Mix - The Brothers Karamazov - Here I'm Allowed
So in my supreme geekiness, I have decided to make a fanmix for one of my favorite novels (and definitely my favorite novel that I've read in college), The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Yes, really. I mean, come on - there's family feuds, some really screwed-up love triangles, murder, love, atheism vs belief - what's not to love? ;-)
Below the cut is a loooot of stuff, including some rather shoddy artwork, 15 songs, and quotes from the novel accompanying each song. Hence, there are spoilers, so beware if you ever wish to read this book (as you all should, because it's awesome). Enjoy and comment!
*
1. Santana ft. Everlast - Put Your Lights On
Hey now, all you killers
Put your lights on
Put your lights on
Hey now, all you children
Leave your lights on
You better leave your lights on
2. Placebo - Song to Say Goodbye [Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov]
You are one of God’s mistakes
You crying, tragic waste of skin
I’m well aware of how it aches
And you still won’t let me in
Old liars who have been play-acting all their lives have moments when they get so carried away by their posing that they indeed tremble and weep from excitement, even though at that same moment (or just a second later) they might whisper to themselves: “You’re lying, you shameless old man, you’re acting even now…”
Dmitri Fyodorovich frowned horribly and looked at his father with inexpressible contempt.
“I thought… I thought,” he said somehow softly and restrainedly, “that I would come to my birthplace with the angel of my soul, my fiancée, to cherish him in his old age, and all I find is a depraved sensualist and despicable comedian!” (73)
3. Vienna Teng - Idioteque (Radiohead Cover) [Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov]
Take the money and run
Take the money and run
Take the money
Here I’m allowed
Everything all of the time
“…And what difference does it make?” [Dmitri] suddenly added hopelessly. “If I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him… You came a cropper, old man, now lie there!” he said aloud, and suddenly dashed for the fence, jumped over it into the lane, and started running. The blood-soaked handkerchief was crumpled in his right fist, and as he ran he stuffed it into the back pocket of his coat. He was running like mad, and the few rare passers-by he met in the darkness… remembered afterwards how they had met a wildly running man that night.
[…]
Pyotr Ilyich grew more and more surprised: in Mitya’s hand he suddenly noticed a pile of money… (394; 397)
4. The Weepies - Old Coyote [Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov]
Ring around rosy game always ends the same way
We all fall down
Get up now, baby
Get up now, baby
It’s your song
It’s your song playing
[Alyosha] sat with his back to the hermitage, facing the wall, as if hiding behind the tombstone. Coming close to him, Father Paissy saw that he had covered his face with both hands and was weeping, silently but bitterly, his whole body shaking with sobs. (329)
5. Nerina Pallot - God [Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov]
God is good, I never understood
All the darkness in his soul
And God made man
The only way he can
But for a heart he left a hole
Would you burn your fingers if you touched God?
Will he let you in if you have or not?
“…can you understand such nonsense, my friend and my brother… can you understand why this nonsense is needed and created? Without it, they say, man could not even have lived on earth, for he would not have known good and evil. Who wants to know this damned good and evil at such a price? The whole world of knowledge is not worth the tears of that little child to ‘dear God.’ …It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket.” (242; 245)
6. Feist - Sea Lion Woman [Agrafena Alexandrovna Svetlov]
Sea lion woman
Dressed in black
Wink at the man
Then stab him in his back
Everyone was convinced of one thing: that Grushenka was hard to get, and apart from the old man, her patron, there was not yet a single man in all those four years who could boast of her favors. This was a firm fact, for not a few aspirants had turned up, especially over the last two years, to obtain those favors. But all attempts were in vain; and some of the suitors were even forced to beat a comical and shameful retreat, after the firm and mocking rebuff dealt to them by the strong-willed young lady. (344)
7. Fauxliage - All the World [Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovstev]
I’m having a hard time
I’m making you do the hard time too
I’m stuck in a bad way
And I’m gonna make you pay for it
“Yes, yes,” Ivan interrupted… “yes, and in another woman this moment would be only yesterday’s impression, and no more than a moment, but with Katerina Ivanovna’s character, this moment will last all her life. …Your life, Katerina Ivanovna, will now be spent in the suffering contemplation of your own feelings, of your own high deed and your own grief…”
[…]
“This truth,” Alyosha stammered, as if throwing himself off the roof. “Call Dmitri now… and let him come here and… unite your hands. For you are tormenting Ivan only because you love him… and you are tormenting him because you love Dmitri from strain… not in truth… because you’ve convinced yourself of it…”
Alyosha suddenly broke off and fell silent.
