And then I made an Arthur/Eames fanmix.
AND NOW AN ARTHUR/EAMES FANMIX. WITH FREE MUSIC AND EVERYTHING. BECAUSE I FELT LIKE SPOILING YOU GUYS.
A note on fanmixes: I don't make cover art because I am approximately as artistically gifted as a blind baby seal, I don't title them because I would have to use SONG LYRICS and that seems upsettingly cyclical, and I have limited tolerance for "your music taste blows" type discussions. It's music, and everyone is different. If you like what you see, fabulous! Download and enjoy. If you do not, also fabulous! Be on your merry way. But no ragging on anyone's music tastes in the comments, yes?
Uh, also, I think I pulled out and left youtube links for all the things that are locked because I bought them on iTunes, but if not, SORRY. Let me know and I'll upload a .zip without them and find links.
Come and Find Me, Josh Ritter
If I could trace the line that ran
Between your smile and your sleight of hand
I'd guess that you put something up my sleeve
Now every time I see your face the bells ring in a far-off place
We can find each other this way I believe
[…]
I keep you in a flower vase
Your fatalism and your crooked face
With the daisies and the violet brocades
And I keep me in a vacant lot
In the ivy and forget-me-nots
Hoping you will come and untangle me one of these days
Come and find me now
Just. This song. It is entirely to blame for this whole mix existing because it came on the other day in my car and I was like JESUS CHRIST, THIS IS ARTHUR TO EAMES, OH MY FUCKING GOD HOW DID I NOT IMMEDIATELY SEE THAT YEARS AGO. And then I, um, remembered that I hadn't seen Inception years ago, and pardoned myself. But just--it's this sad mournful song with this underscore of hope and ALL THE LYRICS WORK (I quoted most of them, sorry, I could not help myself), and so Arthur.
Falling is Like This, Ani Difranco
You give me that look that's like laughing
with liquid in your mouth
like you're choosing between choking
and spitting it all out
like you're trying to fight gravity
on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this
Feels like reckless driving when we're talking
It's fun while it lasts, and it's faster than walking
But no one's going to sympathize when we crash
They'll say "you hit what you head for, you get what you ask"
and we'll say we didn't know, we didn't even try
one minute there was road beneath us, the next just sky
I'm sorry I can't help you, I cannot keep you safe
I'm sorry I can't help myself, so don't look at me that way
we can't fight gravity on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this.
Yeah, okay, I admit it, that is all the lyrics of this song. But I HAD TO, OKAY, because it is the perfect goddamn counterpart to "Come and Find Me," because oh my god I know you can picture Eames picturing Arthur laughing like he's got liquid in his mouth, because EVERYTHING ABOUT IT FITS. Shut up, I'm allowed to have big feelings about this song, okay? God.
Last Person, Jenny Owen Youngs
I mean what's the worst thing that could happen
we find out that we don't quite fit
but on the flip side, we could be just right
and sure there's the chance
that'd we'd both end up broken and split
but that's my kind of risk
so quit worrying where they'll fall if you should roll the dice
why don't you come home with me tonight, alright, alright
Not trying to make you think this is some kind of great big deal
I just know exactly how you feel
I could be the thing you reach for in the middle of the night
let me be the one who treats you right
There is so much about this song, which is, okay, admittedly about love in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, that I feel just perfectly fucking captures the Arthur/Eames dynamic. I mean, just read those lyrics, guys. SO MUCH. However, I bought this song on iTunes and burning it onto a CD and then putting it BACK on my computer in order to unlock it seems like a lot of useless fuckery, and while I'm sure there's another way to undo that coding I don't know it. SO: click the YouTube link, discover the awesome of the song, listen to it on grooveshark (which, seriously, best site ever, no idea how I ever did without it), and then give in and buy it, because it's so awesome.
