Welcome to a brand new column at Multiversity! We’ve been wanting to do something musical on the site now and failing for a while. Despite music being a strong influence and motivator for people, somehow there doesn’t seem to be too much crossover in terms of content that you find online to connect comics to music. The line is already there in the most easy to define and palpable fashion, but it’s not something anyone is really doing anything with — and despite our best efforts, we’ve struggled ourselves to find a music-based column that we thought would be interesting to put together.
Until now.
So I present to you: DJMC! Over the coming weeks we’ll be debuting several mixtapes/playlists curated by both Multiversity staff like myself and Brian Salvatore, but also a few special guests doing special treats for special you. Each mix will be different — some, like today’s, will feature songs about characters; others about books entirely; others about who knows what! It’s all very exciting and should hopefully open up a brand new and exciting world of music for some (if not all) of you.
And, fair warning: we also all may have terrible taste in music! So please feel free to hop in in the comment section to offer up your choice tracks for whatever it is we’re doing that week. No sense in not playing along, right?
So without further ado, I present the first mixtape of the column curated by myself:
Today’s mix is about my favorite series “Morning Glories”, which felt like the most natural book to kick this column off with. Each track on the mix focuses on one individual character of the series, both in terms of what I think they’d listen to and what I think accurately describes them for a variety of reasons. And to kick it all off, we of course start with the leader of the band,
Casey – “I’m Not Your Hero” by Tegan and Sara
Casey is our de facto leader of the Glories, but as anyone who has read either the series or my annotation column will know, her role as heroine is not so clear cut. It’s not that she’s not heroic, mind you; just that you get the idea that she is fairly reluctant in the role, perhaps even a touch too self-serving on occasion (her big motivation is, after all, relatively selfish right now). At the very least she seems not so willing to embody the stereotypical definition of “heroine,” which is a big part of her character.
That’s why to start off we’re going with Tegan and Sara’s “I’m Not Your Hero.” It’s a song whose lyrics ostensibly fit the reluctant heroism that defines Casey’s actions and her views towards her role with the other Glories after the events of the first arc — “Sometimes it feels like they wanna remind me/Send all those villains after me/I’m not their hero/But that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t brave.” The lyrics fit with Casey’s actions, and you can imagine that Casey herself might listen to this kind of music if she was still in regular high school.
It’s also good as the start of the mix, offering up a glimpse of pop but not one that is too abrasive or outgoing, relatively relaxed to allow an upward crescendo into
Zoe – “I Love It” by Icona Pop
What do you think when you think of the deceased but never forgotten Zoe? Someone fun, someone exciting, but also someone relatively crazy and unpredictable, perhaps even psychotic. Zoe is a killer of men in more ways than one, and when she’s not breaking hearts metaphorically she’s stabbing them literally. She’s the group’s diva and she’s pretty lovable in her insanity.
Continued belowSo for Zoe we get the loud dance anthem “I Love It” by Icona Pop, a song as exciting, fun and insane as Zoe is. It’s a perfect song for her: she could cheer to it, she could date a million boys to it, she could kill her best friend to it. Zoe’s mental stability is often in question within the series, whether it’s supernatural or not, but given Zoe’s history as a preppy girl and one that you could see losing herself to dance more than the other members of the Glories, “I Love It” is her song.
Just tell me you can’t imagine Zoe crashing a car into the bridge and letting it burn because she doesn’t care, she loves it. I don’t know if I’d call her a 90’s bitch, but the song still feels pretty perfect Zoe.
The B-Side for Zoe, by the way, was “Firework” by Katy Perry. You can probably deduce why (hint: the contrast of a thoughtful and emotional interior hidden under the guise of a more shallow exterior), but ultimately it felt that a more surface value approach was appropriate here given a choice track later on. (And, as a humorous side note, the general feel and crazy lyrics of “I Love It” probably could also fit to Pamela, if she was to get a song on this mix. Which she isn’t. That’d be crazy.)
And with this climax of pop early on, we pull back just a bit in order to segue into
Hunter – “Ambling Alp” by Yeasayer
Yes, I know what you’re thinking, readers of “Morning Glories” — cop out. Hunter danced down the halls of Morning Glory Academy singing this song in issue #8, making this pick about as original as knock-off butter.
But, why reinvent the wheel? The song works for Hunter — “You’ve got to stick up for yourself, boy.” It’s his anthem, his spirit song; he’s the boxer going up for the fight of his life in more ways than one, and given his otherwise meek demeanor he needs to rise above and meet the challenges life gives him. I didn’t have to do much work here, and it’s pretty clear why.
