This sounds amazing, so let’s give it a go:
Blue Bayou by Linda Rondstadt
John Wayne Gacy Jr by Sufjan Stevens
I’ll Dream of You Again by Harry Connick Jr
Clark Gable by The Postal Service
The Story by Brandi Carlile
Concept: A women returns to the town of her birth, searching for her real father, wanting to connect to her past so she can feel like she belongs. It does not go as planned. Ahem.
The story begins with the girl waxing quixotic about this idyllic place (BLUE BAYOU), a place she’s pieced together with the faintest of memories and waking dreams. It’s a sleepy little town, the sort of place where everyone knows each other. A place with history. And she hopes that history includes her. She feels that if she can just get back there, she can feel connected to something. She can find happiness.
After saving everything she has, she finally makes it there. As she makes her way about town, it’s not quite the friendly place she remembers. The community seems close, but definitely NOT welcoming of an outsider, even if she claims she came from there. The librarian with the scarred face agrees, reluctantly, to help her sort through records and old newspapers in hopes of finding her familial connection, but in exchange for her help restoring the library’s vast garden. When the records lead nowhere, he agrees to help her talk to some of the older townspeople and finally, she discovers who her father is. Sadly, he’s not the man she hoped.
Her father died in prison, sent there after it was discovered that despite being a beloved member of the local community, he was in reality a serial abuser and killer - 27 known victims, many of whom were found buried under his house. (JOHN WAYNE GACY JR)
She breaks down at the revelation. Having so long pinned her hopes on finding herself through her family and her original home, she wonders what this means for her. If she came from someone so deceptive and cruel, what does that say about her?
Through all of this she continues to help the librarian with the garden, as she promised, never once trying to get out of it, even when he releases her from her obligation. The librarian, having always been awkward with people, finds himself dreaming about her, and starts to feel like he might be falling for this woman. Assuming she would never return his feelings, he keeps it to himself, content with his dreams. (I’LL DREAM OF YOU AGAIN)
Our lovely protag is not only brokenhearted, but also broke. She spent everything she had to make it back “home”, so she asks the librarian if he would allow her to be a caretaker for the grounds in exchange for a small room above the library. He of course agrees.
As the two of them continue to spend time around each other, she tells him her fears - that she’s afraid of what it means to be the child of the killer. That she’ll never find love or happiness if people know where she comes from.
He surprises her one evening by setting up a scene from her favorite movie in the garden. She humors him and plays along. (CLARK GABLE) When it’s over, he plays the scene back for her and asks her what she thinks. She tells him it was lovely and fun but it wasn’t real. He agrees and tells her that maybe she needs to stop living her life based on a made up image in her head of what it should have been.
He tells her that everyone has their stories - even dark ones - but they don’t have to define them.
He reveals to her that the scars on his face came from very nearly being one of her father’s victims. He got away, but the things he saw and experienced made him feel like he could never be loved or accepted. And he made his peace with that. He traveled and he had his library and the gardens and that was enough.
But something changed all that.
Being with her made him realize that all the books and travels meant nothing without someone to share them with. (THE STORY) He tells her that whether or not she loves him didn’t matter, but that she should know that she is loved.
….and it’s a really good thing it was only FIVE songs because I don’t know how I would have ended this with ‘E Eats Everything’. (I really need to take the kids’ music off my phone)
stormborns
titsay
vaporwave
