Monday, December 05, 2005

Songs for superheroes and supervillains

Probably like at least a few other bloggers, posting here is going to be sporadic at best until after finals. For me, that means the end of this week. The good news is I only have two finals and one's a take-home, the bad news is they both take place within 24 hours of each other: I get the take-home on Wednesday at 3 pm, it's due Thursday at the same time, and meanwhile I have an in-class final Thursday at 2:35 pm.

In the meantime, anyone have any good ideas for songs for superheroes/villains? Some of my co-workers have this unofficial mixed CD club and (probably due to the fact that I work at night and therefore have minimal contact with everyone else) I've never been invited. I thought making a "Songs for superheroes and supervillains" CD that I could distribute as cheap-o holiday presents would also act to force my way into their elitist CD-swapping. I'm not looking for stuff that's based on specific superheroes like Prince's "Batdance" or one of the half-dozen or so songs titled "Superman". More like stuff that could be said to have kind of a superhero-y/villain-y feel. For example, some songs I was thinking of using are "One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces" by Ben Folds Five (the speaker seems very supervillain-y), "Show Me How To Live" by Audioslave (a song about Frankenstein's Monster that could easily be transplanted to a character like the Hulk or any number of other comic book monsters), Coldplay's "Everything's Not Lost", Tom Petty's "Learning to Fly", etc.

7 comments:

Ragnell said...

Off the top of my head:

"No One Knows My Plan" by They Might Be Giants. Great for any plotting super-villain like Lex Luthor or Dr. Doom.

And "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fallout boy has that line about "a loaded god complex" which makes me think of Warren Ellis' last Authority story.

"Lizzie and the Rainman" from Tanya Tucker is a straight country story-song where the story has nothing to do with the plot of the comic in question, but the general theme reminds me of Captain Comet industrializing a tribal society to the point they were capable of space exploration, so that he could hitch a ride off the planet he was stranded on. (He has to be DC's best B-level character) I don't know why, it's just an association I can't shake.

There's more, but I can't think of them off the top of my head.

Mick Martin said...

Thanks! Those last two seem a little too specific for a lot of people to get but the They Might Be Giants song sounds like a good candidate.

I came up with some more last night. Jane's Addiction's "Ocean Size" for Aquaman/Namor or even any big seamonster types. "Blow Up The Outside World" and "Black Hole Sun" both work as supervillain songs. I really want to get something in there by the Dead Kennedys. So far my top candidates are "Kill the Poor" and "I Kill Children". David Bowie's "The Man Who Sold the World" (though I'd probably use the Nirvana version because I like it better), not to mention "Heroes", Metallica's "King Nothing", and a song I can't believe I didn't think of right off the bat: "Everybody Wants to Rule The World" by Tears for Fears.

Will Pickering said...

"Justice" by New Model Army makes a perfect darknight vigilante anthem; and Cyndi Lauper's "True Colors" always reminds me of Lois Lane for some reason.

Mick Martin said...

Will, do you know what album that New Model Army song is on? I've tried searching on Amazon and google for it but couldn't find it.

Mick Martin said...

Okay, I did some more searching. Is there any chance the song you were talking about is called "Vengeance?" Here's the chorus from it:

I believe in justice
I believe in vengeance
I believe in getting the bastard

Will Pickering said...

That's the one. My mistake.

Anonymous said...

Erin McKeown, Aspera

Inspired by, and incorporates, "per aspera ad astra", roughly translated as "through difficulties to the stars":

walking we are caught, by tiny hooks that hold our hope
our skin may be scratched, but nothing holds us back
i will be brave, my body may change
but my spirit will stay, i will be brave

aspera! per aspera! per ardua! ad astra!

i'm in shambles
blown to bits by our troubles
these brambles
our stumblings our struggles

aspera! per aspera! per ardua! ad astra!
thorns! over thorns! through this trouble, we are born!

--

Another good song on the CD is "Life on the Moon":

dutiful daughter never wanted to fly
she swims through the air like she swims through the sky

waves of phosphor, waves of grace
lights on a square and lights on her face
saturn returns and mercury slaves
atoms transmit to gravity's play

dutiful daughter never wanted to fly
she swims through the air like she swims through the sky

maybe someday we can live on the moon
but because we can, doesn't mean we have to
astronauts come, rockets will go
nothing so precious as what we dont know