“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
13. Tilly & the Wall, “Falling Without Knowing”
“Whatever happens now that I’ve changed / No one will ever stand in our way…”
The last song! I broke my own rule about never putting the same band twice on a soundtrack because I love the way this song ties in with the book.
“It’s just an ocean,” May whispered. “It’s just saltwater. We’ve got blood on our side, right?”
“Of course.” And I hugged her tighter.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
12. Sigur Rós, “Glosoli”
“Fara í ferðalag Og reika um stræti / Get ekki séð leið út Og svo nota stjörnurnar…”
These were some of the first words I ever wrote for this book, even though I had no idea how, where, or even if they would be used. How fitting that I get to remember them today, AMJ’s release day.
I hugged my sisters and they fit against my sides like two jigsaw pieces that would never fit anywhere else. I couldn’t imagine ever letting them go again, like releasing them would be to surrender the best parts of myself.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
11. Silversun Pickups, “Panic Switch”
“I’m waiting and fading and floating away…”
One of most pivotal scenes happens with this song on the radio.
The wind tangled my invisible hair and I started to laugh from sheer nerves. Only I could hear it, though. It sounded sort of crazed and sort of hysterical, and that’s when I knew that I was scared, too.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
10. Placebo, “Running Up That Hill” (Kate Bush cover)
“If I only could make a deal with God and get him to swap our places / I’d be running up that road, be running up that hill, be running up that building…”
I love how the beginning of this song sounds like someone’s panicked heart pounding in their chest.
I ran harder, the cold eucalyptus air filling my lungs and shoving me forward, crickets somewhere chanting a rhythm to match my furious pace. Go go go, I said in my head, trying to see straight even as the visions covered my eyes. Get there, get there, get there.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
9. John Mayer, “Free Fallin’” (live) (Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers cover)
“I wanna glide down over Mulholland / I want to write her name in the sky / I wanna free fall out into nothing / Oh, I’m gonna leave this world for a while…”
I know this song is written from a boy’s perspective, but these lines have always made think of May.
I didn’t have to look at him to know that he was gazing oddly at me. I could feel it on my skin, making me feel more visible than ever before. I wanted the whole world to feel how I felt just then, frustrated and stupid and tilted, like the world was off its axis but I was the only one flying out into the unknown.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
8. Oasis, “Falling Down”
“And if you won’t save me, please don’t waste my time…”
This song wasn’t even supposed to be on the soundtrack, but I found that I was listening to it all the time while writing certain parts of the book. Also, on a completely unrelated note, I really love the video.
If you needed a serving of repressed crazy, you could definitely swing by our house and pick up a slice, is what I’m saying. It’s like, my sisters thought that I couldn’t take care of myself, when really, they were the ones who didn’t have it together. The inmates were running the asylum.
The ride to school on Monday was long, thanks to April’s driving. I knew May was pissed because she didn’t even comment on it, just stayed huddled in the backseat, and when I finally turned on the radio to a song I like, a thought escaped her and made its way to me.
Outta here.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
7. Tilly & the Wall, “Lost Girls”
“In a world too unreal too behold, your innocence has faded / And since there is no end and no beginning / You will run, you will run, you will run…”
I always knew I’d write a story that was influenced by this song.
“What exactly did you think was going to happen? This isn’t television, June! This isn’t a movie! Giles and Buffy aren’t gonna appear and show us how to deal with our wonderful new powers!”
“April,” May started to say, uncovering her eyes with one hand to grab my arm, but I shook her off.
“Some fricking owl is not gonna come sailing through your bedroom window with a letter from Hogwarts!” I continued to rant. “There’s no Dumbledore! The Cullens aren’t gonna show up and invite you to come live with them in Forks! There’s nothing! This isn’t make-believe! This is it! It’s us and it’s only us.”
June’s eyes were filling with tears, but her voice didn’t even shake when she spoke. “It’s always only been us,” she whispered. “And it’s not working anymore.”
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
6. Justice vs. Simian, “We Are Your Friends”
“We are your friends! You’ll never be alone again, so c’mon!”
Writing about high school parties can be quite difficult when you never actually attended any high school parties. Fourteen-year-old June will not have that same problem.
I didn’t care what my sisters thought anymore. I was being invited to a party by Mariah. There were bigger and better things happening to me than my sisters’ lamebrains.
“So what kind of party is it?” I asked.
Mariah raised an eyebrow. “It’s the kind of party where people get trashed.” I could hear her mind silently asking the next question: “Hasn’t she ever been to a party before??”
I began backtracking furiously. “Good,” I said. “Because the parties where I used to live were sooo stupid. They actually played board games.” I decided to leave out the detail where I was the one who brought Scattergories.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
5. Bloc Party, “Bluest Light (Engineers’ Anti-Gravity Remix)”
“You didn’t even notice when the sky turned blue / And you couldn’t tell the difference between me and you…”
Remember when I said that June breaks my heart? Well, her sister May breaks my heart, too. That’s the problem with writing characters. Sometimes you have to let them figure out things on their own, which really, really hurts.
When I finally got myself under control, I went into my room and lay down on the bed. I was so tired all of a sudden, tired of change and new things and old things and everythings, and I stared at the window as the sun set from yellow to pink to purple, just like a bruise in reverse.