Goodnight and Go, Imogen Heap
One of these days, you'll miss your train and come stay with me
We'll have drinks and talk about things, any excuse to stay awake with you
You'll sleep here, I'll sleep there, but then the heating may be down again (at my convenience)
we'd be good, we'd be great together
[…]
Why's it always, always
goodnight and go
Darling, not again
Do I really have to explain here? I don't think I do. Because everyone has, at one point or another, visualized this relationship as being Eames wanting more and Arthur trying to believe he wants less, and this yearning--this please stop making this so much less than it could be--is so painfully Eames-in-that-storyline. Plus, it's a fucking beautiful piece of music, so there's that too.
How I Could Just Kill a Man, Charlotte Sometimes
No, to your letters love
No, to your unsturdy hands
Sleeping eyes, I'm told they never lie
No, to your key of rust
No, to your raging words
Sleeping tires, I'm told they never drive
I want it all, I pull you back, I want it all
Because--well, because the fact that Arthur's always saying no doesn't mean he wants to. There's such a current of indecision and you-don't-get-me-but-maybe-you-do in this song, and I just can't help but see Arthur thinking these things, pushing back and back and back because he doesn't know how not to.
Ignition (The Remix), R. Kelly
No I'm not tryin to be rude,
But hey pretty girl I'm feelin you
The way you do the things you do
Reminds me of my Lexus coup
Thats why I'm all up in yo grill
Tryin' to get you to a hotel
You must be a football coach
The way you got me plain' the field
NO, NO, WAIT, COME BACK, I know it's a terrible song. But just stop for a second and try to imagine Arthur and Eames, in a club for some reason, some job, and this song coming on. And inexplicably Eames knows all the words and suddenly he's in Arthur's space, grinding their hips together and advising Arthur to run his hands through his 'fro. And what it should is ridiculous but instead it's blisteringly, stupidly hot and all Arthur can think about is getting up to his room to fuck somebody and…you can picture it, can't you? Yeaahhhhhhh you can.
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Cat Power
I'm riding around the globe
And I'm doing this, and I'm signing that
And I'm trying to make some boy
Baby, baby, baby, come back
Can't you see I'm on a losing streak
When I first discovered this cover, I was like, psssssh. Psssssh, Cat Power, nobody covers the Rolling Stones and gets away with it, STFU. And then, because I thought it would be funny, I listened to it, at which point I discovered that only one person can cover the stones and get away with it, and that person is Cat Power. This is sad and slow and mournful and yet retains that slight hint of very attractive sleaze that makes the original so appealing, and it's so Eames.
However, I also bought THIS one on iTunes, blah blah useless fuckery, blah blah DISCOVER IT ON YOUTUBE, blah blah I am terribly sorry I cannot offer it up in the .zip, truly I am.
Vent, Collective Soul
Do you feel my tongue quivering
It's moments like these I revel in
Your conversation never sticks
'Cause no truth in you exists
Yeah you bite before you lick
I love you 'cause you're such a prick
This is my "Arthur & Eames roll around having hot dirty vicious sex in the middle of violent gunfire and explodey things" song. I think, TBH, it speaks for itself.
London Still, The Waifs
Wonder if you can pick up my
Accent on the phone
When I call across the country
When I call across the world
I see you in my kitchen
I can picture you now
As you toast to your small town
When you drink the happy hour
I’m in London still
[…]
And I miss you like my left arm
That's been lost in a war
Today I dream of home and not of London anymore
Two reasons: one, the line And I miss you like my left arm that's been lost in a war just breaks my fucking heart every time, and two, there's this gritty realism to this tune that I just love. It's about old friends and growing up, and it could easily be about Arthur and Eames, about the necessary distance, about all the ways they become people up and around each other. Augh, so good.
