Seems as though the consensus will be option 2 but if you want to put option 1 on at some point as well I'd be interested to see what's on it. Wasn't a theme were something sprung immediately to mind.
Here is what I would have gone with.
Note, this is not the actual playlist we will go with. Just to be clear, for others. I'll post that tomorrow.
As I said, some are parallel metaphors, some mentions, some not specific but known to be about it. The first three were easy. Then it is making up number tbf.
Waltzer - October Drift
'I hold on only for you
(But I don't think I'm coming back)
Cancer crawl what can I do
(I don't think I'm coming back)
Poor and I'm sick and I'm falling behind
Limping barefoot through the shards of a shattered mind.'
Had this album in one of the new music threads a couple years ago, kinda grungey-lite thing, this song was singled out but more because it is one of the catchier on it.
The ghosts of right now - the wonder years
'I want to take you some place safer, pull your pain out with my teeth..
The entire coast is out of water
It's turning different shades of grey
Like watching somebody you love
As they slowly waste away
And you looked skinny at my wedding
Sick of carrying the weight
Of all the doctors and all the treatments and all the reasons to be afraid'
Had the acoustic version of this in the other thread when their burst and decay album was up. Would have gone with the album original version, which is more direct. They also have the song Dismantling Summer (also on the acoustic album that week), but this one doesn't tiptoe round it.
As dust dances - Biffy Clyro.
'The sleep is the safest place you can be
You can try hard to catch it, it just catches you
Imagine a camera coming up from your feet
Relax all your muscles, son, just hope your heart's in one piece
Now, it's bigger than us
It's bigger than everything it decides to touch'
Another one we had on the other thread when this album was up. The song (really, a lot of the album) covers the slow passing of simon's mother, from cancer. It is told from her perspective in a hospital bed. Worth a listen, the pick of the bunch for me. The 'such a lonely ride' segment gets me every time, still to this day.
December's traditions - Frightened rabbit
'It's not the answer
Treating cancer like a cold
What do you need
What do you need from me?
After months of grieving
Fuck the grief I'm leaving
Will you leave with me?
The blood loss, the towering cost,
Mouth to mouth and tongue to tongue
The lick brings warm, metallic taste'
Tbf, this is a metaphor, and is somewhat comparing mental health to physical health, and understanding, or not, in a relationship.
Surrounded by spies - placebo
'World leader going under the knife
World leader going under the knife
Stage four, stage two, stage three
Stage four, stage two, stage three'
Ok, a bit of an abstract one, but a song I like, that seems to mindlessly list daily and long term occurances in life, amongst them a reference to cancer. There are one or two others of theirs I could have gone with, but this was a stronger song. It is the repetition in it that really works, and that was incidentally another theme I have in mind (the power of repetition), that'll probably never go anywhere.
Another that came to mind but was too obvious as a song, but kinda meaningless as a reference is Nirvana’s heart shaped box. Mostly I was interested in what others might throw at it, beyond my known bounds. But, as all has been said, probably not the best idea all in.
