[fst] objects in space :: a firefly/serenity fst
WHO LIKES COWBOYS
WHO LIKES MUSIC
WHO LIKES FIREFLY
THEN CLICK ON THAT CUT
I can hear you thinking: hasn't she done a Firefly mix before? Answer: Yes! But now I have retooled all three discs, and I think the final product is vastly superior to my original attempt. You can still get the originals, though; they're up here and here, and they've got much better-illustrated writeups. However, May was not kind to me, time-wise, so here is what is.
However, I was pleased with myself that I managed to work in a lot of smaller artists I've come to love over the past five years, so if you hear someone you like on these mixes, please go, track them down, listen to more of their things, buy their music, catch their shows, support the ones you love! BETTER YOURSELF THROUGH MUSIC
And of course watch some Firefly: you can find it on Netflix, hulu, and in the DVD collections of most people with good taste.
No cowboy quotient this time. Suck it up and live dangerously.
objects in space: a firefly fst
As always, username secret, password tunnel, and you're going to look very silly if you have to ask.
disc one: let this whole town hear your knuckles crack
Serenity
The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
The South Browncoats will rise again!
The Mountain Goats - Damn These Vampires
I put two songs on this mix from the Mountain Goats' latest album, but that's because that album is jaw-dropping incredible. I think series-era Mal would appreciate this sentiment.
The Train Job
Greg Brown - My Home In the Sky
Sweet and slow and old-school folk-y. Add it to the list of things you can't take from me.
Bruce Cockburn - Train in the Rain
Rarely do you get to hear a folk guitarist quite as incredible as he (unless, of course, it's Patty Larkin).
Bushwhacked
Riders in the Sky - Ghost Riders In The Sky
I will be the first to admit that the Reavers were better when we didn't know what they were. Classic rule of horror: no matter what the scariest thing is, the one thing that will always be scarier than that is what your own brain conjures up to fill in the blanks. Therefore, I feel bad not at all about this slightly goofy song.
Tom Waits - Earth Died Screaming
This one, however, is slightly more serious, what with Tom Waits' doing his monster voice and all. Sure, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but nonsense is scary.
馬頭琴 - 四季
So way back in the wayback, when I was making these mixes for the first time, I came across two tracks of 'Mongolian horse fiddle' music. I have no idea who the artist is -- that's not an artist name there so much as a description -- and if anyone could tell me, I'd be thrilled to purple.
Shindig
Patty Larkin - Pablo Neruda (feat. Suzanne Vega)
Patty Larkin put out an album of duet versions of her old songs to celebrate her 25th year in music, and this love song is one of the highlights. I love Wash and Zoe; they're not a perfect couple, but they're one with an absolute bare minimum of drama, and that resonates well with me.
Erin McKeown - How to Be a Lady
I first discovered this song, like, a week after I posted the original Firefly mixes, and I have held it in mind ever since then, waiting for the day I'd get around to doing an updated version of the mixes. Inara is the best lady ever, because she's beautiful and smart and will shank you so hard if you look at her crosswise.
George Winston - The Snowman's Music Box Dance
A pretty little piano piece, reminiscent of pretty Kaylee and her horrendous sugar-pink dress. But she wore it so well! And all that matters is she had a good time.
רונה קינן - Waltz
Slinky and bitchy, another Inara song, this one directed at Mal. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do will-they-or-won't-they and make it interesting.
Safe
Austin Lounge Lizards - The Highway Cafe of the Damned
...This is the episode I like the least, and if you're familiar with the Austin Lounge Lizards, well, that's about the level of gravitas I'm willing to go with here. ...And if you're not familiar with the Austin Lounge Lizards, well, I can only be sad for you.
Dixie Chicks - Lil' Jack Slade
The Dixie Chicks have gotten a reputation for using their mouths (speaking and singing), but they're also fantastic instrumentalists, and this piece shows off their musicianship nicely.
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
The Fox Confessor character here is apparently a trickster figure borrowed from Ukranian mythology, and I'm sure that, at some point, our dear Mrs. Reynolds has claimed either to be able to control the tides or to be Ukranian.