Illegal Tender, Louis XIV
You're taking off your stripes
even your knees are nice
I'll tease you with a knife
until you're screaming for your life
I think so too
and you surrender
can I spend you up?
you're my illegally illegal tender
[…]
I looked into your eyes
and pushed your buttons and levers
you sipped your tea
and charmed with glee
and kindly said "whatever"
and you like my loving better
cause you said so in a letter
that said "return to sender"
my illegally illegal tender
Because this song is fucking depraved and filthy as shit and condescending and fun and obnoxious and British, and whenever I hear it I am like JESUS CHRIST EAMES KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS UNTIL I CAN GET TO A COMPUTER. Not that I've put out any actual porn yet. I should get on that.
used to you, Ani Difranco
I'm still here because I've got nothing else to do
you're an asshole, but I'm getting used to you
I like the fact that you talk incessantly
I got a thing for assholes who tell good stories
I think that drinking is the only thing that you do right
you're gonna self-destruct, I think that's what I like
you like me so you try and make me feel like shit
I think it's kind of funny yeah, I kind of enjoy it
This song tells the story of the people I think Arthur & Eames could be, if I didn't believe so very much in their ~love connection~ and their better selves. It kind of makes me want to write an AU where they're these amoral, debauched thieves who just take and take and take from people, and then have filthy white-hot sex on tainted sheets. Which, admittedly, doesn't have to be an AU if you take the canon that direction--such is the brilliance of Inception--but I'll never do it, see, because I don't actually think I could bring myself to do that to them. BUT, UM. Yes?
Grace Kelly, MIKA
Do I attract you, do I repulse you with my queasy smile
Am I too dirty, am I too flirty, do I like what you like?
Yeah I could be wholesome, I could be loathsome, guess I'm a little bit shy
Why don't you like me, why don't you like me without making me try?
I tried to be like Grace Kelly
but all her looks were too sad
So I try a little Freddie
I've gone identity mad
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like
Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more
Why don't you like me, why don't you like me, why don't you walk out the door
This is the thing about Eames: he could be anything Arthur liked. I think there's a FUCKTON to explore about that, and I think somewhere deep in the heart of the relationship there's this voice in Eames' heart, wondering what the fuck he has to do already. The rest of the song works almost frightening well with the pairing, but I'm starting to embarrass myself with the sheer size of my lyrical selections, so I have left it out. Nonetheless: LISTEN CAREFULLY FOR AMAZEMENT AND PROFIT.
I Think I Need A New Heart, The Magnetic Fields
Because I always say I love you when I mean turn out the light
and I say let's run away when I just mean stay the night
But the words you want to hear, you will never hear from me
I'll never say happy anniversary
I'll never stay to say happy anniversary
So I think I need a new heart
Oh, Eames. This is version of you I can also totally see.
SONGS WHAT I HAVE USED FOR STORY TITLES: THE COLLECTION
Checking My Pulse, Alix Olsen
Your face crept into that space between my reflex and my resolve
kind of like the crevice you don't notice til it takes down the damn wall
and now we are sitting in the window
your forehead is red-hot and touching my knee
and I am checking my pulse, making sure it hasn't quit on me
This is not the first time I've put this song up in a fanmix, but it just works on a number of levels, and it's brilliantly done, and I just can't help but think of those first two lines as an excellent way to describe the way Eames is to Arthur.
Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse, Minus the Bear
Hey, let's cross the sea
And get some culture
Red wine with every meal
And absinthe after dinner
We'd look good side by side
Walking back to the hotel
[…]
this light looks good on you
morning came early
NOW YOU KNOW MY DIRTY SECRET, FLIST. The title for that story [which is really this LIFE looks good on you] is, in fact, a bastardized version of a line from this song. And really very little about this fits except the idea of Eames and Arthur traipsing all over Europe together, in whatever context, but bah. I care not. I spent an upsetting amount of time trying to decide on a title for that story that wasn't "Arthur & Eames Lead a Charmingly Domestic if Mildly Dysfunctional Life Together," alright? IT WAS THE BEST I COULD DO.
World Spins Madly On, The Weepies
I thought of you and where you'd gone
and let the world spin madly on
Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on
True life: I wrote that entire story because this song came on my iTunes, and then I left it on repeat because I did not want to scare off the plot bunny. Ah, the writing process.
Download it here, folks.
