LILITU: The Unofficial Soundtrack

I've been asked before what music I listen to while writing, so here's the Unofficial Soundtrack for LILITU: THE MEMOIRS OF A SUCCUBUS.

I specify that it's strictly an Unofficial Soundtrack because this album is never going to be sold. If there was a movie, we'd have an actual original score. However, these are the songs that I associate with scenes and characters of my book. You can listen along while reading if you like.

I couldn't find all the songs I wanted on Spotify, so you'll have to make do with a YouTube playlist:

TRACKLIST:

1. ELEND - Overture

2. SEPTICFLESH - Lovecraft's Death

3. IGORRR - Tout Petit Moineau

4. MOONSPELL - Night Eternal

5. APOCALYPTICA FEAT. NINA HAGEN - Seemann

6. THE CURE - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

7. DIE FORM - InHuman

8. BELPHEGOR - Bluhtsturm Erotika

9. DIAMANDA GALAS - L'heautontimoroumenos

10. TORI AMOS - Raining Blood

11. VIRGIN BLACK - The Everlasting

12. CINEMA STRANGE - The Red and Silver Fantastique and the Libretto of the Insipid Minstrel

13. DARK SANCTUARY - La Clameur du Silence

14. DIMMU BORGIR - A Succubus In Rapture

I have not chosen these songs for their popularity. Indeed, I don't think you'd find a single one of them on the radio today (if ever). I have chosen them because, in my mind, they capture the atmosphere I'm going for, have lyrics that feel appropriate, or are even what I'd pick to play in the background for certain scenes if there was a hypothetical LILITU movie/show/whatever.

I'll go through each track and talk about why I chose to include it.

1. ELEND - Overture

"Thousands upon thousands come to us out from the depths of Hell..."

Elend is an underrated French Neo-classical/Gothic band that creates beautifully violent music. While writing LILITU, I frequently listened to two of their albums in particular--"THE UMBERSUN" and "A WORLD IN THEIR SCREAMS"--and could easily include any other song off of either of those albums on here, since they perfectly capture the epic, creepy, demonic vibe that the book is going for. I'm going with "Overture" because when I imagine a "LILITU" movie, this is what I hear coming over the studio logos: haunting female vocals, slowly leading to a crescendo and setting the spooky stage. It also works perfectly as an opening track for the album, leading perfectly into...

2. SEPTICFLESH - Lovecraft's Death

"You know too well that minds like yours can never rest in peace..."

The soundtrack kicks into high gear with the explosive second track, from the symphonic death metal titans known as Septicflesh. "Lovecraft's Death" combines classy symphonic elements with guitar riffs that snake to your ears like tentacles (which LILITU contains quite a lot of, as it turns out). The lyrics are all references to various H.P. Lovecraft stories. Mind you, since LILITU takes place in the 1870's, Lovecraft has yet to be born when the story begins, and modern readers are rightfully critical of his racism. Nonetheless, his stories were big influences on my own, and there's definitely some Lovecraft DNA to be found in LILITU. This, combined with the song's beautifully twisted atmosphere, makes "Lovecraft's Death" a perfect inclusion on the soundtrack.

3. IGORRR - Tout Petit Moineau

"Lovecraft's Death" ends with the tolling of funeral bells, leading smoothly into the Igorrr's unpredictable "Tout Petit Moineau." Like LILITU itself, it starts off by painting a picture of an almost-normal Victorian England. The piano, the harpsichord, the haunting baroque singing...there's something slightly off, but it's familiar enough to lull you into a false sense of security. Then the song becomes violent. The singing becomes screaming. The normalcy of Victorian life shatters. By the end of it, the instruments are creaking and warping under the weight of the change they've just undergone. This leads us to...

4. MOONSPELL - Night Eternal

"Night eternal, our world is burning / Bride eternal, our world is dying..."

Like "Lovecraft's Death," this is dark symphonic metal, creating the feeling of a spooky epic, and its apocalyptic lyrics connect to LILITU perfectly for reasons that will obvious to anyone who reads it.

