seperate commentary for fst
First, a note on songs: You can view this fanmix as sort of an A-Side/B-Side mix, though the songs are in a sort of chronocological order. If you prefer that the music styles mesh, you can, of course, sort it into two sides of the same mix. :)
Warning: this is very rambly. But if you like rambly things, carry on. Or you can just scan it. :)
First off, I've read both the book and seen the 2008 film version, which both influenced this mix. In case anyone's not familiar with one of the two, the only difference is that book!Alec has a creeper moustache the writers tweaked Tess's and Alec's dynamic in the film version. Just a little. They made his advances seem half-wanted (at least at first), and made him a good deal more sympathetic. I think this mix deals with a slightly more human Alec who's not so much the serpent-symbol/likely sadist Hardy portrays. In that light, I think this Alec does love Tess at least a bit and deluded into thinking - not that she loves him but that he loves her deeply and everything would just be peachy if she returned his feelings. So his songs tend to be unreliably obsessive... and more than a little domineering, because Hardy's Alec is still very much present.
(PS: Alec is my favorite character. Besides maybe Mercy Chant, who's a fierce bitch. I just can't take him very seriously in the book and in the movie I feel sorry for him a lot of the time.)
Movie!Tess, for her part, comes off as less obnoxious than her book counterpart (probably because she's played by the beautiful, adorably-accented Gemma Arterton). But she's still passive, and tragic, depending on how much you sympathize with a doormat. So from her end? Songs of regret, despair, and passivity.
Alec's songs tend to be kind of dark, electronic (machines are evil, Hardy says so) love (?) songs, while Tess's are very much softer, more instrument/lyric-based. Also, all of Alec's are male-sung, and Tess's are female-sung (boring, but!).
The first three focus on their time at Trantridge:
Papa was perfect for Tess's initial distrust of Alec. Not just the "look where he left me" line but the whole song. Alec is essentially a fraud, a "genuine wannabe", and a complete liar. The references to the narrator's father - "Papa, oh, I'll be alright" - can also connect to Tess's leaving her family to pay for the deus ex machina dead horse.
Stalker is appropriate because... the title is "Stalker". I suppose this applies to the book more than the movie (he literally hides behind curtains as he follows her around), but it also works because it's creepy and possessive. Ignore the anachronisms and enjoy the creepiness.
Touched alludes to the rape and, in my mind, the whole Hades-Persephone tie in. I'm probably biased because I first heard it in a Hades-Persephone context, but lyrics about the dying roses pleading and the demi-gods still remind me of it. (I would've looked for a song about Pan and Priapus, but you would be how surprised those are to come by.) One of the projected bonus songs - Snow White Queen - was there refer to the rape from Tess's perspective, but I nixed it because I wasn't sure it was entirely what I was going for. To some extent, I feel like being vague about it (as in this song - the lyrics are vague, but even a little bit more creepy for their vagueness) because of the vagueness of it in the book itself. On the other hand, I felt like Tess deserved a turn, too. I feel like "Snow White Queen" could also refer to her terror later during his continued stalking at Flintcombe-Ashe. It's not on the mix anymore (let's call it technical difficulties), but you can always listen to it on the embedded playlist.
Instead, I partly deal with the aftermath of the rape in Scars. "Scars" has a perfect soft, wounded sound to it, along with the lyric "he was not a true love of mine" . In this context, that's the understatement of the year, and all the more tragic for it. This is what I envision as Tess's spilling-to-Angel song, and her subsequent, self-hate going around in circles. You could interpret the whole "don't go to the fair" thing as "don't leave me for Brazil... please?" (especially with lines like "don't forget me/I still care").
Then comes my idea of Part Two, dealing with Alec's um. Courtship? Of Tess.