Adam Hooks & His Hangups - Excuses, Excuses
A bit of a divergence from the cowboy sound here -- this piece is a more rock than twang, if that's your thing, and Adam Hooks is (as peripheralsight correctly noted) sort of the American Matthew Good, if that means anything to you. A little ditty about running away from what you've done, and there's a lot of running away on this ship.
Jaynestown
Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue
I couldn't find a version that wasn't censored or live -- though I'll admit I didn't go looking too hard -- so here you get the Man in Black himself, doing a lovely live rendtion about just what the song says. I do find it funny, though, how easy it is to take 'Jayne' as a man's name and move on without thinking twice about it; I think it's adding the 'y' that helps disturb it just enough from what you expect.
Great Big Sea - The Chemical Worker's Song (Process Man)
Ani Difranco - Trickle Down
I like putting these two songs back-to-back for the mudders: the first one is hardy, and though it's definitely miserable, it's still strong enough to be defiant; the second is just ... hopeless, and the spooky reverb on Ani's guitar makes the whole song ring hollow.
Out of Gas
William Elliott Whitmore - Gravel Road
A little get-up-and-go song with a real twang to it, from an artist not exactly known for being cheerful. Still, a good ode to all the picking up and going with that gets done in this episode's flashbacks.
Nick Drake - All My Trials
You can just assume across the board that any musical reference to Jesus in this mix should belong to Book.
The Fairfield Four - Lonesome Valley
The Peptides - Major Tom
Two lonely acapella songs for poor, lonely, bleeding, freezing Mal. If I hadn't loved Malcolm Reynolds best of all before this episode, well, this would have cemented it. Yes, that's the 'Lonesome Valley' gravedigger song from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which has possibly the best soundtrack of any movie ever. The second song's a Peter Schilling cover that kind of has to be heard to be believed.
Redbird - Hold On
And a Tom Waits cover to round it out. Not that I don't love Waits' original rendition of this, but, well, you can't beat the close, warm harmonies for bringing everyone home again.
disc two: carried my own weight long as I could
Ariel
Patty Larkin - River
A song about a misunderstood young woman named River. No, really.
馬頭琴 - 黒駿馬
This is the other Mongolian horse fiddle track, and this one's creepier and tenser than the first -- better music for breaking into a hospital with a pair of corpses.
Murder By Death - Raw Deal
As far as music goes, Murder By Death is a band so near and dear to my heart, and is the sole reason I know four of the smaller artists that appear on here: William Elliott Whitmore, O'Death, Ha Ha Tonka, and the Builders and the Butchers. As far as the song's placement here goes ... dammit, Jayne.
Nickel Creek - Cross the Bridge
Some nice little picking to keep everything flying.
War Stories
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
Who doesn't love CCR? Bad people, that's who.
Sugarland - Just Might
Jennifer Nettles Band - Gravity
I feel the need to address these songs together, not because they have a lot to do with one another -- the first is a sweet Zoe-and-Wash song, the second is more River learning to shoot -- but because it was not until well after I had posted the original mix, with these songs right next to one another in that order, that I realized they're both sung by Jennifer Nettles. The sound on the two of them is just so completely different that the similiarities bypassed me until well after the fact. And now I can't bear to part them.
Calexico - Guns of Brixton
Things that surprised me: this apparently is a cover of a song originally done by the Clash. But as far as I know, the Clash's version neither is this melodic nor has that lovely Spanish line running through the background.
Trash
O'Death - Bugs
This song: not actually about bugs. O'Death's newest album startled me a great deal in that I could actually understand the lyrics, which is a new one for this band. Not that I don't love them when they're howling incoherently, of course, but it's a nice change.
Patty Larkin - Solo Flight
Just some good pistol-thievin' music from aforementioned spectacular guitarist.
Justin Townes Earle - The Good Life
Leave it to this folksy bastard -- yes, named after that Townes -- to write up a song about being defiantly joyful and a hobo at the same time.
The Eagles - Lyin Eyes
Oh, YoSafBridge, will you never mend your wicked ways?
