what are the songs you dedicate to each lis characters?
hey sorry to respond so late! ❣️ I'll do my best to answer this, it's so hard to choose! And I hope you don't mind that I'll mainly focus on the characters that interest me most from LiS.
Max Caulfield - Catacombs // Fog Lake
This song isn't really so focused on the lyrics and the connection to Max, but more like an overall vibe based on the songs she listens to by Syd Matters canonically. It's just something I can picture her listening to in her dorm room as she relaxes on her bed. (also, bonus points for the album cover being a polaroid)
Nathan Prescott - Control // Halsey
"The house was awake, with shadows and monsters The hallways, they echoed and groaned I'm crying, "They're coming for me" And I tried to hold these secrets inside me My mind's like a deadly disease And all the kids cried out, "Please stop, you're scaring me" I can't help this awful energy Goddamn right, you should be scared of me Who is in control?"
I feel like this song is almost too perfect and well-known, so I almost chose something else haha, but I still went with it, because it really fits Nathan to a ✨T✨: the psychotic/hallucinations ("the house was awake with shadows and monsters") aspect, the social ostracization/fear at Blackwell/in Arcadia Bay ("And all the kids cried out, 'Please stop, you're scaring me'"), and Nathan's arrogance/rage ("I can't help this awful energy, goddamn right, you should be scared of me"). I personally interpret the beginning: "they sent me away to find them a fortune", to refer to the no doubt expensive psychiatrists Sean sent Nathan to from a young age -- of Sean not being truly concerned with Nathan's well-being, and instead shoving as much money as possible at others to "fix" his son. This song, to me, feels like the ever-present internal conflict within Nathan: his arrogant front vs his internal paranoia. In the end, the song ends on, "who is in control?": Is he really in control of himself? Or is it his father, his mental demons, or Jefferson...?
Rachel Amber - Strangers // Ethel Cain
"In your basement, I grow cold Thinking back to what I was always told "Don't talk to strangers or you might fall in love" With my memory restricted to a Polaroid in evidence"
This song feels like the despondent, regretful reflections of a lost girl, sung post-mortem to all of her "lovers" who never truly saw or understood her. For all Rachel was popular, we can see signs of her insecurities: seeking lovers in dangerous, lost men, who promised to provide her some form of solace -- either financially, aspirationally, or "medicinally", through substance abuse. For that, "don't talk to strangers or you might fall in love" feels like a line she might've "always" been told - maybe by a grandmother when she was young, maybe by her mother in her lucid moments (working with the trailer park/addict idea by Michel Koch). "Am I no good?" "Can I be yours?" feel like Rachel's very own questions for her lovers, wondering if they would fill the void inside of her. But in the end, she became a "memory restricted to a Polaroid in evidence" -- both in the posters of her face around Blackwell ("when my mother sees me on the side of a milk carton"), and literally, through Max trying to save Rachel using her Polaroid camera. Most hauntingly, she "grew cold" in Jefferson's "basement".
Victoria Chase - Machine Girl by Adéla
"Mean girl, mean girl Make-you-wanna-scream girl Why you comin' at me, baby? Yell at the machine, girl
She's a product of distortion Brutalistic in her own ways
Hollow body for projection Past her lips, you will find her brain Pinned-up poster of pop perfection Misinterpreted shot to fame"
This song is about how a female artist (musician in Adéla's case, but applies to visual art, like Victoria, too) has become everything that is expected of her ("mean", "perfect", "hollow body"), and how she feels misunderstood. She's telling people to look past her outside appearance, which was crafted by the "crowd" anyways, and to actually listen to what she's saying ("past her lips, you will find her brain"). This song especially reminds me of Max's conversation with Victoria in Episode 4 at the Vortex Party, where Victoria reluctantly admits to Max that being bitchy is what it "takes" to make it in the art world, and (especially when Max makes the effort) Victoria agrees that they could've been friends. Underneath the "mean girl" who wanted a "shot to fame", was a girl who simply wanted to be understood. Also, "pinned-up poster of pop perfection" just reminds me of all of Victoria's posters she puts up of herself in her room. Which makes me wonder: is Victoria really so self-obsessed to the point where she truly enjoys seeing huge pictures of herself like that all over her room... or is she simply filling out a mold that she feels is expected of her in order to make it in the art world?
thank you so much for your ask!! <3
