City of Lost Souls Playlist

City of Lost Souls Playlist

 

Hem Of Your Garment: Cake

This is a great Sebastian song because it’s not just about being a bad person, it’s about being a bad person but knowing someone much better than you and really wanting to be like them. It’s about wanting to be good and not knowing how to be. About feeling unworthy and that just making you angrier than ever.

I have no love but only goals

How very empty is my soul

It is a soul that feels no thrill

A soul that could easily kill

And I’m not fit to touch 

The hem of your garment

Love Me Like the World is Ending: Ben Lee
A lovely love song, but one about mortality and finite-ness and endings. This was a Magnus and Alec song since mortality is much on their minds. “The sky is what makes the ocean blue” = mortality is what makes life worth experiencing. This is the last day of existence.
And all i want is you.
There’s a certain sadness.
But i know, i know, i know, the sky is what makes the ocean blue.

“From Some Dying Star” by Future Bible Heroes

A Sebastian song. More about how other people see him. There’s something about very beautiful people who are also very scary and this song gets at that.

Your hair is gold on gold
You’re seventeen years old
You make my blood run cold cause you’re not human.

Fresh Blood - The Eels

This was a fun song to listen to again when writing some of the creepier scenes in the books. The refrain about needing fresh blood was — well, there’s some vampire action in City of Lost Souls. Some of it is Simon, but some of it … isn’t.

The moon shines in the autumn sky

Growing cold, the leaves all die

I’m more alone than I’ve ever been

Help me out of the shape I’m in

After the fires, before the flood

My sweet baby, I need fresh blood

First Day of My Life

A Jace and Clary song. It reminded me of what Izzy tells Clary in City of Glass, that Jace basically was half-asleep before he met her, that she’s the first person he ever really “saw.’

Yours is the first face that I saw

I think I was blind before I met you

“Poison and Wine” by the Civil Wars

About Sebastian’s messed up feelings for his sister. You can interpret it … however you want! 

You only know what I want you to

I know everything you don’t want me to

Oh your mouth is poison, your mouth is wine

Oh you think your dreams are the same as mine

Oh I don’t love you but I always will

“Honey and the Moon” by Joseph Arthur

This one is also for Jace and Clary. They are once again in an impossible situation in this book; they love each other, but as Lilith said, some love can burn the world down. I feel like this song is also about what it’s okay to do for love, and whether love is a moral force or outside morals.

We’re made out of blood and rust

looking for someone to trust

without

a fight

But right now

everything you want is wrong,

and right now

all your dreams are waking up,

and right now

I wish that I could follow you

to the shores

of freedom

where no one lives

“White Blank Page” by Mumford and Sons

Who doesn’t love this song? The lyrics could work for Maia and Jordan, Magnus and Alec, Jace and Clary …what if love’s not enough?

Oh tell me now, where was my fault

In loving you with my whole heart?

Lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life

Oh, lead me to the truth and I will follow you with my whole life

“Fistful of Love” by Antony and the Johnsons

This is a creepy song. It’s not a love song, even if it is. A Jocelyn and Valentine song — I think after CoLS it will make sense that they get a song, even if Valentine’s dead.

And I feel your fists
And I know it’s out of love
And I feel the whip
And I know it’s out of love
And I feel your burning eyes burning holes
Straight through my heart
It’s out of love 

“Lead Me Into the Night” the Cardigans

Magnus and Alec. Mainly Magnus - there is something about the lyrics that makes me think of Magnus, who is pretty worn out and tired of life by the time he meets Alec, who wears his heart on his sleeve , and wakes Magnus up out of his disillusionment and boredom with the world. And lead me into the night Please drive away the light Cause I’ve been blinded by glitter and gold My eyes need to rest from this light And sleep well at night I traveled east and I traveled west And I found a boy with a heart on his chest

“Battle for the Sun” Placebo

We had a song about Sebastian’s messed up feelings for Clary. Here’s one about his messed up feelings about Jace.

I will battle for the sun

And I won’t stop until I’m done

You are a cheap and nasty fake

And I am the bones you couldn’t break

Dream brother, my killer, my lover

“Sweet Talk” The Killers

I usually have a song I listen to when I’m writing action scenes and this time, this was it. I also liked the thematic imagery about angels, grace, and the Fall.
Dig me out from this thorn tree

Help me bury my shame

Keep my eyes from the fire

They can’t handle the flame

Grace cut out from my brothers

When most of them fell

I carry it well.

“Falling Slowly” by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová

One for Jace. This is possibly Clary’s point of view on him, but it does - in kind of a bleak bunch of songs! - have for me the theme not just of love but also of the hopefulness of the fact that we always have choices about what we do.

Falling slowly, eyes that know me
And I can’t go back
Moods that take me and erase me
And I’m painted black
You have suffered enough
And warred with yourself
It’s time that you won

Take this sinking boat and point it home
We’ve still got time
Raise your hopeful voice you had a choice

“Our Way to Fall” Yo La Tengo

My Simon and Izzy song. It makes me think of how awkward Simon was when he met her, and how he’s grown into being someone who she could maybe love and maybe love her.

I remember a summer’s day

I remember walking up to you

I remember my face turned red

And I remember staring at my feet

I remember before we met

I remember sitting next to you

And I remember pretending I wasn’t looking

So we’ll try and try

Even if it lasts an hour

With all our might

We’ll try and make it ours

Cause we’re on our way

We’re on our way to fall in love

First Day of My Life by Bright Eyes

A Jace and Clary song. It reminded me of what Izzy tells Clary in City of Glass, that Jace basically was half-asleep before he met her, that she’s the first person he ever really “saw.’ Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you

And lastly:

“Opened Once” by Jeff Buckley  The majority of City of Lost Souls is Clary’s story, because the majority of the series has always been her story. So this song is for her (and a bit for Jace since he does see her as she is and love her for that), for her vulnerability in loving Jace, and for her feelings of confusion and being left behind and abandoned, and the courage she finally finds.

I once was open

And one with a travelling heart

I loved this sweet guy

Just like the fiction

Rushing in your riverbed

Arise like applause in my head

And in the half-light

Where we both stand

This is the half-light

See me as I am

Just like the ocean

Always in love with the moon

It’s overflowing now

Inside you

We fly right over

The minds of so many in pain

We are the smile of light that brings them rain

In the half light

Where we both stand

In the half light

You saw me as I am

I am a railroad track abandoned

With the sunset

Forgetting

I ever happened

That I ever happened.