It kicks off with In Chains, which begins with a long electronic dial-tone-y sound. I feel like this conveys some passage of time, then you get all those lines about temptation. Of course, convert!Alec thinks Tess is the biggest, evillest temptress on the planet. He also thinks he's the biggest martyr ever because GOD HE CAN'T STAND TO BE AROUND THIS TEMPTRESS, AND IT IS REALLY HARD TO KEEP HIS PANTS ON. (To be fair to Alec, even book!Alec's trying to be nice here, even if it comes off really condescending. Meanwhile, Hans Matheson is giving Tess adorable puppy dog eyes and looking torn up over the dead son he never knew he had, SO.) And there's a great irony in associating this song with Alec - Tess is really the character in chains. She's either chained to Angel or Alec or her own martyrdom. Alec? Nope, don't see it. But he says all kinds of hateful, hypocritical things throughout the book (to Tess: "Have you no sense of shame?!?) so this fits perfectly.
Then comes Pretty When You Cry, which is amazing. This pretty much set the precedent for the other Alec songs on this fanmix: it's dark, electronic, and unreliable as hell. Does the girl in question really care for the narrator more when he's cruel to her ("if you knew how much I loved you, you would run away/ but when I treat you bad it always makes you wanna stay")? Would she maybe run away because he's stalking her? What about the fact that he's pretty much a sadist who contradicts himself bunches of times about his true feelings for her? And then there's the shady reference to the girl's loss of virginity, which just seals it for me. Of course, you've also got "pretty when you're mine" which applies to his domineering attitude to a tee. The line, "you're made of my rib/you're made of my sin" applies to not-really convert!Alec's attitude toward Tess... and women in general, probably.
(PS: I love this song, much like I love Alec. Don't stone me.)
The next few songs are jumbled up around, but they represent Alec and Tess's life together. To me, this is one of the most fascinating aspects of the book, and one the reader hardly sees.. At all. Seriously, Alec gets a few lines of awful condescending-ness and then Tess kills him in his bed. Which sounds a lot cooler than it got played out in the book. :/
Anyway.
From Alec's perspective is Ava Adore, which pretty much spells out his rhetoric in getting Tess back to him, minus the do-it-for-your-family argument. Personally, I think one of the strongest motivators in her return to him was her own societal guilt, that she was his wife "according to nature". Lines like "you'll always be my whore" and "we must never be apart" reinforce that, as well as the fitting references of her as the "mother to my child/ and the child to my heart" - this comes back to the whole idea of Tess being the hollow, perfect woman that he may very well want, an object for sex and childbirth in whom he engenders dependence. He wants her to be everything and nothing of her own. (This is definitely more for book!Alec than movie!Alec. I get sad just thinking about Hans Matheson's puppy eyes. Gah.)
Then comes a string of songs for Tess focusing on this period. One of the things that jutted out at me was the idea of this woman living with her date-rapist. I wondered how Alec would be able to stand living with/having sex with a woman who was so obviously unwilling until I realized that, at least when it came to sex, the stereotypical 19th century man (and certainly book!Alec) would probably be pleased if his wife found it painful. It would reinforce her purity and all that - women weren't supposed to enjoy sex. As for movie!Alec, I think that the grind of constantly trying and failing to win Tess's affection eventually turns him petulant and bitter (hence his brief appearance as a total-asshole-cum-corpse at the end of the movie). Not that he was a really great guy to begin with, but I always felt movie!Alec was a great deal nicer, and his cruelty at the end always makes me especially sad. This is where another bonus song, Sadder Than You, comes in.
So Ice focuses on Tess's frigidity. Out of context, I feel like this song is about something entirely different, but if you look on songmeanings.net you see a lot of the interpretations focusing on prostitution, which fits well enough here. Lyrics like "the ice is thin/come on dive in/here beneath my lucid skin" highlight Tess's role as emotionally cool, passive, and resigned to the unhappiness of her life. Then: "you enter into me, a lie upon your lips" could refer to the lie that he loves her (cruelty and/or delusion =/= love) or just their lives in general. She's not really Mrs. D'Urberville, after all.
Paradise refers to her finally making the deal with the devil Alec. Paradise is obviously not a good place here, but you can contrast this type of Paradise to the Eden of Talbothays and her pre-serpent days. The girl in the song soothes herself with lies (in Tess's case, Alec's unintentional "lie" that Angel will never come back for her). Then there's mention of what could have been, which is a huge topic in Tess.