The Message
Del Amitri - Driving With The Brakes On
So I'll put it out there, I don't like Simon/Kaylee, and that is mostly because I hate the He's Just Not That Into You relationship trope, where the girl's entire character note becomes all hearts and flowers and writing Mrs. [His Last Name] on her notebook, and the guy really has somewhere else he needs to be right now, no really, he's not just saying that, it's seriously important. So I like this song as a very awkward acknowledgment that, uh, this may not be the best thing for both of us right now.
Great Big Sea - General Taylor
Ha Ha Tonka - No Great Harm
Flogging Molly - What's Left Of The Flag
It is a testament to how much I love 'No Great Harm' that I'm willing to let it break up the two songs on either side of it. Three funeral songs that go from duty to grief to face-kicking definance in the face of both.
Heart of Gold
James McMurtry - Melinda
Counting Crows - Good Time
Patty Griffin - Let Him Fly
Out of Gas
Indigo Girls - Touch me Fall
Cry Cry Cry - Northern Cross
...This is how the original second disc ended, and man, why mess with perfection?
disc three: you don't want to see these guys without their masks on
Serenity
...This is barely different from the original, but I did swap out some songs I was lukewarm about for some songs I like much better. The overall tone is much less cowboy than the others, and much more electronic in its place, which I feel fits the tone of the movie. But the commentary is sparser because ... well, I said everything I had to say last time.
The Band - The Weight
I have heard covers aplenty of this song, but I have never found one I love as much as this original. Mal's sad, sad theme.
小宫瑞代 - Moegi
The Mountain Goats - The Autopsy Garland
A little haunting koto for River's freaky flashback and a little lo-fi paranoia for busting her out. Simon Tam: worst ninja? You make the call.
Steeleye Span - Boys of Bedlam
Sarah Jarosz - Shankill Butchers
More music for the Reavers, bless their crazy hearts. The second song's a Decemberists cover, and if you like the original you'll probably like this one too.
Chemical Brothers - Song To The Siren
I will tell the tale again: the first time I saw Serenity, it was in a pre-release showing and all the music wasn't in yet, and I could only dream of how awesome the ass-kicking music in the Fruity Oaty Barfight would be. ...And then it was lame, and I was sad. So this is what my mental jukebox plays instead.
Splashdown - Thunder
I love this woman's voice -- it's the right freaky sound for River.
Emmylou Harris - Snake Song
The Operative's theme, because I like him and Emmylou.
Cowboy Junkies - Common Disaster
More on the subject of Simon/Kaylee.
A Silver Mt. Zion - Sit In The Middle Of Three Galloping Dogs
It doesn't matter what I'm doing or how warm it is, hearing this song will make chills run down my spine.
Jubal's Kin - I Will Arise
For Shepherd Book, who still got totally shafted by the movie, which is sad, because I like him best. This is a little less grandiose than my original choice, but I like its sweet simplicity.
Tony Levin - We Stand in Sapphire Silence
Mediæval Bæbes - How Death Comes
Ashley MacIsaac - Wing-Stock
Dead planets, creepy ships, falling, crashing, and fighting -- all in a day's work!
The Builders and The Butchers - Lullaby
I had a problem when I started remaking these that I really wanted a Builders and the Butchers song on here, but their tone is a lot grimmer than anything else I was using for the first two discs. But lo and behold, this fits perfectly in the midst of all the ass-kicking and death.
Silly Wizard - Donald McGillavry
No one will convince me that this is not the best boss fight music ever.
Jonatha Brooke - No Net Below
River, getting a little better.
Jonah Matranga - Belong (V1.0)
What is the father of emo doing on a cowboy mix? Having a fantastic time! After all, Mal and Inara deserve only the best.
Emmylou Harris - Bang The Drum Slowly
And I shan't spoil for those who haven't seen, but brb crying my eyes out.
Mike Doughty - Grey Ghost
Since I made this first mix, Mike Doughty has put out a canned version of this song that does not have fake words for the bridge. There's no way I could have swapped it out for this ridiculous brilliance.
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Long As I Can See The Light
Still flying.
And we have .zip files: disc one, disc two, and disc three.
If you like it, support the artists! And if you really like it -- or if you just want to talk music, Firefly, or both -- leave a comment!
...Woo, that was a lot of work.