“You… you… you’re a holy little fool, that’s what you are!” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly snapped, her face pale now and her lips twisted in anger. (190; 192)
8. Fiona Apple - Red, Red, Red [Dmitri/Grushenka]
And it’s dangerous work
Trying to get to you too
And I think if I didn’t have to
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, KILL myself doing it
Maybe I wouldn’t think so much of you
“So I set out to give Grushenka a beating… and stayed. …In three days I was broke, but a hero. And did he get anywhere, this hero? She didn’t even show it to him from a distance. A curve, I tell you! That rogue Grushenka has a certain curve to her body, it even shows in her foot, it’s even echoed in her little left toe. I saw it and kissed it, but that’s all-I swear! She said, ‘I’ll marry you, if you like, though you’re a beggar. Tell me you won’t beat me and will let me do anything I want, and then maybe I’ll marry you,’ she laughed. And she’s laughing still.”
…“And do you really want to marry her?”
“At once, if she will, and if she won’t, I’ll stay anyway, I’ll be a caretaker in her yard.” (117-118)
9. Damien Rice - Rootless Tree [Ivan/Katerina Ivanovna]
What I want from this
Is learn to let go
No not of you
Of all that's been told
And if you hate me, hate me, hate me
Then hate me so good that you can let me out
Let me out of this hell when you’re around
“Alexei Fyodorovich, I’m getting confused, imagine: right now your brother, I mean, not that one, the terrible one yesterday, but the other one, Ivan Fyodorovich, is sitting and talking with [Katerina Ivanovna]: they’re having a solemn conversation… And you wouldn’t believe what’s happening between them now-it’s terrible, it’s a strain, I’m telling you, it’s such a terrible tale that one simply cannot believe it: they’re destroying themselves, who knows why, and they know they’re doing it, and they’re both reveling in it.” (181)
10. Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard - Patricide [The murder of Fyodor Karamazov and Smerdyakov's confession]
[Instrumental]
“Performed? Was it you that killed him?” Ivan went cold.
…“Can it possibly be that you didn’t know till now?” Smerdyakov asked once again.
“No, I didn’t. I kept thinking it was Dmitri…”
[…]
“Then I grabbed that same cast-iron paperweight, the one on his desk-remember, sir?-it must weigh all of three pounds, and I swung and hit him from behind on the top of the head with the corner of it. He didn’t even cry out. He just sank down suddenly, and I hit him one more time, and then a third time. The third time I felt I smashed his skull.” (623-624; 629)
11. Muse - Thoughts of a Dying Atheist [Ivan in his madness]
Eerie whispers
Trapped beneath my pillow
Won’t let me sleep
Your memories
And it scares the hell out of me
And the end is all I can see
At last Ivan began gradually to lose all consciousness. …Alyosha somehow undressed him and laid him down. He sat over him for two hours more. …Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa without undressing. As he was falling asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He was beginning to understand Ivan’s illness: “The torments of a proud decision, a deep conscience!” God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit. …“He will either ride into the light of truth, or… perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in,” Alyosha added bitterly, and again prayed for Ivan. (654-655)
12. Pink Floyd - The Trial [Dmitri's murder trial]
The evidence before the court is
Incontrovertible; there’s no need for the jury to retire
In all my years of judging I have never heard before
Of someone more deserving of the full penalty of the law
The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, not more, not less. …I remember only the answer to the first and chief question of the presiding judge-that is, “Did [Dmitri Karamazov] commit murder for the purpose of robbery, and with premeditation?” …Everything became still. The foreman of the jury-namely, one of the officials, the youngest of them all-pronounced loudly and clearly, in the dead silence of the courtroom:
“Yes, guilty!”