To continue this trend of totally depressing passivity, there's Stand Still, Look Pretty, which is exactly what it says on the tin. This refers to Tess's role as - basically - a trophy wife. Most of this song fits directed as an unsaid rant against Alec, but it also works as a guts-out confession to Angel during their reunion. She might look good in her new clothes, but her life has been awful for the time they've been apart. To me, the line "I hate the way you look at me/ I have to say/ I wish I could start over" sounds especially directed toward Angel, though it works for Alec, too.
Then I have an uncharacteristic song for Tess: I Want My Innocence Back. Here you have plenty of industrial, machine-like sounds... and lots of distinctly non-passive violence. I chose this song because (aside from this video being awesome) the man in question sounds perfectly manipulative and, but for a couple lines, very well may have raped the narrator. Aside from the clear reference to running the man through with a knife, lines like "I'll never forget/ the words you used to ensnare me/till my dying day/you'll suffer for this I swear" also reflect a sense of vengeance. Innocence, in this case, is both Tess's virginity and her happiness, both nixed by Alec.
This mix was initial going to be a little more violent/hateful (hence the title, A Life for a Life) until I realized that the Tess I wanted didn't actually exist. I mean, she's a murderess, and the movie gives you a little of that, but Hardy? Tess runs out all tear-stained and HE CALLED YOU BAD NAMES, ANGEL and I'm like HE RAPED YOU, WEREN'T YOU MAD ABOUT THAT?
Personally, I have to side with movie!Tess on this one and say that, for me, a lot of her breaking point was pent-up rage over Alec ruining her life.
And then, for those sad, wistful moments toward the end of the book, a sad, somewhat wistful song: Virus. This is sort of a grand-overview of Tess, of a "cycle of abuse". It occurred to me that this song might be about STDs, but I think the real virus, at least in the context of Tess, is society's ideals. Society creates that cycle of abuse that double-victimizes Tess for her rape, then triple-victimizes her at Angel's hands, then... can I stop counting? So this song reinforces how Tess is officially a cheap, morally decrepit character according to society. Angel totally doesn't see her as much better, since he tells her by omission that she's going to hell (where she can meet up with Alec, I presume, and the cycle of abuse can comfortably continue).
Warning: this is very rambly. But if you like rambly things, carry on. Or you can just scan it. :)
First off, I've read both the book and seen the 2008 film version, which both influenced this mix. In case anyone's not familiar with one of the two, the only difference is that book!Alec has a creeper moustache the writers tweaked Tess's and Alec's dynamic in the film version. Just a little. They made his advances seem half-wanted (at least at first), and made him a good deal more sympathetic. I think this mix deals with a slightly more human Alec who's not so much the serpent-symbol/likely sadist Hardy portrays. In that light, I think this Alec does love Tess at least a bit and deluded into thinking - not that she loves him but that he loves her deeply and everything would just be peachy if she returned his feelings. So his songs tend to be unreliably obsessive... and more than a little domineering, because Hardy's Alec is still very much present.
(PS: Alec is my favorite character. Besides maybe Mercy Chant, who's a fierce bitch. I just can't take him very seriously in the book and in the movie I feel sorry for him a lot of the time.)
Movie!Tess, for her part, comes off as less obnoxious than her book counterpart (probably because she's played by the beautiful, adorably-accented Gemma Arterton). But she's still passive, and tragic, depending on how much you sympathize with a doormat. So from her end? Songs of regret, despair, and passivity.
Alec's songs tend to be kind of dark, electronic (machines are evil, Hardy says so) love (?) songs, while Tess's are very much softer, more instrument/lyric-based. Also, all of Alec's are male-sung, and Tess's are female-sung (boring, but!).
The first three focus on their time at Trantridge:
Papa was perfect for Tess's initial distrust of Alec. Not just the "look where he left me" line but the whole song. Alec is essentially a fraud, a "genuine wannabe", and a complete liar. The references to the narrator's father - "Papa, oh, I'll be alright" - can also connect to Tess's leaving her family to pay for the deus ex machina dead horse.
Stalker is appropriate because... the title is "Stalker". I suppose this applies to the book more than the movie (he literally hides behind curtains as he follows her around), but it also works because it's creepy and possessive. Ignore the anachronisms and enjoy the creepiness.
Touched alludes to the rape and, in my mind, the whole Hades-Persephone tie in. I'm probably biased because I first heard it in a Hades-Persephone context, but lyrics about the dying roses pleading and the demi-gods still remind me of it. (I would've looked for a song about Pan and Priapus, but you would be how surprised those are to come by.) One of the projected bonus songs - Snow White Queen - was there refer to the rape from Tess's perspective, but I nixed it because I wasn't sure it was entirely what I was going for. To some extent, I feel like being vague about it (as in this song - the lyrics are vague, but even a little bit more creepy for their vagueness) because of the vagueness of it in the book itself. On the other hand, I felt like Tess deserved a turn, too. I feel like "Snow White Queen" could also refer to her terror later during his continued stalking at Flintcombe-Ashe. It's not on the mix anymore (let's call it technical difficulties), but you can always listen to it on the embedded playlist.
Instead, I partly deal with the aftermath of the rape in Scars. "Scars" has a perfect soft, wounded sound to it, along with the lyric "he was not a true love of mine" . In this context, that's the understatement of the year, and all the more tragic for it. This is what I envision as Tess's spilling-to-Angel song, and her subsequent, self-hate going around in circles. You could interpret the whole "don't go to the fair" thing as "don't leave me for Brazil... please?" (especially with lines like "don't forget me/I still care").
Then comes my idea of Part Two, dealing with Alec's um. Courtship? Of Tess.
It kicks off with In Chains, which begins with a long electronic dial-tone-y sound. I feel like this conveys some passage of time, then you get all those lines about temptation. Of course, convert!Alec thinks Tess is the biggest, evillest temptress on the planet. He also thinks he's the biggest martyr ever because GOD HE CAN'T STAND TO BE AROUND THIS TEMPTRESS, AND IT IS REALLY HARD TO KEEP HIS PANTS ON. (To be fair to Alec, even book!Alec's trying to be nice here, even if it comes off really condescending. Meanwhile, Hans Matheson is giving Tess adorable puppy dog eyes and looking torn up over the dead son he never knew he had, SO.) And there's a great irony in associating this song with Alec - Tess is really the character in chains. She's either chained to Angel or Alec or her own martyrdom. Alec? Nope, don't see it. But he says all kinds of hateful, hypocritical things throughout the book (to Tess: "Have you no sense of shame?!?) so this fits perfectly.
Then comes Pretty When You Cry, which is amazing. This pretty much set the precedent for the other Alec songs on this fanmix: it's dark, electronic, and unreliable as hell. Does the girl in question really care for the narrator more when he's cruel to her ("if you knew how much I loved you, you would run away/ but when I treat you bad it always makes you wanna stay")? Would she maybe run away because he's stalking her? What about the fact that he's pretty much a sadist who contradicts himself bunches of times about his true feelings for her? And then there's the shady reference to the girl's loss of virginity, which just seals it for me. Of course, you've also got "pretty when you're mine" which applies to his domineering attitude to a tee. The line, "you're made of my rib/you're made of my sin" applies to not-really convert!Alec's attitude toward Tess... and women in general, probably.
(PS: I love this song, much like I love Alec. Don't stone me.)
The next few songs are jumbled up around, but they represent Alec and Tess's life together. To me, this is one of the most fascinating aspects of the book, and one the reader hardly sees.. At all. Seriously, Alec gets a few lines of awful condescending-ness and then Tess kills him in his bed. Which sounds a lot cooler than it got played out in the book. :/
Anyway.
From Alec's perspective is Ava Adore, which pretty much spells out his rhetoric in getting Tess back to him, minus the do-it-for-your-family argument. Personally, I think one of the strongest motivators in her return to him was her own societal guilt, that she was his wife "according to nature". Lines like "you'll always be my whore" and "we must never be apart" reinforce that, as well as the fitting references of her as the "mother to my child/ and the child to my heart" - this comes back to the whole idea of Tess being the hollow, perfect woman that he may very well want, an object for sex and childbirth in whom he engenders dependence. He wants her to be everything and nothing of her own. (This is definitely more for book!Alec than movie!Alec. I get sad just thinking about Hans Matheson's puppy eyes. Gah.)
