I want to reach my hand into the dark and feel what reaches back

[sovay]

This is an odd one. I wanted to make a mix of demon lovers, so I wind up with a playlist that contains neither Sarah McLachlan nor Kate Bush—instead I've got Consonant, Jefferson Airplane, and My Favorite. Some of them are probably still too obvious. On the other hand, I had to filter out almost the complete works of PJ Harvey and Jill Tracy, who could furnish together a box set of love and other damnations. Really, I have a lot of demon lover songs. It's not intentional.


Christine Collister, "Midnight Feast"

Aren't you just ravenous for a midnight feast?
Old drooling moon is shining down on us at the end of the street
Damned if I do, my love, damned if I don't, my sweet
Dare I declare this morning love turned evening deep?

Mark Lanegan & PJ Harvey, "Come to Me"

Come to me
Light on my shoulder
Come to me
Burn your starry crown

Sam Phillips, "All Night"

You're all around, but I haven't found you
You're coming in, right through my skin

Morrissey, "Jack the Ripper"

And oh, you look so tired
But tonight you've presumed too much
Too much, too much
And if it's the last thing I ever do, I'm going to get you

Garbage, "#1 Crush"

You will believe in me
And I will never be ignored

Thea Gilmore, "Razor Valentine"

I love you like a murder, babe
I'm burying the bones

Concrete Blonde, "Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)"

Oh, you were a vampire and baby, I'm the walking dead

My Favorite, "Le Monster"

The halls were crawling with vampires, because after your shelf life expires
You're not a kid, you're a monster, monster, monster

The Dresden Dolls, "The Gardener"

The gardener's coming to collect
You wanted love, that's what you'll get

Siouxsie & The Banshees, "Green Fingers"

Where the sun won't fall, but it flourishes
See the pretty maids all in a row

Elysian Fields, "The Queen of the Meadow"

And I'm burning in her fiery fields
And I'm sleeping in her meadow
And I'm burning in her loving arms
The queen of the meadow

Bok, Muir & Trickett, "John Barleycorn"

As I was ploughing in my field
The hungriest furrow ever torn
Followed my plough and she did cry
Have you seen my mate John Barleycorn?

Jill Tracy, "Quintessentially Unreal"

And I know what it means to be a dreamer
And I know what it means to be alone
And I know exactly how I want it to feel

Pretty Balanced, "Permanent Guest"

I'm everything you wish that he could be
You never needed him—you needed me

Patricia Barber, "Persephone"

And as I leave you softly under the stars
Without a scratch, without a scar
Like hell on earth slipping under your skin

Kate Rusby, "I Am Stretched On Your Grave"

When my family think that I'm safely in my bed
From morn until night I am stretched out at your head
Calling out into the earth with tears hot and wild
For the lost soul of the girl that I loved as a child

Michael Smith, "Demon Lover"

The neighbors say that as they pulled away in his Chevrolet
His face began to change
And in the middle of that bright suburban morning
They disappeared in flames

Jefferson Airplane, "Comin' Back to Me"

Small things like reasons are put in a jar
Whatever happened to wishes wished on a star?
Was it just something that I made up for fun?

Consonant, "3 a.m."

I'm alone now in this room that smells of crime scenes
Too ridiculous to care it's 3 a.m.
All the things that we've forgotten scream for help in our dreams
I read that somewhere once and now it's true

PJ Harvey, "The Dancer"

'Cause I've prayed days, I've prayed nights
For the Lord just to send me down some sign
I've looked long, I've looked far
To bring peace to my black and empty heart

And a postscript. I couldn't find a place for this one anywhere in the playlist as it stands, but it has been dear to me ever since strange_selkie included it on a college mix CD, therefore I present to you:

Poe, "A Rose Is a Rose Is a Rose"

Before her Joyce will babble and Pound has gone insane
And Eliot is paralyzed by thoughts of April rain
When she refused Lenin, he vowed to start a war
Stravinsky beat the rite of spring right there on the floor
And a rose . . . a rose is a rose


I'm going to bed. All bets are off on what I dream of.

Comments

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Thief'd. A lot. I'm at work and cut off from music on a computer, but I've got some things you might like to sample on the theme, since these songs are all going into a Blue Vervain playlist. I'll put them at my place tonight. Demon Lover Playlist Meme?

Android Lust "Another Void"
Can I compromise this lustful act of seduction
Admit to my crime, through my inaction

TV on the Radio "The Blues from Down Here"
From the depths I call you
And I'll be waiting patiently
Stuck here at the bottom of this well
It's not the last you've heard from me

Two Ton Boa "Serenade for the Crow that Fell"
Smoking fingers in your burning hair
for the exorcisms of a dirty girl...

Autumn's Grey Solace "The Unshakable Demon"
Take me on, heart of stone
Take me on in a mystic war

The Creatures (though you already have Siouxsie)"Don't Go to Sleep Without Me"
When I lie on my side
Feel my heart being crushed

Grendel "Dream"
In this dream, I found myself making love to a strange man. Only I'm having trouble you see; he's old and dying.