While “Ambling Alp” isn’t as exciting or dance-y as our previous pop track, it does allow for a smooth cool down segue into our next track, which is
Hisao (formerly Jun) – “Dirty Harry” by Gorillaz
Hisao was tough at first to find a song for. He’s somewhat the group’s “muscle” so you’d think you want a song to match that tone, but he actually has one of the more complex backgrounds than the rest of the cast. He’s a character who saw his mother die, lost his brother and was inducted into a mysterious camp where children are trained for war. That’s why “Dirty Harry” felt right, which is a song at surface value about giving kids guns — something that is obviously reflective towards Hisao’s past in Abraham’s army.
There’s one set of lyrics that I think work particularly well for Hisao, though, given what we later learn about his twin and his history in a military camp for children: “I’m a peace-loving decoy, ready for retaliation/I change the whole occasion to a pine box six-under/Impulsive, don’t ask wild wonder/Orders given to me is ‘Strike’ and I’m thunder.” Works, right? I can not, however, confirm or deny that all Hisao wants to do is dance.
In terms of the cohesion of the album, Gorillaz offers a smooth segue from our pop cool down, having kicked off early with the attention grabbing opener and now getting into the darker songs with the darker characters. The song itself, which has a more rousing middle and caps off in a lighter, jazzier and more minor place allows us to really hit the breaks in order to play
Continued belowJade – “Still” by Volcano Choir
You may be familiar with this song from the Blood Bank EP by Bon Iver or Kanye West’s “Lost in the World,” but this version of Justin Vernon’s a capella track is my favorite. No matter which iteration of the song you listen to, though, you’re treated with some beautiful harmonized vocals and a song good for losing yourself to your more quiet and personal thoughts – which is what I think of when I think of Jade.
The music and lyrics seem very fitting of Jade. Sonically, the song is quiet, mysterious and thoughtful, all things that reflect Jade’s status as the group’s emo outsider and resident dark poetry writer; you can imagine Jade up late at night with Volcano Choir spinning on vinyl as she sits by candle light and contemplates existence. Even the scratches on the strings and light background instrumentation seem to fit well with her mental time travel abilities from a purely audio standpoint.
The lyrics themselves fit with her as well: “I’m up in the woods/I’m down on my mind/I’m building a still/To slow down the time.” Both metaphorically to her personality and literally the words fit to Jade and her time travel, making “Still” the perfect song for Jade over “Woods” or “Lost in the World.”
I also don’t think Jade would listen to Kanye, honestly, for the record.
Ike – “Exile Vilify” by the National
This is hands down my favorite pick on the mix tape, in terms of why I picked it and the song itself. There are some songs on this mix that came natural, but this was the first song picked where I felt like I nailed it on the first try.
Despite being about another certain misunderstood villain, “Exile Vilify” fits very well into our mix here to tell the story of Ike. He’s a character we identified right away as a bad boy, someone who is keen to sell out the other characters for his own personal gain, but as we spend more time with him we begin to learn what it is that makes him tick, what causes him to behave in the way that he does. The lyrics seem to be almost specifically about him and his life: “You’ve got sucker’s luck/Have you given up?/Does it feel like a trial? … Vilify/Don’t even try.”
You’d imagine that Ike would have something a bit more facetious as his anthem, something similar to Zoe who is just as fleshed out in terms of her character arc and why she acts how she does, but Ike more than Zoe is a character that seems to actually reflect on his past as much as he may try not to. He’s certainly hiding behind a mask, but it’s clear to see the edges of the mask and where the flesh begins. Plus, it’s hard not to look at Ike — the poor boy who just wanted his father’s love more than anything — and not sympathize with his behavior via a form of dramatic irony. And that title, “Exile Vilify.” It’s just so Ike.
It’s also a nice step up from the melancholy rhythm of the last track. Despite being laced in a minor key, the song features a dark sense of optimism which matches that similar quality of Ike’s identity (he’s our sociopathic asshole). And when those string instruments swell? It’s like you’re watching Ike get excited about being on Coney Island only to have father disappear. Poor kid.
It’s then perfect that from Ike/The National we transition into
Continued belowAbraham – “Raw Deal” by Murder by Death
First of all, it stands worth noting that Murder by Death is the perfect follow-up to the National, especially with a song like “Exile Vilify.” The two bands just flow together; it was too good not to do.
The music itself is rather perfect for the dark and mysterious potential hero-and/or-villain, Abraham. Beginning with a quiet sense of regret (assumedly while Abraham sits in the basement of the school in chains) the song itself hits a violent minor key somewhere in the middle carrying through to the end, offering up a story of misdeeds and failed actions, no matter how good the intent initially was. Plus, look at the lyrics: “Now the time has come/To make amends/To everyone/To pay the price/For all that we could’ve done/But we wasted everything now/Now we’re done… And for the selfishness I displayed/There is a punishment that I’ve found.” This is pure Abraham and everything we’ve come to think we know about him, a Father figure with a lifetime full of regret and poor decisions towards all of his children.
