My playlist for “The Wilderlands” explained
Music is a big part of my creative process.
Whether it’s music I listen to in the background while I write, or a song I associate with a particular character or scene—music inevitably becomes a part of any long-form project I work on.
Because of that, I’ve been assembling playlists after finishing novels. Partially because it helps me crystalize in my mind what the book is, and partially because I think it helps people determine if they want to read the book.
If you haven’t read The Wilderlands, hopefully this music can help you determine if some of the themes and ideas in it will mesh with you. If you have read The Wilderlands, hopefully you find a couple of new songs to enjoy!
Light spoilers for The Wilderlands follow.
The songs aren’t organized in narrative order (I shuffled them specifically to avoid that), but I’ll be talking about scenes, character traits, and some of the emotional arcs of the book. If you haven’t read the book, I don’t think this will ruin the experience for you, but just be forewarned.
“Young Man in America” by Anaïs Mitchell
I’ve established before that Anaïs Mitchell and her music has had a massive influence on The Wilderlands, particularly her album Young Man in America. The title track of which starts things out here.
In my mind, this song sets up the themes and characters of The Wilderlands. Dhorena (the girl we meet at the end of chapter one) mostly slots in as the narrator. I feel the song also reflects a drive and ambition that Dhorena has. (Even if the goals of the song’s narrator are different than that of my character in the book).
On top of that, notions of sin, loneliness, and rebirth also populate the song in poignant fashion.
Like the wind I make my moan
Howl in the canyon
There's a hollow in my bones
Make me cry and carry on
Make the foam fly from my tongue
Make me want what I want
Another wayward son
Waiting on oblivion
“Birds with Broken Wings” by Ben Caplan
This is a song I association with Blaez Xliv, the wizard of the Wilderlands the characters encounter about halfway through the book.
“Birds with Broken Wings” depicts a sort of deranged version of the biblical Abraham—or at least a character also tasked by an angle to kill his son before God/the angel eventually retracts the message.
One of Blaez’s goals in the book is to get “the most world spoiling secret” one of the characters has. All through this song, the narrator seems fascinated by perceived wicked things seemingly just for the sake of it. Not unlike Blaez.
Give me metaphors unraveled, poetry defined
Bring me the head of Dionysus but please don't spill out the wine
Trade the future for the present, trade me ashes for my history
I don't need to look inside, I know the answer to the mystery.
“In a Week” by Hozier and Karen Cowley
This song I picture as representing two characters: The main character, Knalc, and the aforementioned Dhorena.
It’s not apparent until the end, but both of these characters are looking for a sense of inner peace. Specifically, they each have a belief that being reunited with a dead loved one will be able to bring them the happiness they seek.
The overall ethos of the song—gentle though the tune is—also mirrors the ethos of the Wilderlands as a place within my text. A place where your body returns to the earth, eaten by foxes and bugs.
And they'd find us in a week
When the buzzards get loud
After the insects have made their claim
After the foxes have known our taste
After the raven has had its say
I'd be home with you
“The Hazards of Love 3” by The Decemberists
“The Hazards of Love 3” more represents an idea that’s prevalent in the text rather than a specific character.
The song itself exists as part of a musical retelling of Tam Lin (a mythical shape shifter who falls in love) and occurs at a moment where a villainous character is being drowned by all of the children he himself had disposed of in years past.
I include this song here to reflect how pretty much all of the named characters in this book have at least one massive regret haunting them. At various points throughout the text, they spend time wrestling with that regret, occasionally with survival on the line.
“1 John 4:16” by The Mountain Goats
This song is for Red.
In my book, Red is a man who’s had his name stripped from him because of a one of those pesky regrets. Instead of a name, he’s been left with two things: a red coat and a duty to fulfill.
I don’t think he gets a ton of time to express this in the book, but Red is a character who carries a lot of nostalgia for a version of the past that is (for him at least) partially imagined. I also think his emotions toward the present and future ocellate frequently between apathy and fear.
I like this particular song for him because I feel like, during his moments of clarity, this is how he feels about himself and his situation.
In the cell that holds my body back, the door swings wide
And I feel like someone's lost child as the guards lead me outside
And if the clouds are gathering, it's just to point the way
To an afternoon I spent with you when it rained all day.
