Luckily, for me, I have a new job that gives me the hours I need without leaving me tied for time or exhausted. It's really turning out to be as perfect as a job could be for someone who needs to work to pay rent but otherwise wants to do whatevertf they want. Any time now, I could start working, I just can't decide what to do. Even though I'm supposed to plan He's There, I've wanted to make new drawings for it! I already started one, which is turning out wonderful, and it's a nighttime cityscape (I guess you'd call it). Lily's in the foreground, watching from the park tower, and you can see the window of the theater among the brush in the distance. I think the scene is from chapter 23, before Mariam shows up.
I was finally inspired to make the picture in my head by the song Goodbye Forever by My Brightest Diamond. It has eeriness and fitting lyrics and I so want to use it, like officially - I'm committed to making a deal with My Brightest Diamond to use some of its songs if I get to make a movie. I haven't had much time to talk about it, but this band (or girl, I'm not sure if she's alone or part of a group) has beautiful music, and I have about five songs on my HT playlist which do it such justice. Sometimes I've even thought the songs were almost inadvertently created to accompany what I've written.
Goodbye Forever, for example, is about feeling compelled by someone, or influenced by them, but a bit unsure about themselves (as least, I interpret it), but it has the most specific sort of metaphors, like "your voice is a razor blade", and "I can feel you prickling like a thousand shark teeth". The razor blade comment reminded me of Lily realizing that she related her desire to stick with him, even when he made her angry or confused, to some form of emotional self injury because it reminded her that she's alive and can feel very intense things. The shark teeth comment reminded me of a recent chapter when she said she felt the thorns of Erik's roses in her fingers as she fidgeted while having a confrontation with Mariam. I'd written her to look on the dying roses in her closet and imagine the stripped thorns as a thousand shark teeth. It really really surprised me to hear it..!
Another thing about all the songs I've chosen for the playlist is that you absolutely must be patient with them and listen from start to finish. They aren't typical songs with structure and repetitive choruses - they are themselves very cinematic and sophisticated, put you into an interesting mood, and you have to pay attention to everything she says to catch the true poetry of it all. While my story could use some lessons in sophistication, I felt like its style is like the songs' style. It commands your attention if you wish to understand it and appreciate it, because its voice speaks softly. It's slow and builds. It tries to express both a feeling of experiencing beauty and being unsettled.
Anyway, since I'm struggling, I wanted to make use of my journal somehow, and I've long wanted to share the songs from the band with you guys, to see how you feel about them. If this band ended up being representative of the story, I just know it'd result in absolute perfection.
I'll speak a little about the songs below and link to them.
Golden Star
Golden Star was the first one I put on my list. I took the title of this song as a name among the Phantom community I joined, that's how much I enjoy it. (Although now some of my friends just call me Goldie.)
First of all, it just has simple but meaningful composition, leaving room to appreciate the lyrics and her soft but flexible voice. I love string instruments and they add something romantic to a song which otherwise does not give you sounds that suggest it's about a connection like that. The sound of the violins that begin the chorus always make me see Lily and Erik somewhere beautiful, but little places take the notes somewhere low and a little ominous sounding. Like, between the first chorus and second verse, a melody repeats, one octave lower, and I feel like it's the two of them reflecting on each other their thoughts, but Erik's don't sound quite so innocent.
I also enjoy the fact that she both claims she feels like a golden star and that the person to which she sings is one. She feels enchanted and lifted free by someone else, but also gratitude that they feel the same about her. Also slightly reminds me how Erik (in the musical) claims to be her Angel of Music but also calls her his angel of music, and continues to see her as his angel.
My favorite lines are practically all of it, but I guess I'm partial to the verses.
I always felt so far from you,
like something wasn't right,
but tonight,
I rest my head inside the crook of your arm
Though everything has come undone,
the distance between us
closes
I have this song at the top of my playlist box at http://www.freewebs.com/torturedfruit/HT8soundtrack.htm because it's the first thing I want people to hear when they visit.
