#hsar

'the smell of soap and petrol smarts' literally canon.

'I wish you had given me the courtesy of staying one more night' 👀

this month’s mixtape is a ship mix for whiskey/harry from @breakerwhiskey. they might be the slowest burn I've ever written and this soundtrack got me through!

This playlist came together pretty haphazardly at first--initially, I just had a playlist that was my dumping ground for songs that were BW-flavored but didn't belong on the main playlist. This is something I've started to do for projects in the last year or so. It started, as many things do, with creating a "DH Strays" for Desperate Hollow (the queer outlaw story I swear I will get published someday), and then grew from there. For Breaker Whiskey, the playlist is called "delta tune", a reference to the knob on a CB radio that takes you to the off-frequencies. Then I realized a real ship vibe was popping up in a lot of the songs I was choosing and decided to start building this. Why didn't I make a ship playlist to begin with? Well, to be honest, the main Breaker Whiskey playlist sort of was that. Their relationship is so central to the story and Whiskey's journey that I didn't think I needed a separate ship playlist. But, you know, I'm me, so of course I need as many playlists as possible. The thing that really kicked it over the line were the songs that felt like they were from Harry's perspective. 

So pretty soon I had a playlist that was fairly packed full of vibes. I've whittled it down considerably, and created a playlist that I think has a good flow and narrative arc. But that delta tune playlist still has some Whiskey/Harry vibes that are good, even if they didn't fit musically on the playlist: "No Children" by the Mountain Goats, "All Too Well" by Taylor Swift (Taylor's version of course), "When You've Got Trouble" by Liz Longley, "Drive Away With You"  by Jill Andrews, and "Stay" from Lempicka, which I mentioned in a newsletter a while ago - it really is the perfect song for them, but the musical theater vibe just doesn't fit. 

But let's get to the main event! This is a true 8-track mixtape. It is, I think, efficient and satisfying, packing a lot of emotion into 30 minutes of listening. 

1. "Can I Leave Me Too?" - The Greeting Committee 

If you go, can I go with you/if you leave me, can I leave me too?/I'm afraid that I might need you - I mean, this is a perfect song. This was really the song that kicked it off, because this is suuuuuuuuch a Harry song, my LORD. She's the one left behind, but she also doesn't want to fully admit she needs Whiskey and yet she also is trying to morph herself into something that will make Whiskey stay, even if that means withholding information from her. 

I'll never say your name again/if you don't want me - I love this lyric because it works on two levels for me. There's a sense of "if you don't want me I'll forsake you completely" but also a sense of "I don't deserve your name if you don't want me" but THEN, the thing that really gets me is Harry saying "I'll never say your name again if you don't want me to say it", given their whole thing with names and nicknames and the fact that Harry always called her Abigail when she preferred Abi. 

2. "Edge of the Earth" - Beaches 

Again, this song feels like it was written for them. One of them fire, one of them ice, going in circles and never moving forward? It's them.  

Like a race car driving away from the scene/does she want me to stay/does she want me to pack...You push me in circles/to the edge of the earth/where I can't go any further 'till I start coming back to you - I feel insane!! Those lyrics are just too perfect. I also love the imagery of spin me like a globe/and drop your finger on me. I used to love playing that game (but also, in retrospect, why did my parents own a globe?), and there's something about Whiskey and Harry being the ultimate determinants for each other of where they go. 

3. "In My Bones" - 76th Street

This song has just been sitting in my Apple Music for years and years waiting to be put on a playlist. It's in my "rent free" playlist, but was never in an original character or story playlist. And then it popped up on shuffle as I was building this one and it was like, "OH! Here it is!"

Even in the stillest nights you found a way to shake up my life - I love the idea that the two of them were living a pretty peaceful existence in Pennsylvania, quiet and sedate, and yet were STILL torturing each other. 

How do I feel you in my bones, even when I'm alone/the time you spend on my mind, it's like a second home/but I say that I'm doing okay/while I wait to hear a knock at my door/tell me we'll run away

4. "Too Sweet" - Hozier

A late add to this playlist, because it's still a fairly recent song, but come on. I take my whiskey neat? How could I resist. 

I also just love how this is a love song that's sort of...snarky. Like, I don't know that I totally buy that 'you're just too sweet for me!' is the takeaway of the song. To me, the lyrics really describe two very different people who are maybe trying to accommodate each other, or to be some version of themselves they think they should be, but it's not really working. 