To combine all of this together and offer it up in immediate parallel to Ike’s song seems like the perfect way to keep this mix flowing on pace. Of course, the next track allows us to kick it up a notch just a touch with
Daramount – “Cold War” by Janelle Monae
You’re probably a bit skeptical here, right? This doesn’t seem like the kind of track you’d expect for Daramount at all. Allow me to convince you.
The lyrics here seem to fit well with Daramount as a character. We assume she’s the villain because she tortures and pushes our kids in seemingly harmful ways, but at the same time she has passion for her work and for the children she is teaching, assumedly for their benefit: “This is a cold war/Do you know what you’re fighting for?”
I like the way the song begins here too. The last track had its moment to take us from a slower mix into a louder one, so the opening of this track inherently alerts you that we’re going to pick the pace back up again. It’s a little bit of a trick that’s being played on the listeners ears, because you get used to the slow pace only to get another dance track.
Plus, the song is big and powerful, which is Daramount to a T. And while I can’t imagine Daramount dancing too much, I still feel the song works. And it especially works when you take it in contrast with its immediate polar opposite in
Hodge – “You Stole” by Brand New
The first thing you should notice is how much different this track is musically from the last. “Cold War” is an upbeat pop song, but “You Stole” is a dark and foreboding track, one that just feels opposite in tonality to the last track. This, to me, offers up the biggest nod to the contrast between the sisters: Daramount, for all her “evil”, seems to be doing what she can to help the students, showing obvious and passionate care towards their well being. However, on the other hand you have Hodge, whose intent and morality I believe is fully questionable; in fact, I put her pretty much square in the side of the “bad guys,” as much as you can have good guys and bad guys in any fashion in this book.
Plus, when we look at how Hodge seemingly views her sister’s role at the Academy, lightly antagonistic, perhaps even a touch jealous over who their father loves more but still tied together no matter what, the rather dark lyrics of the song line up: “Well I wish that I was as good as you/Caring and trusting… From the cradles they were rocked in/You took the first words that they spoke… So if I’m a liar and you’re a thief/At least we both know where the other one sleeps.”
Continued belowMy interpretation of Hodge could be wrong, of course. Maybe Daramount is really the sinister one and Hodge is the angel. But from what I’ve read 28 issues into the book now I’d say that’s not the case, and this balance of light and dark musically is an interesting way to represent their relationship on this mix. Despite appearances, Daramount is the light and Hodge is the dark.
Of course the minor key of “You Stole” leads directly to the final “real” track on the mix with
Irina – “Never Forgive, Never Forget” by the Dear Hunter
Of course Irina gets a track. Of course it’s called “Never Forgive, Never Forget.” Of course it’s heavy and violent and offers up all kinds of vengeful imagery.
The song is basically Irina’s anthem and her ode to Abraham/the Headmaster/the Devil that is lying to her: “Man, you’ve got a cold dark heart/and it burns with a guilty smoke/You tell me ‘just give in’/and ‘you’ve got nothing to lose’/and I guess I would never know/But I was damned from the very start/and bound by crooked plan/then I was left for dead with my head to the ground/and my hands behind my back.” It’s hard not to listen to this track and think of how it doesn’t fit with Irina, really — it’s practically a militaristic march dedicated to her vendetta.
Irina, by the way, is the only Truant to get a song as she’s the only one that I think we have any true handle or understanding of. We’ve yet to spend too much time with other Truants enough to really judge them as characters, but we’ve been inside Irina’s manipulative mind. And when she was kicked out of the Headmaster’s greenhouse, what was on her mind? Never forgiving, never forgetting.
But enough with all this dark. Lets lighten things up with
The Headmaster – “The Headmaster Ritual” by the Smiths
Yes, ok, this is just a bit of a joke: “I wanna go home/I don’t wanna stay/Give up education/As a bad mistake.” I couldn’t help myself.
Bonus Track – “Stare at the Sun” by Thrice
A song about the difficulty of finding answers to questions and the never ending search that encompasses the quest for truth? Yeah, that sounds about right for this book.
I had so badly wanted to use this for a student but couldn’t find one that I liked it fitting to. It was a Casey track at one point, but at the same time it’s not a great opening song nor does it really feel like a Casey song (lyrically, sure). So “Stare at the Sun” gets included on the mix to top it off and shut it down, a song dedicated to the fanbase who is struggling to make sense of the labyrinth that is “Morning Glories.”
That’s it for this edition of DJMC. If you like what you hear or don’t, chime in in the comment section to let us know what you think of the mix and/or the column. You can also stream the whole thing right here:
