#i highly recommend the redbone and loretta lynn ones. so good.

[findafight]

Eddie ruffles through Steve's glove box and finds a cassette labeled BANNED SONGS and thinks "don't mind if I do~" before shoving it in the player without looking at the tracklist.

Olivia Newton John's Physical blares through the speakers, already halfway done. Steve laughs but doesn't say anything.

It fades out and the next song starts with a weird sort of clicking noise, and sounds sort of snyth popfunk? Eddie isn't really sure. He lets it play out, anti-reagan sentiment and condemnation of fascism behind the synth. Its. Unique. He kinda digs it though. He listens for the next song and- Loretta fuckin Lynn?

"Steve. what the fuck."

Steve's mouthing along, tapping the beat on the steering wheel. He grins. "It's my banned songs tape. All of em have been censored in some way or another. Listen!" He turns it up, and, Loretta Lynn is singing, in her charming Appalachian drawl, about how she's not having any more kids, how she's getting her life back and not going to be pregnant constantly because she's got birth control. How she's going to have fun.

The song ends with a beat of silence, and trumpet bleeds with piano with the white noise of an old recording transfer from a record, and Billie Holiday sings mournfully, filling the car with the pain in her voice.

It trails out, the soft sound of a record not quite finished after the song, and then there's a drumbeat, strong, on the next one. Eddie finally checks the carefully written tracklist on the inside of Steve's little homemade cover.

"Redbone? The--the 'come and get your love' guys?"

Steve nods. "The lyrics, Eddie." And oh. Oh it's about Native Americans getting killed by the army. Shit.

"yeah. Some of em are heavy, some of em just talk about sex. Or god." He smirks.

It fades out, and the goddamn Beach Boys come on.

"are you serious?"

Steve laughs again.

"what made you make this?"

He shrugs, "after it all came back, in '84, I was. Messed up. Nance and I had broken up and she'd gotten with Jonathan, I was suuuper concussed, and these government goons were giving me the third fucking degree even though it was all their fault it happened in the first place and they hadn't done shit to stop it. I already had the Redbone album" he ignores Eddie's muttered of course you did "so I thought, fuck it. I can't do much but I can listen to things they don't want me to. So, yeah."

Freddie Mercury croons, and they both laugh.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #all these songs were banned in some way before 1985 :) #the songs listed in order are: physical. (we don't need this) fascist groove thang by heaven17. #the pill by loretta lynn. strange fruit by billie holiday. we were all wounded at wounded knee by redbone. #god only knows by the beach boys. i want to break free by queen #i highly recommend the redbone and loretta lynn ones. so good. #finda writes stuff #finda's rambles #fics #steve is like fuck the government im gonna listen to music they dont wamt me to bc i cant do anything about how my town is cursed