Andi Camp/We're from Japan "I'm on Fire" (Springsteen cover)
I got a bad desire...

Hungry Lucy "The High Price of Mistakes" (a.k.a. The Comet Lake Song)
Hold it all inside they said
don't you speak of this disgrace

Radiohead "Reckoner" or "We Suck Young Blood"
You are not to blame for
bittersweet destraction
dare not speak its name
dedicated to all you need
~|~
Are you sweet? Are you fresh?
Are you strung up by the wrists?

Gogol Bordello "Sex Spider"
...all the beautiful and homely
No one will slip away.

Unto Ashes "Spider Song"
Let you hang enraptured upside down
where you can't see
so that you will finally know
what it feels like to be me.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

Another of the songs that didn't fit into this mix (because it was opinionated and difficult . . .)

Mm. That song goes in a related playlist, though I'm not sure yet what the theme will be. It will also contain a different Hungry Lucy song (Telltale Shot), and perhaps "Machine Gun" by Portishead.

I did notice that "Wuthering Heights" wasn't there, but that's more a general gothic romance... maybe it would fit with the other three songs above. It's a decision with which I agree.

I wanted this one on the classical mix, but I wasn't sure I could convince anyone else that it was an angry reverse Orpheus-and-Eurydike. It works just as well as a Fury.

ooh.

On second thought, "Sex Spider" is a little too light for this mix. Once it goes into 30+ song territory, then it's legitimate, but if you're going standard 14-20 range, no.

I don't think I had an original copy of "Love Cats" anymore (except on cassette), I do have a cover by Pilori which is interesting and strange, and a cover by Tricky which is pretty much sex on electronic media.

My first Cure song was from that album as well - "Head on the Door" and I discovered T.S. Eliot and Edward Gorey through the same book.

So I leave with another song I negelected to mention: "Unsaid Warning" by t.h.c. / George Sarah:

And now you say there's a devil flying through your head and it looks like me;
when you took my hand, you ripped my heart, bound my life and bled my dream.
So, sure I'll be the devil flying through your head.

[sovay]

Your comment seems mysteriously to have turned up in response to a deleted post, when I can see quite well for myself that it's right down there at the bottom of the screen. Evidently Livejournal does not love the demon lovers.

ooh.

Feel free to steal.

I do have a cover by Pilori which is interesting and strange, and a cover by Tricky which is pretty much sex on electronic media.

You had better post those now . . .

"Unsaid Warning" by t.h.c. / George Sarah

Will definitely, definitely want.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

I've finally reconstituted the mix and listened. Good stuff. Definitely more than the sum of its bifurcated and horned parts.

[stsisyphus.livejournal.com]

...a cover by Tricky which is pretty much sex on electronic media.

Probably one of the few highlights on that album. And almost worth the price of admission...if only just missing it. It made me realize that the song didn't just have to be cutesy.

[sovay]

Demon Lover Playlist Meme?

Contagious! Very appropriate.

Android Lust "Another Void"

Another of the songs that didn't fit into this mix (because it was opinionated and difficult . . .) was Android Lust's "Stained":

I know what I want
I want to stop seeing red
I know what I want
I just want to see you dead

I figured if that wasn't demonic . . . But you'll note "Wuthering Heights" isn't on this playlist either; go figure.

TV on the Radio "The Blues from Down Here"

I'll see your blues and raise you grunge: Hole, "Use Once and Destroy."

I went down to rescue you
I went all the way down
I went down for the remains
Sort through all your blurs and stains

(I wanted this one on the classical mix, but I wasn't sure I could convince anyone else that it was an angry reverse Orpheus-and-Eurydike. It works just as well as a Fury.)

Two Ton Boa "Serenade for the Crow that Fell"

Also want. She sounds like a match for Placebo's "This Picture":

I hold an image of the ashtray girl
As the cigarette burns on my chest
I wrote a poem that described her world
And put our friendship to the test
And late at night while I was on all fours
She used to watch me kiss the floor
What's wrong with this picture?

Hungry Lucy "The High Price of Mistakes" (a.k.a. The Comet Lake Song)

Prrrr.

(That is all.)

Gogol Bordello "Sex Spider"

Another I couldn't find a home for . . . How do you feel about The Cure's "The Lovecats"?

We slip through the streets while everyone sleeps
Getting bigger and sleeker and wider and brighter
We fight and scratch and scream all night
Let's go and throw all the songs we know

The first Cure song I ever heard. I have since come to understand that this was like discovering T.S. Eliot and Edward Gorey through Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, which I also did.

Unto Ashes "Spider Song"

(a) Want.

(b) If you have not already read Caitlín R. Kiernan's Silk (1998) and Murder of Angels (2004), do so posthaste.

This is going to be a terrific meme.