1. “With your ghost underneath the boat
What was you is now burnt bones
And I cannot be at home
I’m running, grief flailing”
Viola’s grief over Sebastian’s apparent death is not emphasized at all in the original play, it seems a sacrifice in service of getting to the comedy more efficiently. The film, on the other hand, does take more time to dramatize their relationship and Viola’s feelings after he appears to have drowned. In either case, it seems likely that regardless if it’s shown, Viola must be facing some feelings of grief and difficulty at moving past her loss. A Crow Looked At Me is an album that really expresses the emotional difficulty of moving past the loss of a loved one. Phil Elverum, recording under the moniker Mount Eerie, wrote the album in the aftermath of the death of his wife to cancer, and it is a heartbreakingly intimate encapsulation of his grief and struggle to move forward. Even though it’s not really in the text, I feel like this song really captures some of the emotions Viola would have been feeling having just presumably lost her twin brother. I’m not wholly sure about including this song because it feels tonally out of sync with the rest of the playlist as well as the play itself. Was Viola really haunted by memories of her brother as the narrator is in the song? Even if she is resolutely holding on to the idea that her brother might be alive, it doesn’t ring emotionally true to me for her to not grieve in the slightest. Regardless, I feel this is song that would resonate with her at least a little bit.
2. “Girls who are boys who like boys to be girls
Who do boys like they’re girls, who do girls like they’re boys
Always should be someone you really love”
I included Boy and Girls largely for its chorus, which I believe succinctly captures the atmosphere of frivolity and the complex layers of deception and attraction that characterize much of the play. This song first sprang to mind in relation to Twelfth Night when I acted out a scene (Olivia and Viola’s first meeting) at the Shakespeare Tavern. In that scene, I was a boy pretending to be a girl who is pretending to be a boy talking to a boy pretending to be a girl who found themselves attracted to a boy who was actually a girl. All I could think of while I was playing the scene was this song. So it seemed a really appropriate song for both the play as a whole and Viola specifically. I also love how unjudgmental the song is about the sort of gender bending free for all it describes, as it says that it’s all okay, so long as long as it’s with someone you really love, which Viola I think would 100% agree with.
3. You could be me and I could be you
Always the same and never the same
Day by day, life after life
Without my legs or my hair
Without my genes or my blood
With no name and with no type of story
Where do I live?
Tell me, where do I exist?
We’re just
[Chorus]
Im-ma-ma-material, immaterial
Immaterial boys, immaterial girls
One of the main themes of SOPHIE’s work, especially on this album, is the mutability of identity, especially with regards to gender. This song in particular, captures a feeling of joy and euphoria at the limitless possibilities that come with disregarding strict limits on identity and gender, and embracing the possibilities that come with the recognition of our freedom to be anything we want. These themes I think connect well to Viola’s decision to embrace a male identity. Her decision to do this doesn’t have any apparent plot motivation, but I imagine Viola taking a page from this song and, having found a place where no one knows her – she takes the opportunity to reinvent herself. In doing so, she plays with the bounds of gender identity, much like SOPHIE does in this song. She has, effectively, “no name” and “no type of story” and as a result can be anything she wants. SOPHIE revels in this freedom, and I believe Viola does as well.
4. White noise, what an awful sound
Fumbling by Rogue River
Feel my feet above the ground
Hand of God, deliver me
Oh, oh woe-oh-woah is me
The first time that you touched me
Oh, will wonders ever cease?
Blessed be the mystery of love
How much sorrow can I take?
Blackbird on my shoulder
And what difference does it make
When this love is over?
Shall I sleep within your bed
River of unhappiness
Hold your hands upon my head
Till I breathe my last breath
Mystery of Love is a song that beautifully encapsulates simultaneously both the heady rush of a new love, and the pain that comes when that love is not returned. This is an emotional state that I believe would resonate with Viola as she dealt with the incredibly emotionally difficult situation she finds herself in, in which she is in love with Orsino, and at the same time wooing another woman on his behalf. You can hear this in the lyrics, the beautiful subtle guitar line that runs through the piece, the gorgeous piano, and Sufjan’s delicate, whispery vocals.