A note on fanmixes: I don't make cover art because I am approximately as artistically gifted as a blind baby seal, I don't title them because I would have to use SONG LYRICS and that seems upsettingly cyclical, and I have limited tolerance for "your music taste blows" type discussions. It's music, and everyone is different. If you like what you see, fabulous! Download and enjoy. If you do not, also fabulous! Be on your merry way. But no ragging on anyone's music tastes in the comments, yes?
Uh, also, I think I pulled out and left youtube links for all the things that are locked because I bought them on iTunes, but if not, SORRY. Let me know and I'll upload a .zip without them and find links.
Come and Find Me, Josh Ritter
If I could trace the line that ran
Between your smile and your sleight of hand
I'd guess that you put something up my sleeve
Now every time I see your face the bells ring in a far-off place
We can find each other this way I believe
[…]
I keep you in a flower vase
Your fatalism and your crooked face
With the daisies and the violet brocades
And I keep me in a vacant lot
In the ivy and forget-me-nots
Hoping you will come and untangle me one of these days
Come and find me now
Just. This song. It is entirely to blame for this whole mix existing because it came on the other day in my car and I was like JESUS CHRIST, THIS IS ARTHUR TO EAMES, OH MY FUCKING GOD HOW DID I NOT IMMEDIATELY SEE THAT YEARS AGO. And then I, um, remembered that I hadn't seen Inception years ago, and pardoned myself. But just--it's this sad mournful song with this underscore of hope and ALL THE LYRICS WORK (I quoted most of them, sorry, I could not help myself), and so Arthur.
Falling is Like This, Ani Difranco
You give me that look that's like laughing
with liquid in your mouth
like you're choosing between choking
and spitting it all out
like you're trying to fight gravity
on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this
Feels like reckless driving when we're talking
It's fun while it lasts, and it's faster than walking
But no one's going to sympathize when we crash
They'll say "you hit what you head for, you get what you ask"
and we'll say we didn't know, we didn't even try
one minute there was road beneath us, the next just sky
I'm sorry I can't help you, I cannot keep you safe
I'm sorry I can't help myself, so don't look at me that way
we can't fight gravity on a planet that insists
that love is like falling
and falling is like this.
Yeah, okay, I admit it, that is all the lyrics of this song. But I HAD TO, OKAY, because it is the perfect goddamn counterpart to "Come and Find Me," because oh my god I know you can picture Eames picturing Arthur laughing like he's got liquid in his mouth, because EVERYTHING ABOUT IT FITS. Shut up, I'm allowed to have big feelings about this song, okay? God.
Last Person, Jenny Owen Youngs
I mean what's the worst thing that could happen
we find out that we don't quite fit
but on the flip side, we could be just right
and sure there's the chance
that'd we'd both end up broken and split
but that's my kind of risk
so quit worrying where they'll fall if you should roll the dice
why don't you come home with me tonight, alright, alright
Not trying to make you think this is some kind of great big deal
I just know exactly how you feel
I could be the thing you reach for in the middle of the night
let me be the one who treats you right
There is so much about this song, which is, okay, admittedly about love in the middle of the zombie apocalypse, that I feel just perfectly fucking captures the Arthur/Eames dynamic. I mean, just read those lyrics, guys. SO MUCH. However, I bought this song on iTunes and burning it onto a CD and then putting it BACK on my computer in order to unlock it seems like a lot of useless fuckery, and while I'm sure there's another way to undo that coding I don't know it. SO: click the YouTube link, discover the awesome of the song, listen to it on grooveshark (which, seriously, best site ever, no idea how I ever did without it), and then give in and buy it, because it's so awesome.
Goodnight and Go, Imogen Heap
One of these days, you'll miss your train and come stay with me
We'll have drinks and talk about things, any excuse to stay awake with you
You'll sleep here, I'll sleep there, but then the heating may be down again (at my convenience)
we'd be good, we'd be great together
[…]
Why's it always, always
goodnight and go
Darling, not again
Do I really have to explain here? I don't think I do. Because everyone has, at one point or another, visualized this relationship as being Eames wanting more and Arthur trying to believe he wants less, and this yearning--this please stop making this so much less than it could be--is so painfully Eames-in-that-storyline. Plus, it's a fucking beautiful piece of music, so there's that too.
