mix: that light (songs for evangeline)

[balladrie]

The scene: NaNoWriMo 08. Yours truly attempts to write a truly ambitious novel about London, 1912, and a librarian who happens to be unusually talented at slaying vampires, which turns into a deeply messy fifth-of-a-draft, about Evangeline who can sense stories in the blood, Mr Caruthers the head librarian, who knows entirely too much about vampires, and has a Sordid Past (which keeps him from ever telling Evangeline that he happens to be fathoms deep in love with her), a family of bookmad people, an underground city, a lot of strange dreams, and, well, yes, vampires. This is the soundtrack. (Mostly.) Quite a lot of it was suggested by lovely people on my f-list and on communities of music lovers, and for that I thank you all. Not all of it made it in -- I listened to acres of classical music while writing, and there was some authentic music-of-the-era that I loved but it didn't quite fit with the other songs, and none of the many versions of 'The Unquiet Grave' were at all creepy enough. But there, I digress, as I usually do. Someday, when this novel is finished, and makes a lot more sense, I hope that it tastes a little bit like this.








that light.

1. REYNARDINE | show of hands
day and night she followed him
his teeth did brightly shine

and he led her over the mountains
did the sly bold Reynardine

2. OVER THE FIELDS & THE BARLEY | isobel campbell
instrumental

3. FEATHER MOON | vienna teng
feather moon, scarlet sky
living clouds my blinded eye
water's black, wood in snow
dead of night, how bright you glow

4. I USED TO TRY | nancy elizabeth
i like my world just the way it is
i like my work cos it's mine

5. THE SOMNAMBULIST WALTZ | jill tracy
instrumental

6. HENRY LEE | nick cave
lie there, lie there, little Henry Lee
till the flesh drops from your bones
and the girl you had in that merry green land
can wait forever for you to come home

7. BRETON MELODY | azam ali
instrumental

8. SILENCE | pj harvey
i'd risen this morning
determined to break
the spell of my longing
and not to think

9. DARKNESS DARKNESS | solas
darkness, darkness, hide the yearnings
for the things that cannot be
keep my mind from constant turning
towards the things i cannot see

10. BLACK PEAR TREE | the mountain goats & kaki king
i saw the future in a dream last night
somebody's gonna get hurt, somebody's gonna get hurt
i hope it's not me
but i suspect it's going to have to be

11. WOODS PART OF WHEN | noe venable
you can take my body all apart
but my apple heart, it will grow again

12. THAT LIGHT | dark dark dark
where's that light you're looking for?
where's that light you're looking for?

13. THE KISS | kelli ali
instrumental

14. WALTZ NO. 3 IN A MINOR | frederic chopin
instrumental

NOTES:
The cover photograph is by Julia Margaret Campbell, a highly influential female photographer of the Victorian era, who happens to be made of win.
1. 'Reynardine' is a traditional ballad that may or may not be about vampires. (Sometimes the title character is a werefox! Sometimes he's just "some rake", as the lyrics say.)
6. Again, I look at traditional ballads and choose to believe they're about vampires. Shush. And just pretend she drains him of blood instead of plugging him with her little penknife. At any rate this is deliciously creepy.
8. Oh Mr Caruthers, you are so emo.
9. See previous comment. However he has better reasons than most people, I suppose.
13. I was listening to Kelli Ali's Rocking Horse when I won NaNo, so something out of it had to go on the mix. (It helps that the album is very atmospherically suitable: which is mostly why I was playing it while racing towards the 50,000 word finish line.) But alas, I cannot find lyrics anywhere, so I could not judge which songs were the most suitable. Cop-out version: instrumental. But verily, it is a magnificent one.