You keep tellin' me to live right/To go to bed before the daylight/But then you wake up for the sunrise/You know you don't gotta pretend - both Whiskey and Harry do a degree of pretending around each other, but as they live together, those facades start to wear away. And then the question becomes - are the real versions of each other ones they want?

5. "Any Day Now" - Trousdale

Another great song about trying to live up to someone's expectations. Musically, this song fits here, but narratively, it is to me a very early-days-after-Whiskey-left song for Harry. This idea of "you left and I always let you down but I'm going to be FINE now" even though that's not at all true. And I looove that I know I said is sung by the lead but the accompanying I love you and I need you are sung off to the side like secrets or after thoughts. Because Harry didn't say those things and she just hoped that Whiskey would stay anyway. 

I've been sleeping too much, got a list that I have/yet to cross out, gonna get to it in a while is a perfect contrast to the lyric Since I left I've not been drinking or staying out late/Get up early and I meditate from "Runner's High" on the show playlist, which is very much a Whiskey song. 

But every time I hear your name/it's like somebody hit replay/on all the ways I let you down/I guess I'll be the villain now - I'm normal about Harry listening to all of Whiskey's transmissions and hearing herself be cast as the villain that she absolutely already thought she was. 

6. "Where It Ends" - Hunter Metts

"Ships Passing By" by the same artist is on the main playlist and initially "Threads" by him was on here (I never thought that I could lose you/So I tried/To hallucinate a love that never comes true). But then he came out with this track. 

If this is where it ends/where do I go when you know every part of me - okay, Hunter!!!! Kill us from the opening line!!!! 

Someone that you regret/on the interstate, I felt you getting colder/and I hope you're doing better ever since we were done/I hope you find forever with somebody you love, I guess/but I didn't think it'd cut like this - I think from the beginning - from the moment Whiskey hot-wired a car after killing Billings and drove her and Harry away - Harry felt like any chance she had of something with Whiskey was dead on arrival. I also love the "I guess" here because no, of course you don't really want that person you just broke up with to be happy, not really. 

7. "Everything" - MUNA

This songs makes me fully feral. MUNA is so good at writing universal experiences through laser specificity - the particular mindset of seeing something, anything, and thinking of that one person is such a real and potent thing. This song and the next are two songs that I have listened to on single repeat for quite literally an hour or so. 

Everything's about you to me is really just Whiskey's constant experience in driving around the country. 

'Cause the world could be burning/and all I'd be thinking/is how are you doing, baby? - an insane lyric!!!! Ahhhhh!

I can barely SPEAK about the bridge. I'm only here to tell you that I am eviscerated gets me EVERY time and you are a wildfire and I'm standing in the rain takes my brain completely offline. 

8. "can we start over?" - Charlotte Sands

I'm calling it now, this song is going to be in my top 5 most played songs this year. I think the last three months of this show were written to this song on repeat. And I'm going to do something I rarely do and just...copy out pretty much all the lyrics. Because it does feel like this was written purely to help me write the final act of this story. 

Can we start over?/Can we be strangers?/I could let go of all of my anger/Reintroduce you to all of my secrets/I'll never leave you, this time I'll mean it - UGH. That final line. The promises that Whiskey and Harry have made to each other, the secrets they've withheld. I just love the theme of "let's go back to the beginning, things will be different this time I PROMISE". But, of course, you never can start over, not really. 

We'd be like the movies/Be happy in the end/You wouldn't have to lose me/I wouldn't have to mend/Nothing would be painful/We'd never play pretend/Then maybe I'd be able to let you in again/Don't let me believe in you...I want to believe in you - The contrast between "don't let me believe in you" and "I want to" just kills me. That's really what it comes down to - I can't trust you again, even if you let me, even though I desperately want to. 

Maybe in a different life/Maybe at a different time/What if I was meant to be yours?/What if you were made to be mine? - the constant question. If they had stayed in their primary timeline, if they had gone into a different one, if they're able to get into a different one now, does that make things easier?

it's called Portrait of a Dead Girl by the Last Dinner Party, and I encourage you to go and read the lyrics. (and listen to it! it's very good!)

that is all, and thank you again for creating such an incredible show <333

god, yeah, it HAS been two months already, I genuinely can't believe that.

WOW you were NOT joking, this song really IS about them!!!!! the dog metaphor!?!? soap and petrol!?!? 'and I wish you'd done me the courtesy of staying one more night'!?!?!? JESUS.

have this on repeat right now writing @breakerwhiskey, we are finally getting to the juicy stuff