When it was almost dark, April knocked on my door. “Hey,” she said quietly, “it’s me. Are you in here?”
I looked down at my hand and realized that I had disappeared. I wondered how long I had been gone. “Here,” I said, snapping my body back into my skin. It’s like putting on tight pants for a second, like I have to reshape my body to fit itself.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
4. The Black Keys, “Strange Times”
“I will be the one to pull you through the mirror before you come undone…”
I listened to this song incessantly while writing certain part of “AMJ”, including this one.
“Look,” I said, “let’s all try to get through the school day without attracting national media attention or becoming lab experiments, all right?”
“Should we synchronize our watches, too?” May rolled her eyes. “Code names? Set up a secret meeting place in case the world ends?”
“I want my code name to be something awesome,” June replied. “Like a celebrity baby name.”
I was nervous. My sisters and I were pretty much loose cannons, and I had to keep searching to see if May would disappear to get out of a history quiz or if June would read the mind of our assistant principal and cause everyone over the age of thirty to have a meltdown.
“Buck up,” June said to me. “And stop freaking out. Someday you’ll be glad you have us.”
“I don’t see that vision coming for a long time,” I scowled at her, but I fell in line and followed my sisters towards school. Halfway to the front door, I grabbed May by the elbow while June pranced ahead of us. “Hey,” I whispered. “Don’t ditch today.”
“Yeah, I know,” she whispered back, and when she looked at me, I felt it, whatever that thing is where you can talk to your sister without saying a word.
I guess it’s always special when you can do that. No matter how special you are.
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
3. Stars, “14 Forever”
“And if sometimes the kids all seem a little sad, it’s ‘cause they’re saying goodbye to the youth they think they had…”
Oh, June. Junie Bee. The youngest. The fashion plate. The mindreader.
June has always sort of broken my heart a little because she’s just so damn eager. She knows things will be fine, even when they won’t be. She sort of knows everything, when you think about it. It’s just a matter of deciding what’s real and what’s not.
“My sisters always get mad at me for reading their minds, but they have no idea. Imagine person after person coming up to you and telling you their secrets, one right after the other, and some of the secrets are the most juicy things you’ve ever heard in your life. And some of the secrets will keep you awake for the next three nights. Try doing this for a day and then tell me how you’re doing. Tell me if you still have friends, if you still love your parents, if you even know anyone the way you thought you did. Tell me that.
“I certainly wouldn’t blame you for wearing a potentially tacky pink skirt if this was your lot in life, let me tell you.”
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
2. M83, “Graveyard Girl”
“I wonder if they’ll miss me / I won’t miss them / I’m 15 years old and I feel it’s already too late to live / Don’t you?”
When I first heard this song, I knew it was May’s. May is the middle sister, the one who can become invisible, the one who’s always invisible. I thought she was going to be a shy little wallflower, but as you can see, that’s not who she is. At all. Ever. (Who knew?)
Mr. Corday’s eyebrows drew together like angry centipedes. “You know that we have a zero tolerance cheating policy at this school, Miss Stephenson.”
I tried to make my eyes wide and innocent, like Bambi. “Well, as you can probably tell from my test scores, Mr. Corday, I’m not cheating.”
He couldn’t argue that point, that was for sure.
“I’ve amended my ways,” I continued. “Consider my Shawshank redeemed.”
“Yes, okay, May, the point has been made.” He sat back in his chair and pushed his glasses up high on his forehead. Not a great look for him. “You know,” he said, “I happen to think you’re a very smart girl.”
“You’re not alone in that,” I replied.
“But you might just be too smart for your own good.”
I blinked. “With all due respect, Mr. Corday,” I said. “I think more people should be too smart for their own good.”
“The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June” Soundtrack
1. Imogen Heap, “Have You Got It In You?”
“All at once / Not a whisper nor word / Then all at once…”
This song always makes me think of April, the eldest sister. She and her sisters May & June have just moved to a new city after their parents’ divorce and nobody’s happy about it. Then the sisters discover that they have superpowers and all hell breaks loose.
April’s the control freak, the sister who can see the future, the sister who knows when bad things will happen, but can’t understand the hows or whens or whys.
So we have this new home now, with this jacaranda tree, whose purple flowers permanently stained the sidewalk outside, and eucalyptus trees in the backyard. It was pretty, but it didn’t feel like home. It was just a house that we lived in, and if I listened really hard at night, I could hear traffic on the 101 freeway. “It’ll be like an adventure,” my mom had said when we moved in, and she smiled so hard that my sisters and I just smiled back, like we hadn’t already spent the last three months on an adventure, watching our family reshape itself. I might have been the only one who was shaking on the inside, I don’t know. I don’t even want to know. I know too much already.
Hello there,
Some of you may already know this, but when I’m not obsessively combing through music and adding to my collection, I also write books. My newest one comes out on August 3rd and it’s called “The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June”. Pretty snazzy title, right? Right!
One thing that my books always have is a soundtrack, so starting today through August 3rd, I’ll be playing songs from that soundtrack and also giving you a few sneak peeks of my book.
Imogen Heap, Justice, Placebo, The Black Keys, and more! Get excited!
Love & good music for all of you,
Robin
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