And then it was the same on each point: guilty, yes, guilty, and that without the least extenuation! (753)
13. Lacuna Coil - When a Dead Man Walks [Dmitri after the trial]
Blood into my hands, blood into my hands
Blood into my hands I can’t deny
Living in their cage
They’re killing me
“And here’s something else I wanted to tell you,” Mitya continued in a suddenly ringing voice, “if they start beating me on the way, or there, I won’t let them, I’ll kill someone, and they’ll shoot me. And it’s for twenty years! They’ve already started talking down to me here. The guards talk down to me. I was lying here all last night judging myself: I’m not ready! Not strong enough to take it!” (763)
14. Thea Gilmore - God Knows [Alyosha and the end of the novel]
God knows, God knows
The seasons change
And summer came and went
God knows, God knows we’ve all got one
A favorite descent
Oh baby, we’ll soldier on
To the final righteous breath
“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, do not be afraid of life! How good like is when you do something good and rightful!”
“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated ecstatically. …“We love you, we love you,” everyone joined in. Many had tears shining in their eyes.
…“Karamazov!” cried Kolya. “Can it really be true as religion says, that we shall all arise from the dead, and come to life, and see one another again, and everyone, and Ilyushechka?”
“Certainly we shall right, certainly we shall see and gladly, joyfully tell one another all that has been,” Alyosha replied, half laughing, half in ecstasy. …“Well, and now let’s end our speeches and go to his memorial dinner. Don’t be disturbed that we’ll be eating pancakes. It’s an ancient, eternal thing, and there’s good in that, too,” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let’s go! And we go like this now, hand in hand.”
15. Murray Gold - Abide With Me (words by Henry Lyte)
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens - Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
.zip
Individual songs available upon request.
Background textures from cloaks; blood-spatter textures from Obsidian Dawn. Cover image from Getty Images. All quotes are from the Everyman's Library edition of The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, published in 1992.
Enjoy and please comment if you snag!
Below the cut is a loooot of stuff, including some rather shoddy artwork, 15 songs, and quotes from the novel accompanying each song. Hence, there are spoilers, so beware if you ever wish to read this book (as you all should, because it's awesome). Enjoy and comment!
*
1. Santana ft. Everlast - Put Your Lights On
Hey now, all you killers
Put your lights on
Put your lights on
Hey now, all you children
Leave your lights on
You better leave your lights on
2. Placebo - Song to Say Goodbye [Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov]
You are one of God’s mistakes
You crying, tragic waste of skin
I’m well aware of how it aches
And you still won’t let me in
Old liars who have been play-acting all their lives have moments when they get so carried away by their posing that they indeed tremble and weep from excitement, even though at that same moment (or just a second later) they might whisper to themselves: “You’re lying, you shameless old man, you’re acting even now…”
Dmitri Fyodorovich frowned horribly and looked at his father with inexpressible contempt.
“I thought… I thought,” he said somehow softly and restrainedly, “that I would come to my birthplace with the angel of my soul, my fiancée, to cherish him in his old age, and all I find is a depraved sensualist and despicable comedian!” (73)
3. Vienna Teng - Idioteque (Radiohead Cover) [Dmitri Fyodorovich Karamazov]
Take the money and run
Take the money and run
Take the money
Here I’m allowed
Everything all of the time
“…And what difference does it make?” [Dmitri] suddenly added hopelessly. “If I’ve killed him, I’ve killed him… You came a cropper, old man, now lie there!” he said aloud, and suddenly dashed for the fence, jumped over it into the lane, and started running. The blood-soaked handkerchief was crumpled in his right fist, and as he ran he stuffed it into the back pocket of his coat. He was running like mad, and the few rare passers-by he met in the darkness… remembered afterwards how they had met a wildly running man that night.
[…]
Pyotr Ilyich grew more and more surprised: in Mitya’s hand he suddenly noticed a pile of money… (394; 397)
4. The Weepies - Old Coyote [Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov]
Ring around rosy game always ends the same way
We all fall down
Get up now, baby
Get up now, baby
It’s your song
It’s your song playing
[Alyosha] sat with his back to the hermitage, facing the wall, as if hiding behind the tombstone. Coming close to him, Father Paissy saw that he had covered his face with both hands and was weeping, silently but bitterly, his whole body shaking with sobs. (329)
5. Nerina Pallot - God [Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov]
God is good, I never understood
All the darkness in his soul
And God made man
The only way he can
But for a heart he left a hole
Would you burn your fingers if you touched God?