5. APOCALYPTICA FEAT. NINA HAGEN - Seemann

"Come into my boat / A storm is coming, and it will be night / Where do you want to go, so totally alone?"

"Seemann" has the singer tempting a listener in need, drawing them into their boat--an obvious sexual metaphor--so that they can weather a coming storm. Much of LILITU is about loneliness and sexual temptation, and the song title also kind of works as a dirty joke here. I also considered Rammstein's amazing original, but decided to go with the Apocalyptica cover because the strings felt more Victorian, and Nina Hagen's passionate vocals make it into a woman's story rather than a man's.

6. THE CURE - This Is A Lie (Ambient Mix)

"How each of us believes / I've never really known / In heaven unseen and hell unknown / How each of us dreams to understand anything at all..."

This is a song about lies: about love, about religion, about fidelity--how we pretend to know everything about the world, pretend to love, and pretend to not feel suffocated. Without spoiling too much, there is a relationship at the heart of LILITU built upon a grand lie. The Ambient Mix/Palmer Mix is all strings, and once again has a classy Ballroom Waltz atmosphere that suits the book. I recommend putting this one on during Chapter Eleven.

7. DIE FORM - InHuman

"You give yourself up to the secret of my lips, and discover an urn to my Viscera..."

The creepy, sensual female vocals combine with the strings and dark electronic throbbing to make this song feel perfectly appropriate for a succubus. This is another song about dark temptation, and those who finish the book may find other appropriate motifs in it as well.

8. BELPHEGOR - Bluhtsturm Erotika

"Bloodstorm Erotica, your heart is racing, insatiable..."

This grindy blackened death metal track is erotic, blasphemous, and bloody. It's a song for demons. It's placed here for pacing reasons, to punch up excitement with some metal just before we delve into the full-on nightmare territory of the album's second half, starting with...

9. DIAMANDA GALAS - L'heautontimoroumenos

"My desire, that hope has made monstrous, will frolic in your tears..."

All I'm going to say is, put this song on during Chapter Sixteen.

10. TORI AMOS - Raining Blood

"Trapped in purgatory / A lifeless object, alive..."

Tori Amos's creepy piano cover of Slayer's "Raining Blood" plays in my head during some of Chapter Seventeen, and that's all I'm going to say about that.

11. VIRGIN BLACK - The Everlasting

"Please give me my peace..."

Virgin Black's nearly-20-minute opus takes you on a nightmarish journey, from spooky pianos to violent guitars. Although it has its own story to tell (that of the singer being haunted by an unstoppable pursuer), there are sequences of LILITU that, in my mind, have parts of this song in the background. The epilogue to the song swells with a sense of loss, before moving on to a foreboding outro that seamlessly transitions into...

12. CINEMA STRANGE - The Red and Silver Fantastique and the Libretto of the Insipid Minstrel

"I was painted red and silver / Now I'm filthy, lost my dollar, and my dog, he rots!"

For some reason, I always think of Loretta when I hear this song.

13. DARK SANCTUARY - La Clameur du Silence

"May the shadow that I am finally vanish into nothingness..."

Other than Elend and Virgin Black, Dark Sanctuary was one of the bands I most frequently listened to while writing LILITU. They put to mind the image of being in a cemetery mausoleum, while it rains outside. You are mourning, but there is a dark beauty to the world around you. "La Clameur du Silence" was always on the soundtrack to this book, in my head. The placement is significant because the last few songs have taken us further and further down the tunnel of nightmares, and this song feels like coming out through the other end--only for you to sorrowfully contemplate all that you've been through, and yearn for peace after years of torment.

14. DIMMU BORGIR - A Succubus In Rapture

"A serenade made out of black magic / She has learned to set souls afire / And makes sure that you never / Will leave its trance / Her diabolical beauty / Enchants your bewildered mind..."

Of course, there was no way that this Dimmu Borgir's classic track wasn't going to end up here. It's simply one of the best succubus songs ever written, and the perfect closer. Think of this as what goes over the end credits.

That's it for now. Hope you enjoyed!