5. “O love as long as love you can,
O love as long as love you may,
The time will come, the time will come
When you will stand at the grave and mourn!
Be sure that your heart burns,
And holds and keeps love
As long as another heart beats warmly
With its love for you”
“O lieb, so lang du lieben kannst” – Ferdinand Freiligrath
This gorgeous piece by Liszt is entirely instrumental, but it was inspired by a poem, which I have quoted above, and which gives insight into Liszt’s intention in writing it. The piece to me has always expressed a deep passionate love, and the poem it is originally based upon expresses a similar sentiment. Liebestraume translates to something like “Love’s Dream.” It’s a passionate, moving, stunningly beautiful piece that builds to a powerful emotional climax, and I think Viola would find solace in it while ruminating on her impossible love for Orsino. It is also a song I could easily imagine Orsino resonating with, it could very well be what he’s listening to as he delivers his “If music be the food of love” monologue. But while Viola would perhaps better understand the sort of deep, unconditional love that’s described in the original poem, Orsino might also find within it a reflection of his own, much more superficial, melancholic lovesickness.
“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?
We men may say more, swear more, but indeed
Our shows are more than will; for still we prove
Much in our vows but little in our love” (2.5.124-130).
Viola lays out her idea of what love should be in this passage, which to me perfectly aligns with the vision of love expressed in Liszt’s piece. In particular the phrase “smiling at grief” is a perfect description of the emotional state Liebestraume expresses in its exquisite melancholy. When I listen to this song I feel this same emotion, of loving someone who cannot love you in return, but with a passion so deep that you do not care. Crucially, in this passage, she is explaining this to Orsino, who does not seem to understand, and so just as they have differing interpretations of what love should be, I feel they would have different relationships to this piece.
6. [Verse 2]
The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep, they wait for you
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinking from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you
[Chorus]
I want you, I want you
Yes I want you, so bad
Honey, I want you
One of the aspects of I Want You that makes it such a compelling and beguiling song is the contrast between the lyrical content of the verses as opposed to the chorus. The verses are typical 60s Dylan: oblique, surreal, and populated by a menagerie of strange characters, including the “Drunken Politician” “The Queen of Spades” and the “Guilty Undertaker.” But out of these strange verses comes a plain spoken, straight forward, desperate declaration of love that rings pure and true. This contrast, to me, perfectly captures Viola’s affections for Orsino. In the midst of all of the play’s foolery, strange characters, switched identities, and misperceptions, Viola holds a deep and abiding love for Orsino. A love he clearly does not deserve in the slightest, but that’s another story. Her feelings stand in contrast to the fickle and fanciful affections of the other characters in the play such as Olivia and Orsino, who switch their loves as easily as they change their clothes. Like Dylan’s chorus, Viola expresses a conception of love that cuts through the nonsense and expresses something real and true.
7. Every time I think of you
I feel shot right through with a bolt of blue
It’s no problem of mine, but it’s a problem I find
Livin’ a life that I can’t leave behind
There’s no sense in telling me
The wisdom of the fool won’t set you free
But that’s the way that it goes and it’s what nobody knows
Well, every day my confusion grows
Every time I see you falling
I get down on my knees and pray
I’m waiting for that final moment
You say the words that I can’t say
This song finds its narrator, much like Viola, stuck in a bizarre love triangle. In particular the line “the wisdom of the fool wont set you free” as particularly apropos to Twelfth Night. It’s a song that captures the confusing emotions and frustrations Viola experiences as she navigates the situation in which she finds herself. She finds herself desperately confused and waiting for that final moment in which time will untangle the knot she herself cannot untie. Additionally, the scene in which Orsino’s talks about Cesario’s beauty seems aptly summed up by “You say the words I can’t say.”