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

[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.