For those who've read The Long and Dark, you know that the story's themes run grim. Filled with desperation and an oppressing and smothering atmosphere, it's no surprise that the soundtrack compiled as a part of the writing process is littered with a variety of industrial, metal, dark ambient and dub acts.
As I’ve mentioned before, I like to listen to music when I write. I like to think that other authors do the same. With as much as Stephen King references song lyrics in his stories, he probably listens to music while he writes. Having gone through the process before, licensing lyrics isn’t exactly a cheap or quick process. This article mentions as much, though it’s somewhat unsourced. It also claims Margaret Atwood is a fan of Arrogant Worms and Joni Mitchell.
While I don’t usually pick out a single track as a story's “theme song,” instead focusing on overarching themes or genres, this time around, there was a song that so encompassed the mood I wanted in The Long and Dark that I couldn't pass on it. The Body's Wanderings is a bleak, pained industrial soundscape, layered with a haunting, repeated mantra of "go it alone." If there was ever a movie trailer for this story (a man can dream), this would be it.
Check out the Spotify list to the right or the Youtube video below to hear the song in question.
Anchored by pretty much most of the rest of The Body's No One Deserves Happiness, the soundtrack is filled with dark and moody industrial and metal tracks. This includes a sampling from Neurosis' Enemy of the Sun and Through Silver in Blood albums and a bulk of industrial supergroup The Blood of Heroes' The Waking Nightmare. Toss in a few tracks from Scorn and [SIMM]. To top it off is a more aggresive and emotionally violent symphonic/black metal/death metal Septicflesh.
