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Dear Jukebox Writer
Dear sweet writer,
Thank you so much for volunteering to create a gift for a stranger with similar musical tastes. I'm delighted to see what you come up with, and am giving you some prompts to help out. If you already have an idea for the song that we matched on, please run with it!
My hard-and-fast DNWs list is fairly short. I do not want incest, non-con, porn without plot, child death or grievous injury (unless it's canon and even then, no need to dwell on the details), animal cruelty or abuse, scat/watersports/extreme kink, or first-person narration. Yeah, I know that last one is maybe a little weird, but I find first-person difficult to warm up to and it takes me out of the story.
When the new album, single, film, and tour were announced a few weeks ago, it was like all my birthdays and Christmases had come at once. Then I started to listen to this song, with its fragmented beginning, and I felt nauseous. What if I didn't like it? And then the drums kicked in and then the words (the glorious words) in Matt's soothing voice and I felt like I was home again. (Yeah, that's the effect that this band has on me.)
What is this mysterious thing that had to be done? They couldn't they do it?
Thank you so much for volunteering to create a gift for a stranger with similar musical tastes. I'm delighted to see what you come up with, and am giving you some prompts to help out. If you already have an idea for the song that we matched on, please run with it!
My hard-and-fast DNWs list is fairly short. I do not want incest, non-con, porn without plot, child death or grievous injury (unless it's canon and even then, no need to dwell on the details), animal cruelty or abuse, scat/watersports/extreme kink, or first-person narration. Yeah, I know that last one is maybe a little weird, but I find first-person difficult to warm up to and it takes me out of the story.
I love, love, love so many tropes. (And I also love stories that subvert tropes.) I love
Fake dating
Using dating/relationships as a cover for a mission/con/job/plan
Secret weddings/marriages
Elopement, and accidental marriages
Unexpected tenderness
Hurt/comfort
Cooking comfort foods
Grand romantic gestures
Repressed feelings
Found families
Slow burning love that develops slowly through mundane activities
Starting a new life
Ghost stories
Spooky settings
Haunted houses
Stupid dares
Camping
Accidental demon summoning
Disasters – natural or manmade
Post-apocalytpic fights to survive
Man vs wilderness
Angst
Unresolved sexual tension
Zombies
Roads not taken in canon
Wacky roadtrips
Ride or die
Going down with the ship
Ride or die
Going down with the ship
I love...
The National. Seriously. I've seen them 11 times in 3 different countries including traveling to see them play a 30-minute set with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. (And I have tickets to see them again in a fourth country in November.) I have pretty much imprinted on this band like a little duckling. So, embarrassingly perhaps, all of my requests are for The National.
I love everything about The National, but especially the words. The words are able to create entire worlds of flawed and interesting people, and I cannot wait to read something inspired by any of the songs.
I love everything about The National, but especially the words. The words are able to create entire worlds of flawed and interesting people, and I cannot wait to read something inspired by any of the songs.
See, I told you I was easy. Now, the prompts...
"Bloodbuzz Ohio" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
"Abel" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"I'll Still Destroy You" - The National (song) - Song * Lyrics
"This is the Last Time" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"Oh, don't tell anyone I'm here
"Terrible Love" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"And I can't fall asleep/without a little help/It takes awhile to settle down/My ship of hopes/until the past leaks out"
"And I can't fall asleep/without a little help/It takes awhile to settle down/My ship of hopes/until the past leaks out"
"It takes an ocean not to break"
"But I won't follow you/ into the rabbit hole/ I said I would/but then I saw/ the ship of woes/ they didn't want me to"
I love the wistfulness of this song, and the idea that even though love can excite you, it can also scare you. Does the narrator take the chance, or does he/she hold firm to the promise not to go into the rabbit hole?
(Also, a note that applies to all my song requests - I am not fussed about the gender of the characters. A lot of these songs are about relationships - I do not mind whether the characters are men, women, non-binary - whatever works for the story is fine with me.)
(Also, a note that applies to all my song requests - I am not fussed about the gender of the characters. A lot of these songs are about relationships - I do not mind whether the characters are men, women, non-binary - whatever works for the story is fine with me.)
