was trying to fix it, I realized that I liked track 02 better as track 01 and vice versa, but by that time I'd already uploaded it for a second time and didn't want to delete and re-reupload AGAIN. So you can just fiddle with the track orders yourself. (1, 2, and 7 are probably the only ones that are messed up.) For this reason, I included a back cover, which is something I never do since I order them every time. Long boring disclaimer over.
Let's get started.
For the modern-y mix, I wanted to cast real people as Colin/Penelope. I picked a young Michael Vartan for Colin (and fixed his eye color, although you can't really tell), and Amy Adams (posing in front of red wallpaper, hahaha) as our favorite wallflower Penelope.
I'm not thrilled with the cover but whatever.
Like I said, I wanted a super modern, totally removed-from-Regency feel to this one. Almost comically so. Standards are what I use when I want to do a mix for anything from 1800-1950s. Which is why putting a modern twist on this made me laugh.
.:Gentlemen Prefer Wallflowers:.
A Colin/Penelope Fanmix
Hold it In // Jukebox The Ghost
The single-sheet newspaper became an instant sensation. No one knew who Lady Whistledown really was, but everyone seemed to have a theory. For weeks - no, months, really - London could speak of nothing else.
"Life is / OMG if I tell him / he'll tell her / and then she will know / I like her."
This is in honor of London's best and most famous and certainly wittiest gossip, Lady Whistledown. She appears in many Bridgerton (and I believe, non-Bridgerton?) books and her gossip columns are quoted in the beginning of the chapter, functioning as a distant, quasi-narrator. It's quite a clever device, really. And Lady Whistledown frames each chapter in this book as well, frequently criticizing Penelope's fashion choices, and (elegantly) fawning over Colin Bridgerton's legendary charm and incredible green eyes.
This song is one of my favorites. It's bouncy and fun and totally reminds me of all the busybodies in the ton, reading their gossip sheets and then discussing them at the next ball. Lady Whistledown is quite a sensation, after all.
Daydreamer // Adele
Colin Bridgerton was witty, he was dashing, he had a devil-may-care jokester quality to him that made women swoon, but most of all . . . Colin Bridgerton was nice.
"Daydreamer / Sitting on the sea / Soaking up the sun / He is a real lover . . . And he could change the world / With his hands behind his back."
Penelope daydreams constantly about Colin and his emerald eyes. And- though she wouldn't admit it if asked- was guilty of doodling his name and hers on a sheet of expensive paper, which she pitched into the fire as soon as she heard someone coming. It doesn't help her fantasies that he's so often out of the country, but she's quite happy when he returns home rested and tanned. As for the changing the world part, it reminds me of a much later scene, where Penelope angrily tells Colin that he is a man, he's rich, he's popular, he's handsome, and the world is his oyster, so he can do whatever he wants. And he acts like a complete baby after she scolds him, which is entertaining.
When I listen to this, i can totally picture Penelope falling back into her daydreams when her best friend Eloise Bridgerton tells her that her older brother is expected back soon from Cypress.
Hey Stephen // Taylor Swift
And in a testament to the bad timing that had plagued her throughout her life, the first voice she heard was Colin's, and the words were not kind. ". . . AND I AM CERTAINLY NOT GOING TO MARRY PENELOPE FEATHERINGTON!" "Oh!" The word slipped over her lips before she could even think, the squeal of it piercing the air like an off-key whistle. The three Bridgerton men turned to face her with identical horrified faces, and Penelope knew that she had just entered into what would certainly be the most awful five minutes of her life.
"Hey Stephen / I could give you fifty reasons / Why I should be the one you choose / All those other girls / Well, they're beautiful / But would they write a song for you?"
Oh, gosh. She just loves him so much, and he's standing down his brothers in front of their house in Mayfair, bellowing that he'll never marry her. Bahahaha. It's just delicious, and made even better by how horrified and remorseful Colin was, because he truly didn't mean to sound so ... cruel. And I love, love, love how she handled herself right there, with so much dignity and even a slight bit of restrained humor. Atta girl, Penny. Even Anthony was impressed.