How I Could Just Kill a Man, Charlotte Sometimes
No, to your letters love
No, to your unsturdy hands
Sleeping eyes, I'm told they never lie
No, to your key of rust
No, to your raging words
Sleeping tires, I'm told they never drive
I want it all, I pull you back, I want it all
Because--well, because the fact that Arthur's always saying no doesn't mean he wants to. There's such a current of indecision and you-don't-get-me-but-maybe-you-do in this song, and I just can't help but see Arthur thinking these things, pushing back and back and back because he doesn't know how not to.
Ignition (The Remix), R. Kelly
No I'm not tryin to be rude,
But hey pretty girl I'm feelin you
The way you do the things you do
Reminds me of my Lexus coup
Thats why I'm all up in yo grill
Tryin' to get you to a hotel
You must be a football coach
The way you got me plain' the field
NO, NO, WAIT, COME BACK, I know it's a terrible song. But just stop for a second and try to imagine Arthur and Eames, in a club for some reason, some job, and this song coming on. And inexplicably Eames knows all the words and suddenly he's in Arthur's space, grinding their hips together and advising Arthur to run his hands through his 'fro. And what it should is ridiculous but instead it's blisteringly, stupidly hot and all Arthur can think about is getting up to his room to fuck somebody and…you can picture it, can't you? Yeaahhhhhhh you can.
(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, Cat Power
I'm riding around the globe
And I'm doing this, and I'm signing that
And I'm trying to make some boy
Baby, baby, baby, come back
Can't you see I'm on a losing streak
When I first discovered this cover, I was like, psssssh. Psssssh, Cat Power, nobody covers the Rolling Stones and gets away with it, STFU. And then, because I thought it would be funny, I listened to it, at which point I discovered that only one person can cover the stones and get away with it, and that person is Cat Power. This is sad and slow and mournful and yet retains that slight hint of very attractive sleaze that makes the original so appealing, and it's so Eames.
However, I also bought THIS one on iTunes, blah blah useless fuckery, blah blah DISCOVER IT ON YOUTUBE, blah blah I am terribly sorry I cannot offer it up in the .zip, truly I am.
Vent, Collective Soul
Do you feel my tongue quivering
It's moments like these I revel in
Your conversation never sticks
'Cause no truth in you exists
Yeah you bite before you lick
I love you 'cause you're such a prick
This is my "Arthur & Eames roll around having hot dirty vicious sex in the middle of violent gunfire and explodey things" song. I think, TBH, it speaks for itself.
London Still, The Waifs
Wonder if you can pick up my
Accent on the phone
When I call across the country
When I call across the world
I see you in my kitchen
I can picture you now
As you toast to your small town
When you drink the happy hour
I’m in London still
[…]
And I miss you like my left arm
That's been lost in a war
Today I dream of home and not of London anymore
Two reasons: one, the line And I miss you like my left arm that's been lost in a war just breaks my fucking heart every time, and two, there's this gritty realism to this tune that I just love. It's about old friends and growing up, and it could easily be about Arthur and Eames, about the necessary distance, about all the ways they become people up and around each other. Augh, so good.
Illegal Tender, Louis XIV
You're taking off your stripes
even your knees are nice
I'll tease you with a knife
until you're screaming for your life
I think so too
and you surrender
can I spend you up?
you're my illegally illegal tender
[…]
I looked into your eyes
and pushed your buttons and levers
you sipped your tea
and charmed with glee
and kindly said "whatever"
and you like my loving better
cause you said so in a letter
that said "return to sender"
my illegally illegal tender
Because this song is fucking depraved and filthy as shit and condescending and fun and obnoxious and British, and whenever I hear it I am like JESUS CHRIST EAMES KEEP IT IN YOUR PANTS UNTIL I CAN GET TO A COMPUTER. Not that I've put out any actual porn yet. I should get on that.
