Almost every time I write a long piece, a soundtrack of sorts emerges. It's not a set of songs that I listen to exclusively, or even necessarily the songs I listen to the most while working on the story. Rather, it's the songs that I keep coming back to when working with particular character dynamics, or that define specific moments or moods. Sometimes they line up with the songs from which I choose the story's epigraphs, but just as often they don't.

Anyway, for "Alive Through the Dawn" I decided to share. The songs are available in a file beside the story links, and the lyrics/credits are, well, right here. The songs are arranged in approximately the order of the moments in the story they reflect for me, although the lines are fuzzy.

I'm not going to make much attempt at explaining what the songs meant to me when I was writing and editing this piece, but here are a couple of things: first, "Ava Adore" came in during the editing process, for which I'm grateful. It worked as a focus for what I was doing, but I was just as glad to not be writing with it. And second, "Hey Jupiter" almost moves outside of the story; it functioned as a bridge between Rin's attempt to convince Shigure to give her information (manga vols. 9, 12, and 14) and my imagining of how that affected her.

Songs for Part One:
You Only Disappear (Tom McRae) | Running To Stand Still (Tori Amos covering U2 in concert) | Hey Jupiter (the Dakota mix--Tori Amos) | Galapogos (Smashing Pumpkins) | Carrying Cathy (Ben Folds)
Songs for Part Two:
Cloud On My Tongue (Tori Amos) | Ava Adore (Smashing Pumpkins) | Gravity (Vienna Teng) | Fall At Your Feet (James Blunt covering Crowded House) | Pretty Good Year (Tori Amos, solo in concert)

Download zip file - (10 MP3s, about 56 MB)


You Only Disappear

(Tom McRae, on the album "Just Like Blood")

Close my eyes I'm moving still
Magazines and dollar bills
And you wake up to a fall of snow
Your telephone your radio

Baby I'll call up a storm
Keep you safe from harm
But you only you only disappear
You only you only disappear

I can live with my regrets
Still raise a smile, still raise my head
And a stranger God can be so cruel
And a holy fool is still a fool

But this is all I can say
I have lost my way
But you only you only disappear
You only you only disappear

With a word with a line
With a smile that says goodbye
Baby says goodbye
Baby says goodbye

It's raining now
On Royal Street
And I'd walk to you
If I could trust my feet

Running To Stand Still

(Tori Amos covering U2 in concert [Brussels, June 12, 2005]. It's a longish version, but I really love this performance. The original song is on U2's "The Joshua Tree")

And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was
Lying still
Said I gotta do something
About where we're going

Step on a steam train
Step out of the driving rain, maybe
Run from the darkness in the night
Singing ha, ah la la la de day
Ah da da da de day
Ah la la de day

Sweet the sin
Bitter taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out

You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice

You know I took the poison
From the poison stream
Then I floated out of here
Singing...ha la la la de day
Ha la la la de day
Ha la la de day

She runs through the streets
With her eyes painted red
Under black belly of cloud in the rain
In through a doorway she brings me
White gold and pearls stolen from the sea
She is raging
She is raging
And the storm blows up in her eyes
She will...

Suffer the needle chill
She's running to stand...

Still

Hey Jupiter (the Dakota Mix)

(Tori Amos, on the album "Boys For Pele". This version comes from the "Hey Jupiter" single. Indented lyrics are only found in the original version; italicized lyrics are only in this mix.)

