if you're anything like me, when you watched the virgin suicides you were left with a pit in your stomach. it was shot and directed beautifully making it aesthetically pleasing and enjoyable to watch. in contrast, the heavy themes it dealt with made it troubling and raw. it is a story about five sisters told by a group of boys in their neighbourhood who glorified them. some people accuse it of being misogynistic but i see it as a commentary of the toxic male gaze. it's heartbreaking seeing the struggling teenage girls be romanticised and viewed as concepts rather than humans.
that being said, i (like the neighbourhood boys) also completely fell in love with lux lisbon. she's playful, rebellious and impossible to pin down. she's an insanely complex character who has many layers to her identity. she was also a huge music, specifically rock music, fan. this becomes apparent when her mom punished her by making her destroy her records. that's why in lux's honour, i have created a playlist which i think she would love listening to. in this post, i'll be sharing the top five songs i think she would enjoy and why.
to start off, lux would love shadow of a doubt by sonic youth. the obvious reason is because sonic youth is a legendary rock band. however, i also picked this song because it was inspired by alfred hitchcock's film, strangers on a train, which has a plot i think lux would find intriguing. it's about two strangers who both want to murder someone but they swap targets to avoid being caught. i think it's exactly the type of story she would be captivated by. whilst listening to the song, her favourite line would almost definitely be "you kill me and i'll kill her". the song title was actually also inspired another of hitchcock's films.
the next song is teenage blue by dreamgirl. this song depicts the euphoric feeling of falling in love for the first time whilst also revealing that the person you're in love with might not be who you think they are. i imagine lux would listen to it after being abandoned by trip. this bittersweet song deals with the romanticised version of events versus the real version of events, which is a recurring theme in the virgin suicides.
lux would also love sextape by deftones. even though she was close to her sisters, she was still very different from them. she's the only one that actively tried to free herself from the rules that restrained her. this manifests by her having sex, smoking and drinking. this song, like lux, feels passionate and risky. even though lux never made a sextape, the title reminds me of the times that the neighbourhood boys saw her getting with faceless men on the rooftop. as well as this, the lines "after hours with me/fusing all our powers/
here's to all our dreams" almost perfectly describe the romantic moments on the field that she had with trip before he left.
i can perfectly envision lux listening to lover, you should've come over by jeff buckley whilst smoking a cigarette. i see her relating to the lyrics and hurting about things with trip. she had no closure and no way to know what went wrong with him. this is why i specifically see the lines "maybe i'm too young/ to keep good love from going wrong" and "broken down and hungry for your love/with no way to feed it" resonating with her.
finally, the rain song by led zeppelin. i don't have much of an explanation as to why she would listen to this song - i just know she would. this song uses the weather as a metaphor for relationships. therefore, the line "upon us, a little rain must fall" implies that it's inevitable for relationships to go through dark patches which is an honest perspective that lux would appreciate. she would also just think that the cover art is extremely cool.
below is the link to the entire playlist, keep in mind some of the songs on it are part of the soundtrack and others don't apply strictly to lux, but to the other lisbon sisters as well.
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