Bloodlust - aeseaes
if I have one Nickimand song and no others, it’s this one! It’s this one in a way that’s almost unsettlingly perfect. From the first verse’s appeal to the painted figure at the foot of the stage (because A: literal stage, and B: Lestat looms so large over both of them), to the final line being “cut off my hands and watch me try to undress”. How many ships can say there’s literal hand cutting off? I wouldn’t call it a happy song, but I would call it very them.
All the Rowboats - Regina Spector
This one, I feel like, is the fascinating combination of art and the violin references, which are a repeated motif, perhaps unsurprisingly given Nicki’s character, but also of the half-mortality. There’s the “living dead” line, the “forever, forever and a day”. That whole verse where it talks about museums feels like it works exceptionally well for the theatre, because in a lot of ways, they theatre is what became of the children of darkness, taken from a graveyard. It’s no less a tomb. Art and a subpar immortality: it sounds familiar.
Valentine - Fiona Apple
This one might, in truth, be making them a little too soft, but once again, I think it captures the sense of stagnation that characterizes a lot of the vampires. They’re talented, they’re beautiful, but they’re not alive anymore. And for these two in specific, the “fugitive too dull to flee” feels… fitting. Neither Armand or Nicki leave the theatre, even if they could. And it’s even canon that they did learn to care for each other, in some way,
Agony (acoustic) - Paloma Faith
I do love the sense of the singer knowing it’s a tragedy, that this can’t end well really—and amusingly, the “no time to waste”, despite being a contrast from my focus on the eternal nature of vampirism, works with these two because all things considered, a decade isn’t… long. “Take me home and use me” isn’t exactly giving winning romance either, let’s be real, and neither are these two.
Home - AliceBanD
My logic for this one is several fold! From the very start you can see the ideas about Nicki and the theatre; Nicki dies in a pyre, and so too, does the theatre go down in flames much later on (“everything you made will end up broken”). The rest of the song, with it’s increasing tempo feels like it reflects a lot of their dynamic. By the end of the decade, surely they must know of each other, but at the same time, it’s created a sort of rising tension that eventually crests. They’ve spent too long working alongside each other, with all the… complicated aspects that includes. The “cheap thoughts and cheap addresses” just feels like a fun tie in to the fact that the theatre isn’t in a… well-to and well respected part of the city, and the plays aren’t exactly high art, so much as a farce to feed. It all comes to a heard where neither of them will do what the other wants (“I will lay the table but I will not sing”), essentially Nicki won’t capitulate to Armand’s… everything in the wake of the children of darkness.
Cairo - San Fermin
Okay, so this one is a bit of a cheat song, in part because it is, quite potentially, just one of my favourite song for Armand his his various complicated relationships. One again, we have to acknowledge the Lestat shaped absence that defines a lot of them–but he’s not the one there. It didn’t “turn out right”, but it’s Armand and Nicki who are living together, who are trapped in this, overall, short lived period, the “28 days of delirium” or ten years, but it’s close enough! The verse about leaching blood is fitting, given part of Nicki’s problem was the inconspicuous consumption, the fact that he was drawing attention to them.
Center of the Sun - Conjure One, Rhys Fulber
The violins come back! Referentially at least. Generally, I do not find Nicki’s death the most interesting part of he and Armand’s relationship (a. Irony given we know next to nothing about the bulk of it in the middle, but I digress). But I think this one works—it’s both the escape from the hurt—on the pyre, nothing can hurt Nicki anymore, and it might not be a sun, but it is a bright ball of purifying fire that kills a vampire.
Between the bars - Elliott Smith
We have to get at least some more of the concerning elements of their relationship in here! I think the song’s opening on the unfulfilled potential works for both Nicki and Armand, but especially for Nicki who doesn’t even get the benefit of centuries. And a bit further, that sense of Nicki being kept “separate from the rest” has some truth to it, in part because Nicki, unless like the others, was never a member of the children of Darkness under Armand. He is only introduced at the very end of that era.
Youth - Daughter
I admit, the “destroy the middle it’s a waste of time” very well might be the thing that really cinched this song on the playlist for me, because, at least in the canon, we know the start and end of their relationship, and very little, all things considered, of the middle. The second half of the song, and the first verse where it mentions the “lovers that went wrong”, as is so often the case with these two, can be a lampshade of Lestat. “And one will die before he gets there” seems a little bit obvious.
In The Woods Somewhere - Hozier
A bit of an expected entry to the list, but one I really like! This one, as opposed to some that re more early Armand and Nicki’s relationship closer to the end, this one us the exact opposite, and is their relationship right at the start surrounding Nicki’s turning. The theatre becomes the something in the woods.
Narcissistic Cannibal - EarlyRise
More sort of angsty things set nearer to the end of Nicki’s life. The cannibal reference is both a fun reference to the fact that they’re vampires ( along with “got to bring myself back from the dead”) but also the way that their relationship, at least the pieces we see are… messy. “Nothing’s good about the hell you put me through” could be true! And, I suspect, is more so than not. Would any good moments be able to blot out the overwhelming issues that are the start and end of their relationship?
And a few bonus songs that didn’t make the cut onto the playlist itself, but still work in some ways or another:
Lay of the Ashes - SYR
Vampyre Erotica - Inkubus Sukkubus
Curses - The Crane Wives