used to you, Ani Difranco
I'm still here because I've got nothing else to do
you're an asshole, but I'm getting used to you
I like the fact that you talk incessantly
I got a thing for assholes who tell good stories
I think that drinking is the only thing that you do right
you're gonna self-destruct, I think that's what I like
you like me so you try and make me feel like shit
I think it's kind of funny yeah, I kind of enjoy it
This song tells the story of the people I think Arthur & Eames could be, if I didn't believe so very much in their ~love connection~ and their better selves. It kind of makes me want to write an AU where they're these amoral, debauched thieves who just take and take and take from people, and then have filthy white-hot sex on tainted sheets. Which, admittedly, doesn't have to be an AU if you take the canon that direction--such is the brilliance of Inception--but I'll never do it, see, because I don't actually think I could bring myself to do that to them. BUT, UM. Yes?
Grace Kelly, MIKA
Do I attract you, do I repulse you with my queasy smile
Am I too dirty, am I too flirty, do I like what you like?
Yeah I could be wholesome, I could be loathsome, guess I'm a little bit shy
Why don't you like me, why don't you like me without making me try?
I tried to be like Grace Kelly
but all her looks were too sad
So I try a little Freddie
I've gone identity mad
I could be brown, I could be blue, I could be violet sky
I could be hurtful, I could be purple, I could be anything you like
Gotta be green, gotta be mean, gotta be everything more
Why don't you like me, why don't you like me, why don't you walk out the door
This is the thing about Eames: he could be anything Arthur liked. I think there's a FUCKTON to explore about that, and I think somewhere deep in the heart of the relationship there's this voice in Eames' heart, wondering what the fuck he has to do already. The rest of the song works almost frightening well with the pairing, but I'm starting to embarrass myself with the sheer size of my lyrical selections, so I have left it out. Nonetheless: LISTEN CAREFULLY FOR AMAZEMENT AND PROFIT.
I Think I Need A New Heart, The Magnetic Fields
Because I always say I love you when I mean turn out the light
and I say let's run away when I just mean stay the night
But the words you want to hear, you will never hear from me
I'll never say happy anniversary
I'll never stay to say happy anniversary
So I think I need a new heart
Oh, Eames. This is version of you I can also totally see.
SONGS WHAT I HAVE USED FOR STORY TITLES: THE COLLECTION
Checking My Pulse, Alix Olsen
Your face crept into that space between my reflex and my resolve
kind of like the crevice you don't notice til it takes down the damn wall
and now we are sitting in the window
your forehead is red-hot and touching my knee
and I am checking my pulse, making sure it hasn't quit on me
This is not the first time I've put this song up in a fanmix, but it just works on a number of levels, and it's brilliantly done, and I just can't help but think of those first two lines as an excellent way to describe the way Eames is to Arthur.
Absinthe Party at the Fly Honey Warehouse, Minus the Bear
Hey, let's cross the sea
And get some culture
Red wine with every meal
And absinthe after dinner
We'd look good side by side
Walking back to the hotel
[…]
this light looks good on you
morning came early
NOW YOU KNOW MY DIRTY SECRET, FLIST. The title for that story [which is really this LIFE looks good on you] is, in fact, a bastardized version of a line from this song. And really very little about this fits except the idea of Eames and Arthur traipsing all over Europe together, in whatever context, but bah. I care not. I spent an upsetting amount of time trying to decide on a title for that story that wasn't "Arthur & Eames Lead a Charmingly Domestic if Mildly Dysfunctional Life Together," alright? IT WAS THE BEST I COULD DO.
World Spins Madly On, The Weepies
I thought of you and where you'd gone
and let the world spin madly on
Everything that I said I'd do
Like make the world brand new
And take the time for you
I just got lost and slept right through the dawn
And the world spins madly on
True life: I wrote that entire story because this song came on my iTunes, and then I left it on repeat because I did not want to scare off the plot bunny. Ah, the writing process.
Download it here, folks.