Then comes a string of songs for Tess focusing on this period. One of the things that jutted out at me was the idea of this woman living with her date-rapist. I wondered how Alec would be able to stand living with/having sex with a woman who was so obviously unwilling until I realized that, at least when it came to sex, the stereotypical 19th century man (and certainly book!Alec) would probably be pleased if his wife found it painful. It would reinforce her purity and all that - women weren't supposed to enjoy sex. As for movie!Alec, I think that the grind of constantly trying and failing to win Tess's affection eventually turns him petulant and bitter (hence his brief appearance as a total-asshole-cum-corpse at the end of the movie). Not that he was a really great guy to begin with, but I always felt movie!Alec was a great deal nicer, and his cruelty at the end always makes me especially sad. This is where another bonus song, Sadder Than You, comes in.
So Ice focuses on Tess's frigidity. Out of context, I feel like this song is about something entirely different, but if you look on songmeanings.net you see a lot of the interpretations focusing on prostitution, which fits well enough here. Lyrics like "the ice is thin/come on dive in/here beneath my lucid skin" highlight Tess's role as emotionally cool, passive, and resigned to the unhappiness of her life. Then: "you enter into me, a lie upon your lips" could refer to the lie that he loves her (cruelty and/or delusion =/= love) or just their lives in general. She's not really Mrs. D'Urberville, after all.
Paradise refers to her finally making the deal with the devil Alec. Paradise is obviously not a good place here, but you can contrast this type of Paradise to the Eden of Talbothays and her pre-serpent days. The girl in the song soothes herself with lies (in Tess's case, Alec's unintentional "lie" that Angel will never come back for her). Then there's mention of what could have been, which is a huge topic in Tess.
To continue this trend of totally depressing passivity, there's Stand Still, Look Pretty, which is exactly what it says on the tin. This refers to Tess's role as - basically - a trophy wife. Most of this song fits directed as an unsaid rant against Alec, but it also works as a guts-out confession to Angel during their reunion. She might look good in her new clothes, but her life has been awful for the time they've been apart. To me, the line "I hate the way you look at me/ I have to say/ I wish I could start over" sounds especially directed toward Angel, though it works for Alec, too.
Then I have an uncharacteristic song for Tess: I Want My Innocence Back. Here you have plenty of industrial, machine-like sounds... and lots of distinctly non-passive violence. I chose this song because (aside from this video being awesome) the man in question sounds perfectly manipulative and, but for a couple lines, very well may have raped the narrator. Aside from the clear reference to running the man through with a knife, lines like "I'll never forget/ the words you used to ensnare me/till my dying day/you'll suffer for this I swear" also reflect a sense of vengeance. Innocence, in this case, is both Tess's virginity and her happiness, both nixed by Alec.
This mix was initial going to be a little more violent/hateful (hence the title, A Life for a Life) until I realized that the Tess I wanted didn't actually exist. I mean, she's a murderess, and the movie gives you a little of that, but Hardy? Tess runs out all tear-stained and HE CALLED YOU BAD NAMES, ANGEL and I'm like HE RAPED YOU, WEREN'T YOU MAD ABOUT THAT?
Personally, I have to side with movie!Tess on this one and say that, for me, a lot of her breaking point was pent-up rage over Alec ruining her life.
And then, for those sad, wistful moments toward the end of the book, a sad, somewhat wistful song: Virus. This is sort of a grand-overview of Tess, of a "cycle of abuse". It occurred to me that this song might be about STDs, but I think the real virus, at least in the context of Tess, is society's ideals. Society creates that cycle of abuse that double-victimizes Tess for her rape, then triple-victimizes her at Angel's hands, then... can I stop counting? So this song reinforces how Tess is officially a cheap, morally decrepit character according to society. Angel totally doesn't see her as much better, since he tells her by omission that she's going to hell (where she can meet up with Alec, I presume, and the cycle of abuse can comfortably continue).