'Cause This Is FILLER! (FILLER Today...)

Hey, so--perhaps you would like a list of music that reminds me of Loki! (Or maybe you wouldn’t, but too bad, because I've been working on it for a while, so that is what you’re going to get.):

First up, fittingly, is Viking Metal. The band Tyr made an awesome album called Ragnarok, about--well. It tells the entire damn story that takes up most of Thor: The Trials of Loki, and most of the songs seem to be from Loki’s POV. My current favorite is “Lord of Lies” (http://www.box.net/shared/45tzn3kkmp), sung from under the volcano.

Shakes the ground in agony the Lord of Lies
Once for every drop of venom in his eyes
Anger festers in his heart and loud he cries
My revenge will be the end and you will
See me rise, out of fact and friction, Sacrifice
Raise your hands

Truth of prophecies is always in your hands
When you heed her words and do as she commands
Seals your fate and your memorial it stands
All the world ablaze I'll set and you will
See me rise, out of fact and friction, Sacrifice
Raise your hands for my lore
And legend of these lands

Bound upon the ground until the
Day the sun will go away
Three winters snow falls in a row;
Your bonds will break from me

Skelvur jørðin øll og rapa bjørg og fjøll
Brýtur hav um lond og slitena so øll bond

So you stand before the breaking of the world
Gather all your strength in vain for you will
See me rise, out of fact and friction, Sacrifice
Raise your hands for my lore
And legend of these lands

End, it has begun, now I am free,
Your ending sails with me
My serpent son stirs up the sea;
The Ship of Nails breaks free.

But hey, let’s go back a while. “Orca” (http://www.box.net/shared/ummnri34yf) by Wintersleep is, to me, the best “I want to be ‘normal’ but suspect I am in fact a shapeshifting cuckoo with horrible teeth (and probably a very small Frost Giant, to boot)” song imaginable, poetic and despairing and arrogant all at once, but also scary. And catchy.;)

I'll be a killer whale when i grow up
I'll be a vulture
I'll be an animal
A carnivore
I'll be a monster
Clenching my jagged jaws
Over the capture
I'll be a killer whale when i grow up

I'll be a tidal wave when i grow up
Crashing on harbours
I'll be a tempermental element
A raging water
I'll be a perfect storm swallowing over
I'll be a killer whale when i grow up
I'll be a monster

I'll be a hurricane when i grow up
An ugly thunder
I'll be a forest fire about to flood
Over an empire
I'll be an avalanche chewing it's rupture
I'll be a killer whale when i grow up
I'll be a monster

I'll be a killer whale

And then there’s this song--”The Adversary” (http://www.box.net/shared/ycclqlsheq), by Crime & the City Solution, which is essentially about accepting/reveling in your sucky, sucky destiny--to be the villain the hero defines himself against. Man, it stinks to be an archetype amongst archetypes. As Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa puts it: “He wondered, was it Loki that brought Loki to this place, this moment...? Or were there other, darker forces at work...? Or was it simpler than that? Was the other, darker force...Loki, himself?”

You see me in a foreign face
In ships that sink without trace
In your father's doubt
Will he praise or shout?
Behind the burning cross
Begrudged imagined loss
When you run to me, run to me, run to me
You try to fly, but you cannot fly
You try to hide, but I'm by your side
You run from me, run from me, run from me
I am the adversary
I am the adversary
I am the adversary
I am your foe
I go where you go

Between ideals and fact
Between the thought and the act
You sink without trace
Grow to hate your face
Will you sell all you own
To sit in a shadow by a throne
Will you run to me, run to me, run to me?
You try to fly, but you cannot fly
You try to hide, but I'm by your side
You try to run from me, run from me, run from me
I am the adversary
I am the adversary
I am the adversary
I am your foe
I go where you go

You will see me behind every door
You need not look for me at all
To her I'm just another
To her I am unknown
On your shoulder her hands lightly rest
As she lets fall her soft summer dress
Without self-consciousness of floating off in sleep
Without intention triumphs amid all defeat
She moves in her own sheltered way
My invisible hands are not at play
To her I'm just another
To her I am unknown
From the cold snow into the water
To her I'm just another
To her I am unknown

(Run from me, run from me, run from me)
I am your foe
I go where you go

From a vey similar angle comes David Usher’s “Trickster” (http://www.box.net/shared/aq73szhixu), which is definitely Loki thinking himself in circles about how his very sense of self-definition requires Thor and the Aesir to exist: Without order, chaos is just messy and (worse still) boring. Because without fun (albeit often of a fairly poisonous variety), what’s the point?