no one's picking up the phone
guess it's me and me
and this little masochist
she's ready to confess
all the things that I never thought
that she could feel

hey Jupiter
nothing's been the same
so are you gay
are you blue
thought we both could use a friend to run to
and I thought I wouldn't have to be
with you
something new

sometimes I breathe you in
and I know you know
and sometimes you take a swim
found your writing on my wall
if my heart's soaking wet
Boy your boots can leave a mess

hey Jupiter
nothing's been the same
so are you gay
are you blue
thought we both could use a friend to run to
and I thought you wouldn't have to keep
with me
hiding
thought I knew myself so well
all the dolls I had
took my leather off the shelf
your apocalypse was fab
for a girl who couldn't choose between
the shower or the bath

and I thought I wouldn't have to be
with you
a magazine
and he isn't you

no one's picking up the phone
guess it's clear he's gone
and this little masochist
is lifting up her dress
guess I thought I could never feel
the things I feel

hey Jupiter
nothing's been the same
so are you gay
are you blue
thought we both could use a friend to run to

and I thought you wouldn't have to keep
with me
hiding

I go from day to day
I know where the cupboards are
I know where the car is parked
I know he isn't you

hey Jupiter
nothing's been the same
so are you safe
now we're through
thought we both could use a friend to run to
hey Jupiter

Galapogos

(Smashing Pumpkins, on the album "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness")

ain't it funny how we pretend we're still a child
softly stolen under our blanket skies
and rescue me from me, and all that i believe
i won't deny the pain
i won't deny the change
and should i fall from grace here with you
will you leave me too?

carve out your heart for keeps in an old oak tree
and hold me for goodbyes-and-whispered lullabyes
and tell me i am still
the man i'm supposed to be
i won't deny the pain
i won't deny the change
and should i fall from grace here with you
will you leave me too?

too late to turn to turn back now, i'm running out of sound
and i am changing, changing
and if we died right now, this fool you love somehow
is here with you
i won't deny the pain
i won't deny the change
and should i fall from grace here with you
would you leave me too?

Carrying Cathy

(Ben Folds, on the album "Rockin' the Suburbs")

her window was hung like a painting
she worried it might come to life
she stared for hours
so obsessed was I
and self absorbed that
I didn't see that she was crying
there was always someone carrying,
there was always someone carrying,
always someone's carrying Cathy

saying to friends, "You don't understand,
and she's different when it's just me and her."
and I closed the door
and I tried to hang on
and she sank into the dark
I was over my head

there was always someone carrying,
there was always someone carrying,
always someone's carrying Cathy

we gave you everything
you could have been anything
we gave you everything
you could have done anything
but to imagine a fall
with no one at all to catch you
there'd always been someone...

then one night she climbed
into the picture frame
out into frozen air
and out of sight

woke up sad from this dream I've been having
the last couple nights or so
with her father, her brothers,
we're all at the funeral
carrying a box through the rain
and somebody says,
yeah, it's always been this way

always someone's carrying,
there was always someone carrying,
always someone's carrying Cathy

Cloud On My Tongue

(Tori Amos, on the album "Under the Pink". Live versions appear on the album "To Venus and Back" and the dvd "Welcome to Sunny Florida".)

Someone's knocking on my kitchen door
Leave the wood outside
What all the girls here are freezing cold
Leave me with your Borneo
I don't need much to keep me warm and

Don't stop now what you're doin'
What you're doin' my ugly one
Bring them all here
Hard to hide a
a hundred girls in your hair
It won't be fair
if I hate her
if I ate her
You can go now
You can go now

You're already in there
I'll be wearing your tattoo, yes
You're already in there

Got a cloud sleeping on my tongue
He goes then it goes and
kiss the violets as they're waking up
Leave me with your Borneo, I said
Leave me the way I was before, but

You're already in there
I'll be wearing your tattoo, yes
I'm already in

Circles and circles and circles again
The girl's in circles and circles and circles again
The girl's in circles and circles and circles again
The girl's in circles and circles and circles again, well

Someone's knocking on the kitchen door
Leave the wood outside
All the girls here are freezing cold
You can go now
You can go now
You can go now
You can go now

You're already in there
I'll be wearing your tattoo
You're already in there

Thought I was over the bridge now
I'm over the bridge now, yeah
I'm already in

Circles and circles and circles again
The girl's in circles and circles and
Got to stop spinning
Circles and circles and circles again
The girl's in circles and circles and circles again, well