WHO LIKES MUSIC
WHO LIKES FIREFLY
THEN CLICK ON THAT CUT
I can hear you thinking: hasn't she done a Firefly mix before? Answer: Yes! But now I have retooled all three discs, and I think the final product is vastly superior to my original attempt. You can still get the originals, though; they're up here and here, and they've got much better-illustrated writeups. However, May was not kind to me, time-wise, so here is what is.
However, I was pleased with myself that I managed to work in a lot of smaller artists I've come to love over the past five years, so if you hear someone you like on these mixes, please go, track them down, listen to more of their things, buy their music, catch their shows, support the ones you love! BETTER YOURSELF THROUGH MUSIC
And of course watch some Firefly: you can find it on Netflix, hulu, and in the DVD collections of most people with good taste.
No cowboy quotient this time. Suck it up and live dangerously.
objects in space: a firefly fst
As always, username secret, password tunnel, and you're going to look very silly if you have to ask.
disc one: let this whole town hear your knuckles crack
Serenity
The Band - The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
The South Browncoats will rise again!
The Mountain Goats - Damn These Vampires
I put two songs on this mix from the Mountain Goats' latest album, but that's because that album is jaw-dropping incredible. I think series-era Mal would appreciate this sentiment.
The Train Job
Greg Brown - My Home In the Sky
Sweet and slow and old-school folk-y. Add it to the list of things you can't take from me.
Bruce Cockburn - Train in the Rain
Rarely do you get to hear a folk guitarist quite as incredible as he (unless, of course, it's Patty Larkin).
Bushwhacked
Riders in the Sky - Ghost Riders In The Sky
I will be the first to admit that the Reavers were better when we didn't know what they were. Classic rule of horror: no matter what the scariest thing is, the one thing that will always be scarier than that is what your own brain conjures up to fill in the blanks. Therefore, I feel bad not at all about this slightly goofy song.
Tom Waits - Earth Died Screaming
This one, however, is slightly more serious, what with Tom Waits' doing his monster voice and all. Sure, it doesn't make a lot of sense, but nonsense is scary.
馬頭琴 - 四季
So way back in the wayback, when I was making these mixes for the first time, I came across two tracks of 'Mongolian horse fiddle' music. I have no idea who the artist is -- that's not an artist name there so much as a description -- and if anyone could tell me, I'd be thrilled to purple.
Shindig
Patty Larkin - Pablo Neruda (feat. Suzanne Vega)
Patty Larkin put out an album of duet versions of her old songs to celebrate her 25th year in music, and this love song is one of the highlights. I love Wash and Zoe; they're not a perfect couple, but they're one with an absolute bare minimum of drama, and that resonates well with me.
Erin McKeown - How to Be a Lady
I first discovered this song, like, a week after I posted the original Firefly mixes, and I have held it in mind ever since then, waiting for the day I'd get around to doing an updated version of the mixes. Inara is the best lady ever, because she's beautiful and smart and will shank you so hard if you look at her crosswise.
George Winston - The Snowman's Music Box Dance
A pretty little piano piece, reminiscent of pretty Kaylee and her horrendous sugar-pink dress. But she wore it so well! And all that matters is she had a good time.
רונה קינן - Waltz
Slinky and bitchy, another Inara song, this one directed at Mal. Now that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do will-they-or-won't-they and make it interesting.
Safe
Austin Lounge Lizards - The Highway Cafe of the Damned
...This is the episode I like the least, and if you're familiar with the Austin Lounge Lizards, well, that's about the level of gravitas I'm willing to go with here. ...And if you're not familiar with the Austin Lounge Lizards, well, I can only be sad for you.
Dixie Chicks - Lil' Jack Slade
The Dixie Chicks have gotten a reputation for using their mouths (speaking and singing), but they're also fantastic instrumentalists, and this piece shows off their musicianship nicely.
Our Mrs. Reynolds
Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood
The Fox Confessor character here is apparently a trickster figure borrowed from Ukranian mythology, and I'm sure that, at some point, our dear Mrs. Reynolds has claimed either to be able to control the tides or to be Ukranian.