"Slow Show" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I saw you
"You know I dreamed about you for 29 years before I saw you
You know I dreamed about you, I missed you for...for 29 years"
I love all of this song, but that coda catches me in the chest every damn time. It was one of the first lullabies that I sang to my son. The rest of the song is a perfectly described party scene of a socially awkward guy just trying to make a good impression when the stakes, to him, are obviously so high. I'd love to read a love story of any kind - romantic love, platonic love, or even a parent's love for a child.
"Bloodbuzz Ohio" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"I still owe money to the money to the money I owe
I never thought about love when I thought about home
The floors are falling out from everybody I know"
I don't know what a bloodbuzz is and I don't know if I'd want to be on one, but damn I get the idea of being drowning in debt. Tell me about this debt. Tell me about what the narrator is willing to do to get out from under it. And tell me why Ohio is so important to the narrator.
I almost feel like the guys did the video just to counter the jibes that their music is depressing. Tell me anything about the video. The planning. The making. The choosing of the wardrobe. Tell me what Mrs. Berninger thought about the antics in her backyard.
"Abel" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"Abel, come on, give me the keys, man
Everything has all gone down wrong
I see water on the bridge
Well, you better hold my hand through this"
"You turn me good and God-fearing
Well, tell me what am I supposed to do with that?
I'm missing something
Yeah, I'm missing something"
"I'll Still Destroy You" - The National (song) - Song * Lyrics
"This one's like your mother's arms when she was young and sunburned in the '80s
It lasts forever
The more level they have me
The more I cannot stand me
I have helpless friendships
And bad taste in liquids
This one's like the wilderness without the world
I'm gonna miss those long nights with the windows open
I keep re-reading the same lines always up at 5am every morning
Like a baby"
Arms seem to show up rather often in The National songs - and I can think of at least one other reference to mother's arms. To me, this song has a lovely underground river of sweetness - I think the narrator's heart is in the right place, but their head is so messed up. And the thing about the window makes me think of slow-moving disasters, like climate change or some kind of apocalypse. (And if the world's gone mad, maybe a sane person would feel mad?) I don't have any true prompts for this song, I just love it and would love to know what speaks to you about it.
Arms seem to show up rather often in The National songs - and I can think of at least one other reference to mother's arms. To me, this song has a lovely underground river of sweetness - I think the narrator's heart is in the right place, but their head is so messed up. And the thing about the window makes me think of slow-moving disasters, like climate change or some kind of apocalypse. (And if the world's gone mad, maybe a sane person would feel mad?) I don't have any true prompts for this song, I just love it and would love to know what speaks to you about it.
"This is the Last Time" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"Oh, don't tell anyone I'm here
I've got Tylenol and beer
I was thinking that you call
Somebody closer to you
Oh, but your love is such a swamp
You're the only thing I want
And I said I wouldn't cry about it,"
This song speaks to me of the end of a precious relationship. You don't want it to end, but there's just no way that you can make sense of things and make it work. What brings someone to this point? What happens next?
"You Had Your Soul with You" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"You felt like heaven stood up in you
This song speaks to me of the end of a precious relationship. You don't want it to end, but there's just no way that you can make sense of things and make it work. What brings someone to this point? What happens next?
"You Had Your Soul with You" - The National (song) - Video * Lyrics
"You felt like heaven stood up in you
You said love fills you out
It moves you from the skeleton and pulls you around
I got it worse than anyone else
And I just can't find a way to forgive myself
I had only one thing left and I couldn't see it yet
I have owed it to my heart, every word I've said
You have no idea how hard I died when you left
If I yield to my trances, will I get up close again?
I had only one thing to do and I couldn't do it yet
I had only one thing left and I couldn't see it yet
You had your soul with you, I was in no mood"
When the new album, single, film, and tour were announced a few weeks ago, it was like all my birthdays and Christmases had come at once. Then I started to listen to this song, with its fragmented beginning, and I felt nauseous. What if I didn't like it? And then the drums kicked in and then the words (the glorious words) in Matt's soothing voice and I felt like I was home again. (Yeah, that's the effect that this band has on me.)
What is this mysterious thing that had to be done? They couldn't they do it?