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krsonmar · 7 months

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Okay you know what I don't have Spotify and I haven't found a way to post fan playlists with annotations that I like yet so guess what here this is in a text post with links like how we used to roll on Ye Olde LiveJournal

This is my OFMD S1 playlist. Loosely follows the season plot. Here we go:

1.) Come Sail Away by Styx

Because duh like why have they not used this in official promos yet but also very call-to-adventure and with vibes of midlife angst

2.) Fraud by Jonathan Coulton

Every playlist needs some JoCo because there's JoCo for every occasion. Fans debate about what this song is about--I think it's very plainly about imposter syndrome as it relates to the creative process--but here I'm applying it more generally to the feeling that everyone can tell you're faking it. In other words, very early-season Stede.

3.) Royals by Lorde

INTRODUCING BLACKBEARD

(Also I did not know until looking this link up just now that Lorde is also a Kiwi! I am out of touch.) 4.) We're Going to Be Friends by The White Stripes

This song always breaks my heart (in a good way) with its sweet tale about childhood innocence and ease of making fast friends. When I was making this playlist, this track made me think of Ed and Stede's ease of "falling into friendship"...because making a new friend who gets you really can be another kind of falling, just like romantic love, can't it?

5.) My Favorite Things by Me First and the Gimme Gimmes

Pirates like nice things, and they don't ask for what they want...they TAKE IT!!! This is a cover of the Sound of Music song, but made appropriate for the anarchy of a raid by this aptly-named punk rock band.

6.) You're My Best Friend by Queen

I had to get some Queen in here, and this song has always hinted at a slightly-more-than-just-two-friends dynamic to me. The French talk about all kinds of relationships as involving some type of seduction, not just sexual or romantic ones, and for me this track evokes Ed and Stede falling deeper for each other.

7.) Heathens by Twenty-One Pilots OR the cover by Boston Manor

I realized when I was constructing this list to put on my MP3 player (yes, I still have one, can't you tell by now that I'm old-school) that I don't actually own a copy of Heathens by the original band (and yes, I still buy and…ahem…otherwise own copies of the music I like). I did have access to the metal cover off of Punk Goes Pop vol 7, and I think the rawness of that version fits Ed's moment to Stede of "You were always going to find out what I am" quite well. Whichever you, the listener, prefer, I think this is an appropriate spot in the playlist for Stede to be reminded that Ed does have a history, and they are all, after all, pirates.

8.) The Ship Song by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

I love how we all, as a fandom, seem to have discovered this song independently of each other but because of this fandom. And what a fantastic, devastating song it is! It's not just about a relationship that crashes and burns, it's about your own ideals, dearly-held illusions, and self-respect going right along with it. And how it grows to be predictable. I don't really understand the concept of "a good cry", but if I did, I think this song would do it for me.

9.) I Crush Everything by Jonathan Coulton

The second requisite JoCo song of the playlist. This one is literally about a giant squid that hates itself, but I defy you not to be smacked viciously about the head with the Kraken vibes of it.

10.) You've Got To Hide Your Love Away by The Beatles

We've all been there. The fake-it-til-you-make-it "I definitely am doing better now :'-)" phase of a heartbreak. This is Ed's floral nightgown being hidden away and replaced by black eyeliner and kohl; this is Stede's determination to grit his teeth and return to the life he hated and now no longer can even fake his way through. The Beatles always knew what they were doing. (That said, as a note, this is about to be four kinda downer songs in a row on this playlist, and the order does matter, so since the next and last heart-wringer is about to roll up, if the tear-jerkers are getting to be too much for you by this point of the playlist, I suggest omitting this one. The Fab Four will understand.)

11.) Samson by Matthew Luke Sandoval

This is a cover I found on YouTube of the Regina Spektor song, sung with such beauty, emotionality, and earnestness by a male vocalist with an angelic voice. The cover is over 10 years old at this point, and it looks like this guy suffered an apartment fire a little while after uploading this video and ended up not getting his singing career off the ground like he would have if this world knew any sense of justice. I tracked a copy of this song down to a mostly-defunct MySpace page and if my Google-fu is accurate, Mr. Sandoval still lives in NYC and is now an accountant or CPA of some type. I hope he hasn't truly given up on his singing dreams, but sometimes doing so makes life more liveable, so I get it if he has.

That said, this song about the bittersweet regret of knowing a relationship just wasn't going to work although it was magic while it lasted seemed appropriate, especially those famous, poetic lines about "the history books forgot about us". Apply that to a fictional reimagining of a man who history knows more as legend than as flesh-and-blood fact, and his protegee, a starry-eyed would-be adventurer, and how they both went down in flames along with a golden age of rebellion against a vicious status quo, and this tender dirge for a love that couldn't be, sung with a masculine vulnerability, gains a new layer.

Yes, I am very proud of this selection.

12.) Beyond The Sea by Bobby Darin

Okay, time to scrape you up off the floor and wipe your nose. Here's a blanket and a cup of something warm. This is, AFAIK, the original version in English of this song (although it was originally written in French), and it has the right musical and lyrical cautious optimism to not only ease you up out of that Pit Of Despair I just put you in, but also to suggest the wistful hopefulness of knowing you'll see your lover again soon, it's just a matter of waiting until the tides and currents and the sea winds align to bring you back to each other. I compiled this playlist earlier this year, and as of this writing we are 10 days away from season 2 premiering, so I am of course conjecturing and self-soothing somewhat here. That said, it's a romance, we know they'll get back together!!

13.) My Favorite Things by Sarah Vaughan

I call this The "Maybe The Nice Things We Wanted Were Actually Feelings and Relationships All Along" Reprise. Another gentle healing song, one that makes me think of cautious but eager reunions and teary-eyed reconciliations.

14.) Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix

This show loves to use purple imagery to show when Ed is falling more in love with Stede, and while the show creators have said they're thinking more along the lines of Prince (and I declare, right now, before all maybe four of you reading this, that I want to bet actual real-world student-loan-paying money on Blackbonnet's canon reunion scene being set to Purple Rain, you saw it here, mark my words, etc.) if the very last scene of the show doesn't have our boys sailing off into the sunset set to the most famous misheard lyric in rock history, what are we all even doing here?

*****

Would love your thoughts or reactions, I haven't shared a fan playlist before, so I'd love any and all thoughts including things like YOU HEARTLESS BITCH NOW I HAVE TO REAPPLY MY MASCARA or anything else you please! :-) ❤

#ofmd #ofmd fan playlist #fan playlist #ofmd s1 #blackbonnet #gentlebeard #playlists #ofmd playlist #ofmd season 1 #our flag means death

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