Will he let you in if you have or not?
“…can you understand such nonsense, my friend and my brother… can you understand why this nonsense is needed and created? Without it, they say, man could not even have lived on earth, for he would not have known good and evil. Who wants to know this damned good and evil at such a price? The whole world of knowledge is not worth the tears of that little child to ‘dear God.’ …It’s not that I don’t accept God, Alyosha, I just most respectfully return him the ticket.” (242; 245)
6. Feist - Sea Lion Woman [Agrafena Alexandrovna Svetlov]
Sea lion woman
Dressed in black
Wink at the man
Then stab him in his back
Everyone was convinced of one thing: that Grushenka was hard to get, and apart from the old man, her patron, there was not yet a single man in all those four years who could boast of her favors. This was a firm fact, for not a few aspirants had turned up, especially over the last two years, to obtain those favors. But all attempts were in vain; and some of the suitors were even forced to beat a comical and shameful retreat, after the firm and mocking rebuff dealt to them by the strong-willed young lady. (344)
7. Fauxliage - All the World [Katerina Ivanovna Verkhovstev]
I’m having a hard time
I’m making you do the hard time too
I’m stuck in a bad way
And I’m gonna make you pay for it
“Yes, yes,” Ivan interrupted… “yes, and in another woman this moment would be only yesterday’s impression, and no more than a moment, but with Katerina Ivanovna’s character, this moment will last all her life. …Your life, Katerina Ivanovna, will now be spent in the suffering contemplation of your own feelings, of your own high deed and your own grief…”
[…]
“This truth,” Alyosha stammered, as if throwing himself off the roof. “Call Dmitri now… and let him come here and… unite your hands. For you are tormenting Ivan only because you love him… and you are tormenting him because you love Dmitri from strain… not in truth… because you’ve convinced yourself of it…”
Alyosha suddenly broke off and fell silent.
“You… you… you’re a holy little fool, that’s what you are!” Katerina Ivanovna suddenly snapped, her face pale now and her lips twisted in anger. (190; 192)
8. Fiona Apple - Red, Red, Red [Dmitri/Grushenka]
And it’s dangerous work
Trying to get to you too
And I think if I didn’t have to
Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, KILL myself doing it
Maybe I wouldn’t think so much of you
“So I set out to give Grushenka a beating… and stayed. …In three days I was broke, but a hero. And did he get anywhere, this hero? She didn’t even show it to him from a distance. A curve, I tell you! That rogue Grushenka has a certain curve to her body, it even shows in her foot, it’s even echoed in her little left toe. I saw it and kissed it, but that’s all-I swear! She said, ‘I’ll marry you, if you like, though you’re a beggar. Tell me you won’t beat me and will let me do anything I want, and then maybe I’ll marry you,’ she laughed. And she’s laughing still.”
…“And do you really want to marry her?”
“At once, if she will, and if she won’t, I’ll stay anyway, I’ll be a caretaker in her yard.” (117-118)
9. Damien Rice - Rootless Tree [Ivan/Katerina Ivanovna]
What I want from this
Is learn to let go
No not of you
Of all that's been told
And if you hate me, hate me, hate me
Then hate me so good that you can let me out
Let me out of this hell when you’re around
“Alexei Fyodorovich, I’m getting confused, imagine: right now your brother, I mean, not that one, the terrible one yesterday, but the other one, Ivan Fyodorovich, is sitting and talking with [Katerina Ivanovna]: they’re having a solemn conversation… And you wouldn’t believe what’s happening between them now-it’s terrible, it’s a strain, I’m telling you, it’s such a terrible tale that one simply cannot believe it: they’re destroying themselves, who knows why, and they know they’re doing it, and they’re both reveling in it.” (181)
10. Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard - Patricide [The murder of Fyodor Karamazov and Smerdyakov's confession]
[Instrumental]
“Performed? Was it you that killed him?” Ivan went cold.
