Once a Stranger

( 40 songs )

Anyway, hope you enjoy. Comments very much welcome ^_^

Two days ago my parents visited and dropped a new furniture (I don't know how to call it, it's mostly decorative with some cupboards too) for my flat and my dad dumped a couple of GOs of blues, jazz, and oldies rock on my harddrive; and then I was bullied into rearranging my book shelves to a result which I admit is a bit neater.

Fun fact now that I can see the books on my shelves better : seems like on most English books cover the title tilts left to right (that is to say the bottom is on the right); whereas on most French books the text is tilted right to left. Funny, no? There's a couple of exceptions, of course, but that's how the big majority goes. I wonder if there's some obscure cultural reasons...

Among the music from my dad, there were some Joan Baez (gorgeous stuff) and a song called Donna Donna, and when I listened to it, I totally cracked up. DAMN YOU ANIME FOR WASTING MY ENJOYMENT OF GOOD MUSIC! Already I can't listen to Carmen without snickering softly to the bemusement of anyone around thanks to Prince Tutu, and now Utena slays my enjoyment of folk XDD
ETA: Having looked up the history of the song on the wikipedia I find the song usage in Utena kinda creepy now O_o

Since I now know how to use yousendit (and megaupload because yousendit kept dying on me), and since I'm the utter dork that I am, I might as well do something utterly dorkish with it : which is share music adapted to my favourite fandoms yay !

Anyway, those are for Tokyo Babylon and X, and Seishirou and Subaru.

1.Monopolis, Michel Berger (Starmania)

The first song is from a French musical, something called Starmania which is gloriously camp and early 80's
The song to me is fitting to the ambiance of Tokyo Babylon. The theme of the all encompassing city and the modernity that rules everything. The superficial joyous tones always threatened by bittersweetness and melancholy. The questionning tone about any possible connection and future between two people in this setting. Hey ! the lyrics even announce the 1999 Appocalypse.

( lyrics )

2. Protection, Massive Attack

This is my Hokuto and Subaru song. It's probably sadder than such a song ought to be, but again it's got a very urban feel to it. The visual picture that accompagny it is the moment when Hokuto hugs catatonic!Subaru. Subaru keeps trying to save everyone as part of his job, but who saves Subaru ? Theres where Hokuto comes. "you're a boy and I'm a girl" becomes "you're a girl and I'm a boy" as part of the role trading. And there's always the third part of the triangle mentionned in the middle of them.

( lyrics )

3. Enjoy the Silence, Depeche Mode (sorry, I only got a live version of this)

Enjoy the Silence conludes Tokyo Babylon era. It's there to fit with the theme of communication, and its failure, and the Tower of Babel which fall brought upon the breaking into different speeches. It's there because Seishirou and Subaru is a romance which starts and ends with words that we don't hear and that are taken away by the wind. It's there for all the lies Seishirou told. In silence only the truth remained.
And it's still got that trippy 80's feeling to it ^_^

( lyrics )

4. Time is running out, Muse

We leave the 80's and enter X1999 with a first Muse song. This is from Annex to Nakano sunplaza, and all the years of pursuit in between them as Seishirou and Subaru keeps playing with each others. Asphyxia, binding, addiction and all the cute themes of their interactions are there. And tension is building as, indeed, their time is running out.

( lyrics )

5. Haemoglobine, Placebo

Things keep getting more gorey and bloody as 1999 follows its course. This is Subaru as the Hanged Man and Seishirou as Death. This is the twisting madness of the Sakurazukamori, and Subaru's obsession with his Wish as Fuuma rips his eye away.

( lyrics )

6. Black Dove (January), Tori Amos (that one also i have only in live version because my CD is at my appartment ;_;)

Hey, you knew I had to put a Tori Amos song there, don't you ? Anyway this is my Setsuka song, from the flashback at the end of volume 16. She's a January girl. She's as crazy as she is delicately beautiful. She's cruel in a fairy tale like way, with innocence and a twisted tenderness, and this heavy feeling of not right. She lived in a january world and she died there. Happily. She was a black dove, terrible and dangerous, and got away from her cage. Maybe to Texas ?

( lyrics )

7. Sing for absolution, Muse
Second Muse song. I like Muse a lot. Also, my musical culture is very small so I have a small pool of songs to pick from.
This is Rainbow bridge. Seishirou is dead, long live necrophiliac sex. Oh well. This is about never having been able to tell someone you loved them. This is about the world crumbling down around you and nothing anymore mattering at all. And Subaru is forever falling from this grace.

( lyrics )

8. Raining Blood, Tori Amos (Slayer Cover)

What you didn't think I'd use only one Tori Amos song ? See what i said above about narrow musical culture.
This is the song for when Subaru becomes Sakurazukamori. It's slow and heavy, full of a despair that encompasses everything. There's the necessity to live on while everything is lifeless. And the whole world is turning to red.

( lyrics )