Music Mix: Playlist from 2012 – “Sunrise Serpent”

“Sunrise Serpent” – Music Mix from 2012 with Fiona Apple, A Perfect Circle, and More!

This mix was mentioned in a recent podcast about my upcoming novel, “Remember Me, Nothing” because it inspired the 3^rd part of the 6-part novel, the first chapter of which is called Brass Jazz.

The Serpent Beneath the Skin

This mix begins where the chapter begins: with a body that’s no longer entirely your own. “Under My Skin” by Michael Buble and “Hell” by Squirrel Nut Zippers set the tone for that first rupture: the moment the main character realizes the parasite isn’t just inside him, it’s shaping him. The castle he is trapped in is a cursed one. These opening tracks feel like the pulse of that panic, the jittery swing of a man engulfed by some evil force.

The Beach of False Faces

After the serpent slips out of his arm, it take the shape of a loved one, a former lover, but this creature doesn’t speak. “You Know I’m No Good” by Amy Whitehouse represents this moment before he leaves the castle and she chases him. “Every Single Night” by Fiona Apple echoes the emotional dissonance of loving someone who is no longer real. The beach is a trap disguised as comfort, a place where longing becomes hallucination. And when he discovers the ocean is bourbon, the playlist tilts into delirium. “Waltz (Better Than Fine)” – another song by Fiona Apple and “Dirge” by Death in Vegas soundtrack the slow unraveling: days lost to intoxication, grief blurred into ritual, the kind of drunken clarity that feels profound… but isn’t.

The Dragon in the Deep

Sobriety arrives when another stranger, trapped like him, makes a visit. This leads to a decision to  build a boat, leave the island, and see where it leads. “Sail” by AWOL Nation is the anthem for this. But the serpent doesn’t stay human; it becomes a dragon stalking the shoreline, then diving into the bourbon sea to chase him. “Mountain Man” by Crash Kings thrashes with the panic of the pursuit, and then, to Soundgarden’s “Black Hole Sun,” the sun rises behind them like an omen. When the boat shatters and he’s thrown into the burning rain, Puscifer’s “Man Overboard” becomes the soundtrack of surrender. He remembers the person the serpent once resembled with Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” — and chooses destruction over possession. Lighting the ocean on fire to “Set Fire to the Rain” by Adele, the song becomes literal, not metaphor.

The Afterlife of Memory

Death is never the end for the main character Brain, as seen in Chapter 1: The Perpetual Veils of Preposterous Illusion. “We Are Young” by FUN ushers him into another dimension, where his old love sits at a bar beside a new partner wearing sunglasses indoors, an absurd and devastating symbol. The rest of the playlist drifts through longing, regret, and the ache of remembrance: “Orestes” by A Perfect Circle, “Rooster” by Alice in Chains, and “Heroin Girl” by Everclear. These songs are the emotional residue of the chapter, the echo of everything he tried to kill but carried with him anyway. And then, finally, “Bad Things” by Jace Everett snaps the mix back to life — even more fitting that is was the theme song for “True Blood,” a show about vampires – it creates a jolt of electricity and dirty signal for a spiritual revival.

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