Silliness with Muse Music

[mayamaia]

Okay, taking all the Muse songs in my current playlist (and before anyone comments on how many there are, there are 132 songs in said playlist, so pthbbt) and assigning them to be themes for fiction. I will also note that Muse has been called the Space Opera of prog rock so if there's a lot of Doctor Who in there, I am unapologetic.

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Blackout - Susan. Actually, not just from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. Huh. Other Susans work for this too.
Butterflies and Hurricanes - this will always be the Second Doctor to me. War Games, specifically.
Citizen Erased - Trial of a Timelord! or maybe Homeward Bounders.
City of Delusion - Dark City
Exogenesis Symphony: Overture -This one's difficult.... Bladerunner?
Exogenesis Symphony: Cross-Pollination - climax of The Big Bang cause that's exactly what he used the Pandorica for
Exogenesis Symphony: Redemption - Dragonsdawn ...or All the Weyrs of Pern works too.
Falling Away With You - Rory and Amy in series 5
Glorious - Jeff and me Theo and Julian in Children of Men, or Hiro and Juanita in Snow Crash
Guiding Light - Ten after Rose. It is OH SO Ten after Rose.
Hysteria - The demons in Sandman, and maybe Lucifer at times
Map of Your Head - Marvin! From Hitchhiker's Guide! for the lyrics anyway, the tune is too happy.
Piano Thing - Hexwood (the slight dissonance and odd timing with the alternating confidence and quietness)
Ruled by Secrecy - Fire and Hemlock
Soldier's Poem - All I can think of is Ultimate Captain America beating up Giant Man. I'm sure there's something better.
Space Dementia - The Master's most recent incarnation
Starlight - Ninth Doctor, Tenth Doctor with Rose (nice bit of irony in that) I would also note that the Doctor does a lot of hugging these days.
Take a Bow - Good Omens hands down, specifically Crowley and Aziraphale entering the base with wings out. Only song I know with "you will burn in hell for your sins" sung so cheerfully. When they finally make a movie of this, I will be so disappointed because the version in my head just keeps getting better.

Well, that was fun and took ages to finish. Also, I shall note that the Exogenesis Symphony as a whole probably fits the Foundation series or Ender's Game or Titan AE or, you know, some other thing involving exogenesis. Not Seeds of Doom though, that's just silly.

Comments

[animate-mush.livejournal.com]

Somehow, given the setup, I thought there'd me more of them :P

This is pretty awesome. I'm sorry I don't have much to say, not having heard really any of these songs (or even seen many of the things you're pairing them up with).

Apart, of course, from Butterflies and Hurricaines. And even in that case there's not much to say except VERY YES.

I don't have nearly such strong associations with most of my music. And often they change. *shrug*

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

I felt a need to make disclaimers before I started writing. Once it turned out disclaimers weren't terribly necessary, I still felt no need to edit it. (I once had a discussion with Jeff about the morality of editing a stream of consciousness which, though I still don't think a journal needs to be a stream of consciousness, tends to limit my journal editing to the bare essentials.)

I would recommend a lot of these songs, of course. And I kind of want your take on Citizen Erased (especially the lyrics) to see if you agree with my assessment. And Map of Your Head is really rather funny when you imagine that someone took one of Marvin's complaints and put it to a rather cheery tune.

I should dig up a few of the other really good music videos and show those to you too, but that one remains close to the top of the list. I've been sort of half meaning to attempt to make one myself (for Keane's Atlantic and The Doctor's Wife) in iMovie, but I haven't been taking the time to spend a day at the SCU library and do so....

Most of these aren't terribly strong associations. This was a very conscious project to MAKE those associations. Of course a few of them just clicked once I tried. Falling Away With You just so naturally fit Rory and Amy in series 5, and I had never thought of it that way before.

[animate-mush.livejournal.com]

That makes good sense.

I will look up Citizen Erased. I was surprised you paired it with something you have not seen - it leaves me intrigued.