Goodbye Forever
I already went over this a little, but I can elaborate further. This music would be great with or without any lyrics. It's something I can hear at various points in the background of He's There, particularly when she's first venturing to the theater with Mariam, feeling like she's been tricked, then the lights go out. It makes me picture the shadow-plagued areas along the way to her house, and school, and the theater. I actually almost picture the shadows in Serial Experiments Lain, which were stylized with red blotches in them, like blood.
The song also makes me picture her looking out her window into the yard. Whether or not he's there, she sometimes thinks she senses him around, or just worries what she says isn't so private.
One of my favorite parts of the song is the very end, where she repeats "come closer to me". I feel like she is broadcasting it out into the dark.
Goodbye Forever is also on my HT soundtrack page at the same link.
Inside a Boy
It sounds dirty, but I guarantee it's not. It's from the first lyric,
Inside a boy, I found a universe
The song, at this point, is strongly connected to Chapter 39 on the rooftop, and Chapter 43, coming up (at least, I think.) The song has given me shivers, before! I just love it. It works with this idea of Lily realizing she's infatuated and excited. The song is much more energetic than Golden Star, but still has the elegant strings throughout it. For me, it keeps making me visualize that grant image over Erik's shoulder when he's on the rooftop throwing notes off the edge. Then the first verse expresses that so simply,
We are clouds, we are whispers,
like fawns and shape-shifters
Our ages can never be found out,
Our edges keep moving further out
To me, it coincides with Erik, making her feel like she can be whatever she wants by setting the example. Making her realize she doesn't have to be confined to one small definition, and that that has kept her flame so small, almost ready to burn out. Then, of course, he spreads the notes and shares his thoughts to keep himself from burning out. I think he may have worded it a bit like how horcruxes work (XD), you know, that as long as they haven't all been destroyed, neither can he be destroyed.
What the song also does is relate back to other songs.
We are stars colliding,
we crash like lightning,
into love
After calling him and herself stars, and him, like a bolt of lightning, it just screams a very charged encounter, hormonal almost. XD The way it builds after that song just... For me it tells that story - feeling weird about someone and unstable to trust, and then something happens, and now they've build themselves up into super-personas because of the appreciation of the other... now they're driven by their excitement to be in that situation.
I also loved the whole part as she says
In his arms, I'm unwinding
Under his kiss, I'm falling in love
The first line reminds me of his spider-ly conduct, as she claims he'd wound her up so well. ;) The next line takes a while to sing and makes multiple shots come up in my head, like Lily walking out into very light snow to discover the roses, and a shot of her turning one in her hand. A shot of just their hands, touching fingers and comparing size while they were lying in bed, a verrrry slight turn around them, enough to see the pokes in his fingers. And also, when they shared the bench at 2AM in chapter 38, and she watched him drift a little. I can see the focus rising away from them to the sky and it being filled with stars.
It's kind of corny, but whatever. :) Corny stuff gets to us, doesn't it?
This song is also on my playlist, so refer to the link under Golden Star. ;D
To Pluto's Moon
This is the most recent one that I've gotten into, but I don't know why it took so long. It's just gorgeeeoussss. It provides such a wonderful background when I drive home in the dark - it instantly makes me imagine that purple sky in the story, and streetlights, and being alone in that. The song is about losing someone who had always been elusive. It also has a harp, which another HT song uses, and both instances remind me of growing rose stems, which I always wanted to use somehow in film to lead to the bloom of the purple rose in the logo.
The song has so many good lyrics, I might just list a lot. lol
This is a state of electrical shock
You were so beautiful,
I thought you'd last forever
But you came and you went
when the lights went out
You went like you came
in a lightning bolt
This part is lkajsd;lfkjasfd so good:
And like a ghost,
I'm spinning with you
in circles
The dance of pluto's moon
I think that part means to me that she is in space without pull. He is lost and now she is too.
Oh, it's so good. XD
I wasn't able to get this on my playlist because of some issue with playlist.com, but I uploaded it to another site which plays mp3s. It may be against the rules, but I have to share it, I just have to. http://audio.isg.si/audiox/?q=node/63917
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I have one more song that I don't wish to share until I write the last chapter. You're going to have to trust me that it's great. Sorry! :D
Those are it. I'd looooove comments about this. It's been on my mind for so long.
okay
pleased
hungry