New Moon Soundtrack: My Picks

When Catherine Hardwicke did her audio commentary for the Twilight soundtrack on a special imeem soundsessions she talked about playing homage to Stephenie Meyer, her playlists and the music that inspired the book.  In doing so Hardwicke made sure to include the band Muse, Linkin Park, and the song Tremble For My Beloved by Collective Soul.

There has been a lot of talk on the Twilight fansites about the New Moon soundtrack and which songs people think should make it onto the soundtrack to the Twilight sequel, but instead I want to look at what songs or bands from Meyer’s playlists should make it onto the soundtrack if Chris Weitz also decides to pay homage to the author.

Using the same formula from the Twilight soundrack I picked three songs.  One song is a song that Meyer used on her New Moon playlist and the other two are just songs from bands that Meyer featured on her playlists.

The first song, which was featured on Meyer’s New Moon playlist is Evanescence’s My Immortal.  I feel both the mood of the song as well as some of the lyrics are quite fitting with Bella’s loss of Edward.

“I’m so tired of being here
Suppressed by all my childish fears
And if you have to leave
I wish that you would just leave
Because your presence still lingers here
And it won’t leave me alone
These wounds won’t seem to heal
This pain is just too real
There’s just too much that time cannot erase”

My second pick is the band Brand New.  Meyer relied heavily on the band Muse in her New Moon playlist which left for slim pickings and many of the bands I just felt didn’t fit the mood of New Moon.  I decided to go with a different song from Brand New because I felt lyrically it simply fit the storyline better.  Brand New’s Not the Sun tells the story of wanting someone close to you to love you, but they don’t.  I felt it was very fitting through the eyes of Jacob.

“Well don’t be that note I can’t hold
Well don’t be that joke that I told and told ’til it got old
Don’t be that hand ’round my throat so I can’t breath
Say you’re my friend but why won’t you be my family?”

For my third and final choice I picked the Foo Fighters.  Again with slim pickins thanks to Stephenie Meyer’s limited selection of bands I had to go with a mix of gut and musical taste.  Again lyrics played a part in my choice, but ultimately this one came down to the music.  Come Back by Foo Fighters has an amazing instrumental break at 3:36 into the song that I feel could play well in the background of New Moon.  In my vision this break would probably work really well leading up to the reunion of Bella and Edward in Voltera as Alice and Bella struggle to find him. The instrumental break is followed by Dave Grohl yelling “I will come back, I will come back, I will come back to you.”  Quite fitting if I do say so myself.

Obviously there is no telling what choices will be made for the New Moon Soundtrack, but my hope is that it is as powerful as the Twilight Soundtrack was in terms of carrying the film.  For those interested I put together my New Moon soundtrack after I read the book.