I'm the trickster burn so brightly
I still hate you motherfuckers everyone
Wrapped in glory bound so tightly
I still crave you even when I'm overcome
Saved by the light
Let me go on let me go bright
To be saved by the light
Let me go on let me go bright

I'm the trickster burned so badly
I still hate you motherfuckers everyone
Wore my sickness so politely
I can't be your everything to everyone
Void of meaning swelled just slightly
I still need you I still need you
Gone forever so concisely
I still need you I still need you
Saved by the light
Let me go on let me go bright
To be saved by the light
Let me go on let me go bright

And if you hate the world
Let's say I've been there
And if you hate yourself
Well don't go changing
All the times I used your body
Done my way can't say I'm sorry
Ripped the gloss off all your memories
Consequences so demanding
Bruised and beaten
Conscience bleeding
Sexually, sexually, sexually

Saved by the light
Let me go on let me go bright
To be saved by the light
Let me go on let me go bright
And I'm saved by the light
Let me go on let me go bright
Let me go bright

Sometimes it’s just a tone, the same sprightly menace and invention you get in pieces like Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar’s “Ragas in Minor Scale” (http://www.box.net/shared/ppxq8jz7xi). That’s how “Gods and Monsters” (http://www.box.net/shared/bts4gmce8c), by I Am Kloot, comes in--it reminds me of Girloki sitting in some bar in Broxton, letting local good ol’ boys buy her drinks and telling them horrible things about predestination with a wide, literally enchanting smile. Just like when she turned that drunk guy’s hand to glass in Las Vegas, probably simply because he had the temerity to touch her cloak: Things aren’t as they seem, mortals. Enjoy the unpredictability.

Yearning, keep them burning, keep them earning
Someone’s got to pay for all these televisions
There's children singing, and church bells ringing,
and people skipping merrily to work and dreaming
and dreaming

For maybe, you'll wind up crazy, and when you're drinking
You may start thinking that you're stupid and you're lazy
Well just keep earning, keep on yearning,
and you will believe there are no gods and monsters
gods and monsters

So free of contradictions, no dereliction,
There are no gods and monsters
So useless and so pretty and so good
So pretty and so good, gods and monsters

Now have I got you watching, for all the gods and monsters
A-sitting, reclining in the back row of your mind
I think that’s what you'll find
Yes, there are gods and monsters
Yes, there are gods and monsters
Yes, there are gods and monsters

As with any new fandom, there are already songs that seem to have identified themselves with Thor/Loki as a ship, chief of which is the operatic “Set Fire To The Rain” by Adele, used to make this vid (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjDFmh7-918) and only saved from saccharine incoherence by her crazily old-souled voice. It’s pretty epic. But here are a few that remind me of brothers-who-aren’t and their various longings:

“The Moth” (http://www.box.net/shared/ubfo0z15ky), Aimee Mann
The moth don't care when he sees the flame
he might get burned but he's in the game
and once he's in he can't go back, and
beat his wings 'til he burns them black
no the moth don't care when he sees the flame
no the moth don't care when he sees the flame

the moth don't care if the flame is real
cuz flame and moth got a sweetheart deal
and nothing fuels a good flirtation
like need and anger and desperation
no the moth don't care if the flame is real
no the moth don't care if the flame is real

So come on let's go ready or not
cuz there's a flame I know hotter than hot
and with a fuse that’s so totally shot
away

the moth don't care if the flame burns low
cuz moth believes in an afterglow
and flames are never doused completely
all you really need is a love of heat
no, the moth don't care if the flame burns low
no, the moth don't care if the flame burns low

So come on let's go ready or not
cuz there's a flame I know hotter than hot
and with a fuse that’s so totally shot
away

Plus: “Empty” (http://www.box.net/shared/hi8yuop05m), Amanda Ghost
“Heavy in Your Arms” (http://www.box.net/shared/empvioeale), Florence + the Machine
“Ways To Be Wicked” (http://www.box.net/shared/015ron5qes), Lone Justice
“Judas (Goldfrapp Remix)” (http://www.box.net/shared/9x9la19l88), Lady Gaga

I have some other tunes that remind me of various recent Thor titles, most of which still show Asgard hovering marvelously over Oklahoma, where Kelda Windrider initiated her tragic love affair with short-order diner cook Bill, Born of Bills. Chief amongst these, however, has to be Ann Wilson’s cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song” (http://www.box.net/shared/e1omelsno9), which sounds like it’s being belted out at the Valhalla nightly karaoke contest. Which then makes me nostalgic for Bill and the Priest, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.;)