Adam Hooks & His Hangups - Excuses, Excuses
A bit of a divergence from the cowboy sound here -- this piece is a more rock than twang, if that's your thing, and Adam Hooks is (as peripheralsight correctly noted) sort of the American Matthew Good, if that means anything to you. A little ditty about running away from what you've done, and there's a lot of running away on this ship.
Jaynestown
Johnny Cash - A Boy Named Sue
I couldn't find a version that wasn't censored or live -- though I'll admit I didn't go looking too hard -- so here you get the Man in Black himself, doing a lovely live rendtion about just what the song says. I do find it funny, though, how easy it is to take 'Jayne' as a man's name and move on without thinking twice about it; I think it's adding the 'y' that helps disturb it just enough from what you expect.
Great Big Sea - The Chemical Worker's Song (Process Man)
Ani Difranco - Trickle Down
I like putting these two songs back-to-back for the mudders: the first one is hardy, and though it's definitely miserable, it's still strong enough to be defiant; the second is just ... hopeless, and the spooky reverb on Ani's guitar makes the whole song ring hollow.
Out of Gas
William Elliott Whitmore - Gravel Road
A little get-up-and-go song with a real twang to it, from an artist not exactly known for being cheerful. Still, a good ode to all the picking up and going with that gets done in this episode's flashbacks.
Nick Drake - All My Trials
You can just assume across the board that any musical reference to Jesus in this mix should belong to Book.
The Fairfield Four - Lonesome Valley
The Peptides - Major Tom
Two lonely acapella songs for poor, lonely, bleeding, freezing Mal. If I hadn't loved Malcolm Reynolds best of all before this episode, well, this would have cemented it. Yes, that's the 'Lonesome Valley' gravedigger song from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, which has possibly the best soundtrack of any movie ever. The second song's a Peter Schilling cover that kind of has to be heard to be believed.
Redbird - Hold On
And a Tom Waits cover to round it out. Not that I don't love Waits' original rendition of this, but, well, you can't beat the close, warm harmonies for bringing everyone home again.
disc two: carried my own weight long as I could
Ariel
Patty Larkin - River
A song about a misunderstood young woman named River. No, really.
馬頭琴 - 黒駿馬
This is the other Mongolian horse fiddle track, and this one's creepier and tenser than the first -- better music for breaking into a hospital with a pair of corpses.
Murder By Death - Raw Deal
As far as music goes, Murder By Death is a band so near and dear to my heart, and is the sole reason I know four of the smaller artists that appear on here: William Elliott Whitmore, O'Death, Ha Ha Tonka, and the Builders and the Butchers. As far as the song's placement here goes ... dammit, Jayne.
Nickel Creek - Cross the Bridge
Some nice little picking to keep everything flying.
War Stories
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son
Who doesn't love CCR? Bad people, that's who.
Sugarland - Just Might
Jennifer Nettles Band - Gravity
I feel the need to address these songs together, not because they have a lot to do with one another -- the first is a sweet Zoe-and-Wash song, the second is more River learning to shoot -- but because it was not until well after I had posted the original mix, with these songs right next to one another in that order, that I realized they're both sung by Jennifer Nettles. The sound on the two of them is just so completely different that the similiarities bypassed me until well after the fact. And now I can't bear to part them.
Calexico - Guns of Brixton
Things that surprised me: this apparently is a cover of a song originally done by the Clash. But as far as I know, the Clash's version neither is this melodic nor has that lovely Spanish line running through the background.
Trash
O'Death - Bugs
This song: not actually about bugs. O'Death's newest album startled me a great deal in that I could actually understand the lyrics, which is a new one for this band. Not that I don't love them when they're howling incoherently, of course, but it's a nice change.
Patty Larkin - Solo Flight
Just some good pistol-thievin' music from aforementioned spectacular guitarist.
Justin Townes Earle - The Good Life
Leave it to this folksy bastard -- yes, named after that Townes -- to write up a song about being defiantly joyful and a hobo at the same time.
The Eagles - Lyin Eyes
Oh, YoSafBridge, will you never mend your wicked ways?
