You Are The Anchor That I’ve Tied To My Brain

1. • She Looks So Perfect: Your lipstick stain is a work of art.

• Ghost Of You: Your lipstick stain fades with time.

2. • If You Don’t Know: The shirt that I had that you always borrowed, when I woke it was gone, there was no tomorrow.

• Ghost Of You: Cleaning up today, found that old Zeppelin shirt you wore when you ran away.

3. • Broken Home: Just a ghost in the halls feeling empty, they’re vacant now.

• Ghost Of You: Dancing through our house, with the ghost of you.

4. • Vapor: Make it sound so sweet, when you like to me.

• Lie To Me: I hope you lie to me.

5. • Amnesia: The dreams you left behind you didn’t need them.

• More: And all the things that we dream about, they don’t mean what they did before.

6. • San Francisco: I wanna get back to where we started.

• More: I just wanna get back to us.

7. • Jet Black Heart: Everybody’s got their demons, even wide awake or dreaming.

1. lung : vancouver sleep clinic

2. wildfire : vancouver sleep clinic

3. maps : keaton henson

4. i am not in love anymore : liza anne

5. sister : haux

6. embody me : novo amor

7. colourway : novo amor

8. carry you : novo amor

9. living water : vancouver sleep clinic

10. the puglist : keaton henson

11. rebirth : vancouver sleep clinic

12. you don’t know how luck you are : keaton henson

13. march : keaton henson

14. no witnesses : keaton henson

15. how could i have known : keaton henson

16. holy lover: keaton henson

17. alright : keaton henson

18. alps : novo amor, ed tullett

19. perth : bon iver

20. tyrants : catfish and the bottlemen

21. post break-up sex : the vaccines

22. wetsuit : the vaccines

23. collapse : vancouver sleep clinic

24. it’s alright : fractures

25. fall harder : fractures

26. budapest : george ezra

27. blame it on me : george ezra

28. lazy lover : lonely benson

29. clover : cold weather company

30. all we ever knew : the head and the heart

31. lost in my mind : the head and the heart

32. barcelona : george ezra

33. mess is mine : vance joy

34. only love : ben howard

35. ophelia : the lumineers

36. holocene : bon iver

37. bloom - bonus track : the paper kites

38. the cave : mumford and sons

39. rivers and roads : the head and the heart

40. dirty paws : of monsters and men

41. sleep on the floor : the lumineers

42. down in the valley : the head and the heart

43. like real people do : hozier

44. paint : the paper kites

45. stubborn love : the lumineers

why should you listen to it? well… 

- it’s a dystopian au of shakespeare's othello that asks the question “can you change your fate?” (and answers “yes”)

- leslie odom jr. (aka burr from hamilton) plays the iago analog (he’s called markos)

- the story curls around the love story of willow and venice (aka desdemona and othello), but platonic relations drive a lot of the plot in satisfying ways– willow and her loyal childhood friend michael; willow and emilia 

- desdemona/willow is so much more the heart of the play than othello/venice, and that is so goshdarn satisfying to me. she’s in love, but she’s also invested in the revolution and a powerful political icon in her own right, with her own conflicting ideas about her legacy and purpose

- uzo aduba (aka crazy eyes from orange is the new black) plays anna monroe, dead revolutionary ghost mom extraordinaire, and she’s amazing

- while there’s some stuff i’d edit out if i was all-powerful, they do a good job balancing a bunch of different intersecting themes. but pretend the very last song ends on willow’s last stanza, which is wonderful uplifting heartbreaking closure, and they don’t do the thing at the end where they a) tell you what the moral of the aesop was and b) get it wrong

- the actual aesop? you can change your story. 

- it’s on spotify 

- it sounds really goshdarn pretty

- the words! emilia chastising venice: "you need to grow up now– stop praying for– wanting more– playing war" 

- the “clown mc,” our narrator: "to tell the story is a means of resistance lend me ears for the night i need your assistance" 

- look how much frickin fun they’re having with these partial rhymes (from iago’s villain manifesto):  “why follow his foolishness? inflated hope, a dead mother’s tutelage?  i’ll show who the ruler is– the first born, it’s ludicrous.  on my head the crown should be first born in truthfulness.  and with god and my mother as my witness,  imma get what’s mine by traveling the distance”

- willow aka my lady of light:  “i’m on the precipice of changing, profoundly rearranging,  maybe living up to the image of what they’ve been saying.  and are we all just children playing in our parents’ clothes?  and when the lights come on, will we find out that we’re ghosts?“ 

- there’s an entire song in which the fractuted ghost of one of the characters stumbles around the stage catching glimpses of his death and his friends’ mourning, slowly realizing he’s died and it’s my favorite

1. Spite 2. The Aesthetic