Traveling Alone // Sherwood
His eldest brother made little attempt to disguise his impatience with Colin's wanderlust. In truth, Colin really couldn't blame him. . . . Every now and then, he simply had to get away. There was no other way to describe it. Away from the ton, who thought him a charming rogue and nothing else, away from England, which encouraged younger sons to enter the military or the clergy, neither of which suited his temperament. Even away from his family, who loved him unconditionally but had no clue that what he really wanted, deep down inside, was something to do.
"Maybe the reason I have strayed so far from home / Is I have insisted upon traveling alone."
Colin does so love to travel, and packs up and goes every couple of months. He loves his returns, he loves seeing his family and his nieces and nephews, and he loves being with his brothers. But he doesn't love being sought after by matchmaking mothers, and he doesn't like how his mother constantly pressures him to get married.
SexyBack // Justin Timberlake
Penelope caught her lower lip between her teeth, trying, for some unknown reason, to contain her smile. What magical star had Colin been born under, that he always knew what to say? He was the pied piper, leaving nothing but happy hearts and smiling faces in his wake. Penelope would have bet money - far more than the thousand pounds Lady Danbury had offered up - that she was not the only woman in London desperately in love with the third Bridgerton.
"I'm bringing sexy back / Those other boys don't know how to act."
Okay, I laughed. I cackled, actually, when it occurred to me that this was a good song for Colin's cocky, jokester, charming swagger.
But seriously. I'm totally right. :D
He's a hot MFer. That's all there is to it.
In the Sun // She & Him
If he'd said the same to her just two days earlier, she would have laughed at his joke and let him be the witty and charming one. But she must have heard Lady Danbury's voice at the back of her head, because she suddenly decided she didn't want to be the same old Penelope Featherington. She decided to join in the fun. She smiled a smile she didn't think she'd even known how to smile. It was wicked and she was mysterious, and she knew it wasn't all in her head because Colin's eyes widened markedly as she murmured, "That's a shame. It's rather enjoyable." "Penelope Featherington," he drawled, "I thought you said you weren't dancing." She shrugged. "I lied."
"Well all right / It's okay / We all get the slip sometimes every day / I'll just keep it to myself / In the sun."
Ah. This is the scene where she's dancing in Berkeley Square, and he finds her, and he flirts back with her when she decides to go for it, but then she reminds him that he can't do that, because people will talk, and it will be unkind, because no one would ever believe that he was seriously interested in her. Oh, Penelope. So rational and honest. She's just the best.
Streetlights // Kanye West
And now he'd gone and insulted her again. Not in as direct a manner, of course, but he should have thought a bit longer and harder before complaining about his life. Hell, it had sounded stupid, even to him. What did he have to complain about? Nothing. And yet there was still this nagging emptiness. A longing, really, for something he couldn't define. He was jealous of his brothers, for God's sake, for having found their passions, their legacies. The only mark Colin had left on the world was in the pages of Lady Whistledown's Society Papers. What a joke.
"Let me know / Do I still got time to grow? / Things ain't always set in stone / . . . Seems like, street lights, glowin / Happen to be just like moments, passin / In front of me so I hopped in the cab and / I paid my fare / See I know my destination / but I'm just not there."
I love my boy Ye. This song is lovely. Colin adores travel, and he adores his homecomings, but after a couple of months, he's rarin' to go again. While he's out of the country, he keeps a journal, writing down everything of note in his travels, laboring to get that perfect sentence, true in the Hemingway-ian sense. And when he's in London ... well, he has nothing to put in his travel journals. And his brothers unintentionaly exacerbate this frustration. Anthony has his legacy as the Viscount of whatever - it's who he is, who he was born to be. And Benedict is a famous painter, with works hanging in the National Gallery. And Colin feels like he has nothing, except for his travels and his journals, which are just for him, anyway. That restlessness, impatience, and frustration bubble far closer to the surface than most people in town realize.
You and Me // Lifehouse
No words for the sheer epiphany of the moment. And so, on an otherwise unremarkable Friday afternoon, in the heart of Mayfair, in a quiet drawing room on Mount Street, Colin Bridgerton kissed Penelope Featherington. And it was glorious.
"Because it's you and me."
She asks him to kiss her, because she's an old maid (at 28) and doesn't want to die without having been kissed. And the beauty of this scene, and really, the way their romance unfolds, is that he doesn't realize how much he wanted to until he was actually doing it. And what made it better - unimaginably so - was that the whole while, he knew it was her. So sweet.
<3
Love Letter // Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Still, Colin didn't think he'd feel comfortable in his own skin until he spoke teh words, "I'm sorry." It was the right thing to do. He was a gentleman, after all. And besides, he rather fancied seeing her that morning. . . . He smiled contentedly and lay back against the squabs, watching the lovely springtime scene roll by his window. It was one of those perfect sorts of days when everything simply felt right. The sun was shining, he felt remarkably energized, he'd had an excellent morning meal . . . Life really didn't get better than this. And he was going over to see Penelope.
"Said something I did not mean to say / It all came out the wrong way / Love letter love letter / Go get her go get her / Love letter love letter / go tell her go tell her."
Colin behaves very badly to Penelope after she asks him to kiss her, and he wants to apologize. And his feelings for her become sharper, clearer during that time - even though he won't think about it and won't analyze it.
And then everything goes to hell.
>:)
A Decade Under the Influence // Taking Back Sunday
"What?" His hand closed over her upper arm with painful force. "What did you just say?" Repeating it seemed almost dangerous to her health, so Penelope just stared at him, hoping that maybe she could break through the wild anger in his eyes and find the man she knew and loved so dearly.
"Sad, small, sure in porcelain / You're skin and bones, I'm a nervous wreck / I got a bad feeling about this / I got a bad feeling about this."
Oh, God, he is SO ANGRY with her.
:D
I'd say more but my BFF hasn't read it yet and I don't want to spoil this part.
Oh, God, so angry.
Sure Looks Good To Me // Alicia Keys
"Why are you so angry with me?" she burst out. "What have I done that is so repellant?" . . . "Penelope, you-" "No," she said forcefully. "You be quiet. It's my turn to speak." His jaw went slack as he stared at her, shock and disbelief crowding his eyes. "I am proud of what I've done," she managed to say, her voice shaking with emotion. "I don't care what you say. I don't care what anyone says. No one can take that from me."
'So don't rain on my parade."
Go, Penelope. :D
Brighter than Sunshine // Aqualung
Colin's first thought upon stepping into the drawing room was that the day, while certainly not proceeding in any manner he might have anticipated when he'd risen from bed that morning, was turning out to be a most excellent endeavor. Marriage to Penelope was an eminently sensible idea.
"I look up / You're standing next to me / what a feeling."
It's hilarious to me that he's all ARE YOU GOING TO MARRY ME OR WUT. And she's all WUT. o_O I love that when he woke up, he had no idea he was going to propose to her. Hilarious.
Breathe On Me // Britney Spears
Ahem.
I don't like Britney Spears. I don't particularly like this song. But I heard it randomly one day and flashed back to this scene. Those who have read it know what I'm talking about.
Whatever. I used J-Timberlake, so why not B-Spears?
Need To Be Next To You // Leigh Nash
It was funny; it had been so easy to hide her secret life as Lady Whistledown, but so unbelievably hard to keep her heart from her eyes every time she looked at him.
"Been running from this feeling for so long / Telling my heart I didn't need it / Pretending I was better off alone / But I know that it's just a lie."
While this is supposed to be about their ILYs in his bedroom after the engagement ball, I'm thinking of that one line where Penelope thinks that she'd always known she was born for Colin, and she'd spent her whole life telling herself that he had been born for someone else. And then she was proven wrong.
Also, those are my favorite salt and pepper shakers ever. I've wanted them for so long, but don't really have a reason to buy them. I have s/p shakers. They're fat cats that are holding a fish.
I would still rather have the peas.
Somebody Loved // The Weepies
His heart stood still. Because that was when he finally understood her. She had told him that she loved him, and she had shown her love as well, in all the ways he'd taught her. But never before had it been so clear, so frank, so raw. All this time she'd been begging him not to make the announcement - it had all been for him.
"You turn me into / somebody loved."
He loves her and she loves him. The end.
BONUS: Penny & Me // Hanson
"Just Penny and me tonight."
WHEE. I'm done!
Comments sustain me. <3
.:download:.
at mediafire