The Message
Del Amitri - Driving With The Brakes On
So I'll put it out there, I don't like Simon/Kaylee, and that is mostly because I hate the He's Just Not That Into You relationship trope, where the girl's entire character note becomes all hearts and flowers and writing Mrs. [His Last Name] on her notebook, and the guy really has somewhere else he needs to be right now, no really, he's not just saying that, it's seriously important. So I like this song as a very awkward acknowledgment that, uh, this may not be the best thing for both of us right now.
Great Big Sea - General Taylor
Ha Ha Tonka - No Great Harm
Flogging Molly - What's Left Of The Flag
It is a testament to how much I love 'No Great Harm' that I'm willing to let it break up the two songs on either side of it. Three funeral songs that go from duty to grief to face-kicking definance in the face of both.
Heart of Gold
James McMurtry - Melinda
Counting Crows - Good Time
Patty Griffin - Let Him Fly
Out of Gas
Indigo Girls - Touch me Fall
Cry Cry Cry - Northern Cross
...This is how the original second disc ended, and man, why mess with perfection?
disc three: you don't want to see these guys without their masks on
Serenity
...This is barely different from the original, but I did swap out some songs I was lukewarm about for some songs I like much better. The overall tone is much less cowboy than the others, and much more electronic in its place, which I feel fits the tone of the movie. But the commentary is sparser because ... well, I said everything I had to say last time.
The Band - The Weight
I have heard covers aplenty of this song, but I have never found one I love as much as this original. Mal's sad, sad theme.
小宫瑞代 - Moegi
The Mountain Goats - The Autopsy Garland
A little haunting koto for River's freaky flashback and a little lo-fi paranoia for busting her out. Simon Tam: worst ninja? You make the call.
Steeleye Span - Boys of Bedlam
Sarah Jarosz - Shankill Butchers
More music for the Reavers, bless their crazy hearts. The second song's a Decemberists cover, and if you like the original you'll probably like this one too.
Chemical Brothers - Song To The Siren
I will tell the tale again: the first time I saw Serenity, it was in a pre-release showing and all the music wasn't in yet, and I could only dream of how awesome the ass-kicking music in the Fruity Oaty Barfight would be. ...And then it was lame, and I was sad. So this is what my mental jukebox plays instead.
Splashdown - Thunder
I love this woman's voice -- it's the right freaky sound for River.
Emmylou Harris - Snake Song
The Operative's theme, because I like him and Emmylou.
Cowboy Junkies - Common Disaster
More on the subject of Simon/Kaylee.
A Silver Mt. Zion - Sit In The Middle Of Three Galloping Dogs
It doesn't matter what I'm doing or how warm it is, hearing this song will make chills run down my spine.
Jubal's Kin - I Will Arise
For Shepherd Book, who still got totally shafted by the movie, which is sad, because I like him best. This is a little less grandiose than my original choice, but I like its sweet simplicity.
Tony Levin - We Stand in Sapphire Silence
Mediæval Bæbes - How Death Comes
Ashley MacIsaac - Wing-Stock
Dead planets, creepy ships, falling, crashing, and fighting -- all in a day's work!
The Builders and The Butchers - Lullaby
I had a problem when I started remaking these that I really wanted a Builders and the Butchers song on here, but their tone is a lot grimmer than anything else I was using for the first two discs. But lo and behold, this fits perfectly in the midst of all the ass-kicking and death.
Silly Wizard - Donald McGillavry
No one will convince me that this is not the best boss fight music ever.
Jonatha Brooke - No Net Below
River, getting a little better.
Jonah Matranga - Belong (V1.0)
What is the father of emo doing on a cowboy mix? Having a fantastic time! After all, Mal and Inara deserve only the best.
Emmylou Harris - Bang The Drum Slowly
And I shan't spoil for those who haven't seen, but brb crying my eyes out.
Mike Doughty - Grey Ghost
Since I made this first mix, Mike Doughty has put out a canned version of this song that does not have fake words for the bridge. There's no way I could have swapped it out for this ridiculous brilliance.
Creedence Clearwater Revival - Long As I Can See The Light
Still flying.
And we have .zip files: disc one, disc two, and disc three.
If you like it, support the artists! And if you really like it -- or if you just want to talk music, Firefly, or both -- leave a comment!
...Woo, that was a lot of work.