This playlist is called, The Gothic.

While listening, recall, "The Fall of the House of Usher", by Edgar A. Poe.  

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The song "Destination Unknown" was originally by Missing Persons however, I prefer the Smashing Pumpkins version. I apologize that it is cut short, it was the only version i could find... The title of, "Destination Unknown" is fitting for Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" in the sense of the "unknown". In many places the narrator expresses that he truthfully can not say what is happening in the house or if he can even trust his own mind. He states, "I know not how it was--but, with the first glimpse of the building, a sense of insufferable gloom filled my spirit"(Poe), his statement shows that he does not know why he feels this way, he does not understand his own feelings, they are unknown or beyond his capacity of thought. The narrator even says he "struggled to reason"(Poe) and because he cannot not reason the truth of his story is called into question. How can a man, that fails at reason and has an unstable mind, know what is actually happening in the house? can he be a reliable narrator? This unreliability encourages the idea of the unknown. Much of the lyrics revolve around the idea of the unknown, but this simple line, "I still don't know what this all means to me"(Destination Unknown) relates to the thoughts of the narrator and his despair of being lost and separated from his own mind and reason. The Gothic use of the "grotesque and queer"(Reuben) is also in the line, "Life is so strange when you don't know"(Destination Unknown), and in when reading "the House" it is the unknown and the strange that make it so intriguing. 

The song "In the Hall of the Mountain King" was written by Edvard Grieg of Norway, for the theatrical play, Peer Gynt, in 1876. The lyrics can be translated to, "Slay him! The Christian's son has bewitched/The Mountain King's fairest daughter!/.../Shall he be boiled into broth and bree to me/Shall he roast on a spit or be browned in a stewpan?"(Mountain King). Fitting of the Gothic theme by using a classic archetype, of witches scheming around a smoking cauldron, and also the use if trolls as a major character. This clearly reflects the Gothic theme of "the use of the queer or the unusual"(Melani).

I chose this song because one of the acts in Peer Gynt relates closely to the story "The Fall of the House of Usher". Each story concludes with a high emotional chase as the characters flee their assailants while the house(or mountain) crumbles behind them.  Both Peer and the narrator from "the House" are victims of a weak mind. Neither can deem what is reality and what is make believe. The flight from the Mountain King takes place entirely in Peers mind(or so he thinks...) and in "the House" the narrator believes his mind is playing tricks on him when he sees a "unnatural light" outside the house but he tries to justify it by saying,"These appearances, which bewilder you, are merely electrical phenomena not uncommon"(the House). Each of the characters' struggles of reality and reason are major themes for Romantic writing(Reuben).

Also, as the song builds and the tempo increases, so does emotion. The same build and climax can be felt when reading "the House" and emotion is exactly what Romanticism and Gothic writing tried to instill(Reuben).

Next I would like to recall the writings of author, Thomas Paine.  Paine was an abstract Enlightened thinker, and by comparing Enlightenment thoughts of Richard Hooker, who says that "Religious doctrines have no place in the understanding of the physical and human worlds"(Hooker), and Reuben's idea of, the "Constant search of the self...emphasis on individualism in...personal religion"(Reuben), we can can see how Paine's abstract arguments are still relevant today.

In Bob Marley's song, "Get Up, Stand Up", he sings, "Preacher man, don't tell me,/.../I know you don't know/what life is really worth."(Get up), a powerful line, suggesting that religion will not give you true knowledge of life and what life is for you. Marley emphasizes the idea that it is YOUR life and that YOU need to "Get up, Stand up!/ Stand up for your rights!"(Get up). Standing up for yourself, discovering yourself, and exploring your self is Enlightenment thinking, as stated, "Constant search of the self...emphasis on individualism"(Reuben).

Paine argued the same thing in, The Age of Reason, where he stated, ""As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me as a species of atheism; a sort of religious denial of God. It professes to believe in a man rather than in God. It is a compound made up chiefly of man-ism with but little deism, and is as near to atheism as twilight is to darkness"(Paine Chapter XI), simply, he denounces the common Christian religions of the time saying they they believe in a man(Jesus Christ) which negates the basis of a Holy Deity altogether. Such an abstract thought points towards the idea of creating your own belief system, or, your "personal religion"(Reuben). Both our man Thomas Paine and our brother Bob Marley were vocalizing the same thing; search in yourself, find your truths, fight for YOUR beliefs. Both men denounce religion saying that basic religious systems cannot provide your truth and your right, so "get up" and challenge those religious systems, fight for your individualism because, "Religious doctrines have no place in the understanding of the physical and human worlds"(Hooker). Our peer, Rachel Reichstadt, shared, "I can absolutely relate to this sentiment as the fact that Jesus was a man, (an enlightened and prophetic one, but a man nonetheless)[...]This truth is at the core of my own defunct relationship with Christianity - as he seems to be regarded in a more prominent and exalted light than that of God himself"(Reichstadt), and her thoughts highlight the general Enlightenment thinking of the time and highlights the thoughts of Marley and Paine, challenge for YOU.

Finally, we get to "Uprising" by Muse, a simple, in-your-face, revolution song. Thomas Paine would be psyching himself up to this tune while writing The Crisis, The Age of Reason, or any of his works. America was on the verge of breaking away from the oppressive King George III but they needed some amped up writing to spur them forward. Paine's writing did exactly that. In his, The American Crisis, he states, "Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it?" (American Crisis 177), British soldiers demanded food from American families, demanded room and board, and wrought many atrocities to American peoples who were fed up with this cruel tyranny. Paine painted a clear picture how Americans should react; it is time for a revolution. The chorus in "Uprising" says, "They will not force us,/They will stop degrading us,/They will not control us,/We will be victorious"(Uprising), these are Paine's sentiments exactly. Britain cannot control us, we are our own people that deserve sovereignty; Britain cannot degrade us anymore, we are sick of the low-life lobster-back soldiers stealing our lively hood.