…“Can it possibly be that you didn’t know till now?” Smerdyakov asked once again.
“No, I didn’t. I kept thinking it was Dmitri…”
[…]
“Then I grabbed that same cast-iron paperweight, the one on his desk-remember, sir?-it must weigh all of three pounds, and I swung and hit him from behind on the top of the head with the corner of it. He didn’t even cry out. He just sank down suddenly, and I hit him one more time, and then a third time. The third time I felt I smashed his skull.” (623-624; 629)
11. Muse - Thoughts of a Dying Atheist [Ivan in his madness]
Eerie whispers
Trapped beneath my pillow
Won’t let me sleep
Your memories
And it scares the hell out of me
And the end is all I can see
At last Ivan began gradually to lose all consciousness. …Alyosha somehow undressed him and laid him down. He sat over him for two hours more. …Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa without undressing. As he was falling asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He was beginning to understand Ivan’s illness: “The torments of a proud decision, a deep conscience!” God, in whom he did not believe, and his truth were overcoming his heart, which still did not want to submit. …“He will either ride into the light of truth, or… perish in hatred, taking revenge on himself and everyone for having served something he does not believe in,” Alyosha added bitterly, and again prayed for Ivan. (654-655)
12. Pink Floyd - The Trial [Dmitri's murder trial]
The evidence before the court is
Incontrovertible; there’s no need for the jury to retire
In all my years of judging I have never heard before
Of someone more deserving of the full penalty of the law
The jury deliberated for exactly an hour, not more, not less. …I remember only the answer to the first and chief question of the presiding judge-that is, “Did [Dmitri Karamazov] commit murder for the purpose of robbery, and with premeditation?” …Everything became still. The foreman of the jury-namely, one of the officials, the youngest of them all-pronounced loudly and clearly, in the dead silence of the courtroom:
“Yes, guilty!”
And then it was the same on each point: guilty, yes, guilty, and that without the least extenuation! (753)
13. Lacuna Coil - When a Dead Man Walks [Dmitri after the trial]
Blood into my hands, blood into my hands
Blood into my hands I can’t deny
Living in their cage
They’re killing me
“And here’s something else I wanted to tell you,” Mitya continued in a suddenly ringing voice, “if they start beating me on the way, or there, I won’t let them, I’ll kill someone, and they’ll shoot me. And it’s for twenty years! They’ve already started talking down to me here. The guards talk down to me. I was lying here all last night judging myself: I’m not ready! Not strong enough to take it!” (763)
14. Thea Gilmore - God Knows [Alyosha and the end of the novel]
God knows, God knows
The seasons change
And summer came and went
God knows, God knows we’ve all got one
A favorite descent
Oh baby, we’ll soldier on
To the final righteous breath
“Ah, children, ah, dear friends, do not be afraid of life! How good like is when you do something good and rightful!”
“Yes, yes,” the boys repeated ecstatically. …“We love you, we love you,” everyone joined in. Many had tears shining in their eyes.
…“Karamazov!” cried Kolya. “Can it really be true as religion says, that we shall all arise from the dead, and come to life, and see one another again, and everyone, and Ilyushechka?”
“Certainly we shall right, certainly we shall see and gladly, joyfully tell one another all that has been,” Alyosha replied, half laughing, half in ecstasy. …“Well, and now let’s end our speeches and go to his memorial dinner. Don’t be disturbed that we’ll be eating pancakes. It’s an ancient, eternal thing, and there’s good in that, too,” laughed Alyosha. “Well, let’s go! And we go like this now, hand in hand.”
15. Murray Gold - Abide With Me (words by Henry Lyte)
Abide with me; fast falls the eventide
The darkness deepens - Lord with me abide
When other helpers fail and comforts flee
Help of the helpless, O abide with me.
.zip
Individual songs available upon request.
Background textures from cloaks; blood-spatter textures from Obsidian Dawn. Cover image from Getty Images. All quotes are from the Everyman's Library edition of The Brothers Karamazov, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, published in 1992.
Enjoy and please comment if you snag!