LIKE REAL PEOPLE DO: A SHAYID PLAYLIST
→ insp // with credits to @plumjamz and @shayid-brainrot and this post
I will not ask you where you came from / I will not ask and neither should you / Honey just put your sweet lips on my lips / We should just kiss like real people do
playlist//songs⇣⇣⇣⇣
EDGE OF DESIRE by John Mayer // This is a song I’ve been obsessed with since I first heard it on a playlist from @shayid-brainrot and though there are lyrics in it that I think could be attributed to Shannon and Sayid – young and full of running / tell me where is that taking me? / just a great figure eight / or a tiny infinity? – I put this in Sayid’s playlist purely for the line – I want you so bad I'll go back on the things I believe – because so much of Sayid’s internal battle is the intrinsic belief that he’s bad and has been searching for forgiveness for so long, but he opens up with Shannon in a way that doesn’t ask for forgiveness or redemption, he simply just exists with and for her. It’s almost as if he wants her so badly he’ll go back on believing himself to be the bad guy, he’s forgiving himself and starting over.
GIVE A DAMN by A Rocket to the Moon // This song (and all their songs on this playlist) are so 2000s teen movie coded which make them perfect for Shannon. This song especially seems to describe a girl who fits exactly the stereotype Shannon does when we first meet her and the stereotype others project onto her – she lives at night and sleeps all day / she'll dance and drink her life away / she gets what she wants and doesn't quit / she might as well get paid for it / tight shirts and mini skirts / her family's rich so she'll never work – all lyrics that have expertly described Shannon at one point or another by Boone and Sabrina.
GEORGIA by Vance Joy // This and The Night We Met by Lord Huron are songs I had on a ship playlist for my last otp (another death trope, what can I say?) and I love them. Unlike a lot of the other songs on this playlist, this one to me represents Sayid in the before and after of Shannon’s death. Lips generous and warm / You build me up like steps / Eyes innocent and wild / Remind me what it's like – and then it falls into the bridge – I never understood what was at stake / I never thought your love was worth its weight / Well, now you've come and gone /I’ve finally worked it out, I worked it out. It goes on to speak of regret, of opening oneself up to love and burdening one with all their secrets that turns the other away which I think speaks to Sayid's guilt and his shame in relationships and perhaps why they've never lasted long.
BLESS THE BROKEN ROAD by Rascal Flatts // Every long-lost dream led me to where you are / Others who broke my heart, they were like Northern stars / Pointing me on my way into your loving arms / This much I know is true / That God blessed the broken road / That led me straight to you – This song probably doesn’t even count as a Shayid song so much as a Lost song (same with Like Real People Do) it dives deep into the thematic premise of the show and the concept of fate bringing them together on this island and helping them find their lovers, and for Sayid and Shannon specifically, their arcs are so deeply connected to their love for each other and the love bestowed upon them that helps them find their purpose. cred to @plumjamz for this song!
SIGH NO MORE by Mumford & Sons // A Sayid song – Love, it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you / It will set you free / Be more like the man you were made to be – he’s a romantic at heart, forced to be a soldier, forced to throw away his life for his country. His relationship with Shannon opens him up to the man he was meant to be, a lover not a fighter, a sensitive soul and not a repressed one. He uses his hands to build her a shelter, to take her on a picnic, to make love to her instead of using them for violence, or using them to prove himself a hero to people who are ungrateful for what he does.
BLACK FRIDAY by Tom Odell // This song feels like a conversation between the two of them. The first edit of them I ever saved was to this song, so it has a special place in my heart. I wanna go party, I wanna have fun / I wanna be happy, could you show me how it's done? / You look so pretty, pretty like the sun / I could watch forever while you shine on everyone – are lyrics that feel reminiscent of how Sayid sees Shannon, that she is so full of youth and joy while also being so sad and broken and that she opens him up to a brightened, relaxed demeanour on the island during their relationship (at least when it’s going well). I wanna better body, I want better skin / I wanna be perfect like all your other friends / I'm so selfish, you're so kind – all feel like Shannon lyrics that touch upon firstly her insecurities and secondly her fear of action, the perfection of Sayid’s other friends being Kate and Jack who are competent and active as opposed to Shannon who sees herself as useless and worthless while seeing Sayid as good and selfless.
FRAGILE by Laufey // A Shannon song. The opening lyrics harken to the reality of their crash on the beach and her blossoming relationship with Sayid in the chaos of not knowing when they’ll be rescued and if they’ll ever see each other again. Will you let me come closer to you / I know that you're older, but what can I do / I leave in the morning I'll forget that I am surely falling / I’ve never been so fragile – Shannon opens up on the island, she lets her walls down and we see how fragile she really is compared to the tough, careless exterior she presents.
SOMETHING TELLS ME by BAILEN // another shoutout to @shayid-brainrot for this one. There are so many lyrics in this one that I love, especially including – Do you think you're the only one with secrets / The only one who holds them near / The only one who's hiding here? / Something tells me / I could fall in love with you – it reminds me of Sawyer and Kate as well, in a way, and I do consider those relationships linked in their dynamics of having sassy blonde con artists paired up with brunettes with mysterious, dark pasts who are lost in the world with nowhere to settle down. They all have their secrets, they’re all hiding from themselves on the island, and some of them take the opportunity to start over and be somebody new.
THE PROPHECY by Taylor Swift // Please I've been on my knees / Change the prophecy / Don't want money / Just someone who wants my company / Let it once be me / Who do I have to speak to / About if they can redo the prophecy? – a song that very much brings to mind the feelings Sayid’s storyline over the seasons stirs, a man who just wants to love and be loved but is constantly losing his every chance at this. I imagine that if the show ever cared to delve into his actual psychology and feelings towards this beyond wanting to murder Ben and blow up the island for a chance to start over, maybe there would be religious connotations or some kind of sense of karma in the way he sees his fate.
NOBODY by Hozier // This is such a standout Shannon song to me because here Hozier sings of some of the finest riches, expensive tastes and living the wildest life in the relationships of his past but nothing compares to the love he has now. Shannon has lived a wild life before Sayid and the island, she’s a party girl, she dated rich men who likely showered her with expensive things in exchange for sex and company, but none of it compares to what she finds on the island with Sayid.
USE SOMEBODY by Kings of Leon // I have a deeply biased love for mid-2000s alternative rock (see The Killers also being in this playlist) But the opening and finishing lines – I've been roaming around / Always looking down at all I see – are reminiscent of Sayid’s life before the island. You know that I could use somebody / Someone like you, and all you know, and how you speak – these lines calling back to the way Sayid was so lost before the island searching for forgiveness that what he needed wasn’t forgiveness from another but for himself to move on. It’s his love for Shannon that helps him step out of that self-hatred and regret for the past and into looking forward to the future.
& so many more <3