Circles and circles and circles again
The girl's in circles and circles and
Got to stop spinning
Circles and circles and circles again
The girl's in circles and circles and circles again, well

Ava Adore

(Smashing Pumpkins, on the album "Adore")

It's you that I adore
You'll always be my whore
You'll be a mother to my child
And a child to my heart

We must never be apart
We must never be apart

Lovely girl, you're the beauty in my world
Without you, there aren't reasons left to find

And I'll pull your crooked teeth
You'll be perfect just like me
You'll be a lover in my bed
And a gun to my head

We must never be apart
We must never be apart

Lovely girl, you're the murder in my world
Dressing coffins for the souls I've left to die
Drinking mercury to the mystery
Of all that you should ever leave behind
In time

In you I see dirty
In you I count stars
In you I feel so pretty
In you I taste God
In you I feel so hungry
In you I crash cars

We must never be apart

Drinking mercury to the mystery
Of all that you should ever seek to find
Lovely girl, you're the murder in my world
Dressing coffins for the souls I've left behind
In time

We must never be apart

And you'll always be my whore
'Cause you're the one that I adore
And I'll pull your crooked teeth
You'll be perfect just like me

In you I feel so dirty
In you I crash cars
In you I feel so pretty
In you I taste God

We must never be apart

Gravity

(Vienna Teng, on the album "Waking Hour". This is the piano-only version from the first incarnation of the album.)

hey love
is that the name you're meant to have
for me to call
look love
they've given up believing
they've turned aside our stories of the gentle fall

but don't you believe them
don't you drink their poison too
these are the scars that words have carved
on me

hey love
that's the name we've long held back
from the core of truth

so don't turn away now
I am turning in revolution
these are the scars that silence carved
on me

this is the same place
no not the same place
this is the same place, love
no not the same place we've been before

hey love
I am a constant satellite
of your blazing sun
my love
I obey your law of gravity
this is the fate you've carved on me

Fall At Your Feet

(James Blunt covering Crowded House. This version is from James Blunt's "You're Beautiful" single. The original can be found on the Crowded House albums "Woodface" and "Recurring Dream: The Best of Crowded House".)

I'm really close tonight
And I'm feelin' like I'm moving inside her
Lying in the dark
And I think that I'm beginning to know her
Just let it go
'Cause I will be there when you call
And whenever I fall at your feet
And you let your tears rain down on me
Whenever I touch your slow turning pain

You're hiding from me now
And there's something in the way that you're talkin'
Your words don't sound right
And I hear them all moving inside you
Go
Yeah, I'll be waitin' when you call
And whenever I fall at your feet
And you let your tears rain down on me
Whenever I touch your slow turning pain

The finger of blame has turned upon itself
And I'm more than willing to offer myself
Do you want my presence or need my help
Who knows where that might lead
I fall

And whenever I fall at your feet
And you let your tears rain down on me
'Cause whenever I fall,
Yeah whenever I fall

Pretty Good Year

(Tori Amos. The original song can be found on the album "Under the Pink", and a live version is on the bonus dvd for "Tales of a Librarian". This is a bootleg recording of the April 1, 2005 performance, and features Tori performing solo with the Hammond organ as well as the Bosendorfer grand piano. The sound quality isn't great, but it's my favorite version.)

Tears on the sleeve of a man
Don't wanna be a boy today
Heard the eternal footman
bought himself a bike to race
and Greg he writes letters and burns his CDs
They say you were something in those formative years
Well, hold on to nothing
as fast as you can
Well, still
pretty good year
pretty good

Maybe a bright sandy beach
is gonna bring you back back back
Maybe not so now you're off
You're gonna see America
Well let me tell you something about America
Pretty good year
pretty good

Some things are melting now
Some things are melting now

Well hey, what's it gonna take till my baby's alright
What's it gonna take till my baby's alright

And Greg he writes letters with his birthday pen
Sometimes he's aware that they're drawing him in
Lucy was pretty, your best friend agreed
Well, still
pretty good year
pretty good
pretty good year