1. This song is about a love that cannot be shown outside. The song talks about loving someone so much but not being able to show it and wondering why they cannot show their love for everyone to see. For instance, the lyrics ask
“But we know this, we got a love that is hopeless Why can’t you hold me in the street?
Why can’t I kiss you on the dancefloor? I wish that it could be like that
Why can’t we be like that? Cause I’m yours….”
In Twelfth Night, Viola is in love with Orsino, but could not say it or outwardly express it with him because she was dressed and perceived as a man. In a conversation between Viola (dressed as Cesario), and Orsino, Viola asks
“A blank, my lord. She never told her love, But let concealment, like a worm i’ th’ bud,
Feed on her damask cheek. She pined in thought, And with a green and yellow melancholy
She sat like Patience on a monument,
Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?”
This shows how she was falling in love with Orsino but could not tell him and kept it a secret. It seems very in tune with the mood of the song.
2. This song although in Korean, speaks about an unrequited love. The song has lyrics that express wishfulness, like “If only I could run through time and grow up…” showing the longingness of unrequited love. In Twelfth Night, when Orsino asked Viola if she loved anyone and she described someone like Orsino, Orsino replied saying that she should go for someone younger. Because the age difference was brought up, this song came to mind as it talks about wanting to run through time and grow up to be able to be with the person they love. It feels suitable to how Viola might have felt after hearing that response from Orsino.
3. Viola physically dressed up as a man and lived as a man for a while. This song talks about how if a girl was a boy and how they would treat and love a girl from the other perspective. This song came to mind because Viola was perceived as a man by Olivia when she was delivering those love confessions from Orsino. The way she expressed herself to Olivia must have stood out to Olivia as the cliché “different from other guys.” It relates to how the lyrics of “If I Were a Boy” say “If I were a boy I think I could understand, … How it feels to love a girl I swear I’d be a better man I’d listen to her ‘Cause I know how it hurts.” Because Viola is a girl herself, she can put herself in Olivia’s shoes and appear more appealing than the typical “man.”
4. This song talks about a love that the singer secretly has that she wants to tell the person. It talks about how the distance between the two people gets closer and closer and asks “Do you also have special feelings for me,” which is similar to when Viola starts to have feelings for Orsino and could not exactly tell him. Some of the lyrics in this song felt like they could represent Viola’s love for her brother, Sebastian. For instance, “the distance between us seems so far and so close.” These siblings shared a great love but they, unfortunately, got separated. These lyrics seem to symbolize how they physically got separated by the shipwreck, but then slowly reunited with one another. While this sibling relationship may not be unrequited love, it seems like an unconditional love that cannot be expressed as Viola’s identity is hidden and Sebastian’s whereabouts are unknown.
5. This song has a darker mood for a song with a message of telling your love to your loved ones before it is too late and an asteroid crashed into the Earth. This felt fitting for the scene when Orsino thought Cesario betrayed him and married Olivia behind his back. The lyrics, “right when we start to have frequent clashes, you’ve already turned your back on me,” are the most representative of this feeling. It seems as if it would be something Viola might listen to as she gets ready to be sentenced to death, and prepares to confess her love to Orsino. The lyrics “So before this asteroid hits the earth in about a day Let me tell you my last words…” express this feeling very well as Viola wants to tell Orsino everything before she goes to her death.
6. This song is part of an original soundtrack of a Korean drama. It felt like it could be part of Viola’s playlist because the lyrics feel as if the singer just realized their feelings and want to tell them to the person they love. The lyrics say “ I try to go with the flow but You’ve grown so big in my life Is this love?” These lines exactly represent the feeling of spending so much time with someone, as Viola has with Orsino, that they’ve become such an important part of your life and one day you wonder if it could be love. Furthermore, the lyrics apologize to the recipient of the song, “I’m sorry but I need to love you right now,” feel very attuned to the fact that Viola is living as Cesario and technically cannot have a public relationship with Orsino. It gives a wishful, desperate, and almost helpless mood for her love.
7. For the last song in the playlist, I wanted to end it on a more upbeat and positive note. This song is very encouraging and can be a song that cheers Viola on. A song to encourage her to live her best life and achieve everything she wants as well as her love. The song starts off saying “I got pushed, I got washed ashore,” which is basically what happened to Viola— literally. Then the lyrics start talking about continuing with your life even though there are obstacles in the way, but finding people and persevering through the journey together. I thought this song was suitable for the last song in the playlist because Viola had to conceal her identity and live on after getting shipwrecked. It feels like a good way to end off when everything beforehand was a little more sad, this last song can uplift her to continue living on.