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

I paired it with something I've heard a lot about. And primarily due to the lyrics, so that should be an easy lookup.

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

Well, I paired the lyrics to something I've heard a lot about, so I have some chance of being right about this.

[animate-mush.livejournal.com]

Okay, it has been up-ge-looked!

Hmmm.

I think my first reaction is I just don't like Muse very much :/ I have the same problem with them that I have with Radio Head - the music is very drone-y and the singing style sort of slides around on top of it and you can't understand anything they say. This is an aesthetic thing on my part: my tastes simply run in a very different direction.

I'm seeing why you're associating this with the Trial. I think some of it works and some of it doesn't. The line that works the best is about "scraping my mind" and such. That first verse in particular. (The last verse in particular is what just doesn't work). It's also a little more...plaintive in tone. But yeah - definitely seeing the connection there.

Awesome!

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the tune isn't a great match. But the lyrics seem pretty decent.

Imagine the last verse sung by the Valeyard.

[animate-mush.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was thinking that my problem was I couldn't find a good fit for the "you" once I assigned the "I" to the Doctor. Because I was trying too hard to fit it to the Inquisitor. And then it occurred to me (even before I read this) that maybe I should think about it in terms of the Valeyard. So I'm going to go back and do that.

Again, I think it's just a matter of personal taste. Butterflies & Hurricanes grew on me to the point where I could like it because the video was so perfect, but as a whole it's not really my style. Although I was fortunate to find a youtube video with a transcription of the lyrics (and a translation into French, which was wrong at at least one point - not surprisingly involving Particle Verbs. "Wash me away" was translated as Purifie-moi - nope!)

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

Actually, I hate the main singer's style myself. But I really love the lyrics and orchestration, and that counts for basically everything in my book. It means that all we need is a good cover version.

There's a string quartet called The String Quartet who did a whole Muse tribute album. I love basically all of it.

[animate-mush.livejournal.com]

ooOOOOooh - that does sound like fun.

Hmmm, on a second listen, yes, the whole song does sort of work for the Valeyard, although it ends up giving the whole thing more of an "I hate you because I'm the villain and I don't want to be the villain" sort of vibe than I think the actual episode warrants. But we really don't get to see inside his head much, which is a shame, because I suspect his pile of crazy would be fascinating.

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

Oh, btw, not all of these things I paired it with are things to see. Several are books. If you haven't read Good Omens, Fire and Hemlock or Hexwood, I strongly recommend them. I also recommend Snow Crash. Also the two Anne McCaffrey books I mentioned, but they kind of need the rest of her Dragonriders of Pern series to be fully appreciated.

[animate-mush.livejournal.com]

I have read Good Omens, and found it incredible. So I understood what you were saying there.

But yeah, I didn't know what Fire and Hemlock or Hexwood even were.

I did the Pern thing back in the proverbial day. Master Robinton was overwhelmingly my favorite character...

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

Okay. Well then. Fire and Hemlock is an excellent take on Tam Lin. Hexwood is effectively DWJ writing like Gaiman for Gaiman.

Dragonsdawn is about how humans came to Pern. All the Weyrs of Pern is about the uncovering of the colonists' main computer and the redevelopment of all technology and coordination with the now huge dragon population in order to finally end the threat of Thread forever. Master Robinton figures heavily in All the Weyrs of Pern (and makes the ending the great and amazing thing it is), but Jaxom is probably the main character.

[animate-mush.livejournal.com]

Interesting!

Yes, I think "All the Weyrs of Pern" is the latest one I read - no, I read like two after that. Dolphins, and I think Renegades. Anyway, I cried my eyes out. And then obsessed over it for a year or two. So...yeah. Definitely one of the major pieces of fiction to hit me where I live.

[mayamaia.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure I ever realoly stopped obsessing about All the Weyrs.

Or, for that matter, Fire and Hemlock, Hexwood or Homeward Bounders. Diana Wynne Jones was a truly amazing woman.