“Spite” by Vandaveer
This one goes to at least a few of the human antagonists in The Wilderlands. I think there’s a decent argument to be made that just about every character in this is an antagonist to another character—but in the back half of the book, we get a few antagonists that can be looked at as enemies of the wider cast, and it’s those characters in particular who act out of spite.
Appropriately, the song “Spite” sings about a man who “put down his son to spite the dog.” That’s pretty much all there is to it. We get a list of things he’s hoping to spite without receiving a clear reason or rational.
I find spite to be a really interesting emotion/goal to explore. Seeing someone attempting to enact it can be equal parts humorous and horrible to witness (usually depending on the degree of ire and/or competence of the spite-maker). There’s big emotions in spite for small and petty (sometimes meaningless) things, and that feels very human.
He burned his bible to spite the Lord
Took a day off to lick his wounds I heard him swear
"Life is such a wretched affair
I'm gonna hold my breath to spite the air"
“Wilderland” by Anaïs Mitchell
The second Anaïs Mitchell song on this list and the second song from her album Young Man in America.
Maybe it goes without saying since this song and my book pretty much share a title, but this song is a keystone. I heard this song around the same time I was reading Moby Dick in high school and got really intrigued thinking about the interplay between society and nature; where they meet, where they separate, and whether they’re meaningfully separate at all.
I think there’s only 25 unique words in this whole song, but the ones that stand out to me are in the third verse.
Your cities are a wilderland, look upon your children
Your cities are a wilderland, look upon your, look upon your
Your highways are a wilderland, look upon your children.
“Empty Vessels” by Lilli Furfaro
If you haven’t listened to this song, or Lilli Furfaro in general, absolutely check out the artist.
This is a song that applies right to the final moments of the book. Like, if The Wilderlands were a movie, this song would play over the end credits. It’s the feeling of this song that I was aiming to fulfill in the final chapter of the book; I think there’s a yearning and a catharsis in this song that is quite beautiful.
My belly filled with rich anointing oils
You snap me by the neck to break the seal
You touch me to your tongue and call it holy
The loss reminds me what it is to feel
(I guess it means that's worth the time it takes to heal)
“Muerte Mi Amor” by Shawn James
Pretty much all of the songs that weren’t written by Anaïs Mitchell were songs I found over the course of writing this book—but it’s a little shocking to me that I found this song after The Wilderlands was completely finished. It’s pretty much a run down of the character’s in the book.
There’s “a man who held the weight of the world on his shoulders”—a description I apply to Knalc (but could be applied to Red). There’s “a woman whose love never ended,” which I apply to Gloria, but could be applied to Octava. There’s “a boy whose heart longed for affection,” which maps onto Dhorena’s brother.
There’s a bit I apply to Dhorena as well about “a girl who found a colorful flower and sought it’s beauty as hers to keep. As she ripped its roots out from the ground the earth cried out: the flower limped and withered and she began to weep.”
There’s the book.
“The Devil & The Huntsman” by Sam Lee & Daniel Pemberton
This is Knalc’s song. Knalc is the character we start The Wilderlands with and, if there was a song playing over his introductions, this would be it.
I interpret “The Devil & The Huntsman” as a song about unexpected fates. It’s not fire that kills a man, but the steel forged in the fire. It’s not a blade that kills a hunter, but a poison berry (perhaps one the hunter ate hoping for sustenance).
Inmy mind these are the stories that are worth telling—the things that people didn’t expect to be their undoing being the things that ultimately unravel them.
Many a man would die as soon
Out of the light of a mage's moon
But it's not by bone, but yet by blade
Can break the magic that the devil made
“Blood Upon the Snow” by Hozier & Bear McCreary
Another song from Hozier and another song for Knalc … sort of.
In The Wilderlands there’s a narrator who frames the story as being about Knalc, and presents his story to an attentive audience. While much of what’s in this song applies to Knalc, I think a lot of it also applies to the book’s narrator.
The song itself comes from someone who is old, in the winter of their life, having seen many horrible things. They know that, strong as they are, they will be worn down by this world in the end.
While we only catch glimpses of the kind of person the narrator of The Wilderlands is throughout the book, this is certainly their song as much as Knalc’s.
I've walked the earth and there are so few here that know
How dark the night and just how cold the wind can blow
I've no more hunger now to see where the road will go
I've no more kept my warmth
Than blood upon the snow.
*****
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The Wilderlands is available for physical purchase now from Barnes & Noble and Amazon or wherever you read ebooks. The audiobook is also out now on most major platforms.