The "official" playlist (the one I listened to most, at the end of the day) was this. (Bolded songs are the ones that I think ultimately fit the best.)
Eat You Alive - The Oh Hellos - I always imagined this being the official theme song, somehow!
Shine - Carbon Leaf - purely for the line "I'd like to change the world/It's easier than changing me."
Tennis Court - Lorde - just has a very teenage-Hannah attitude about things, overall.
Coming of Age - Foster the People - oh man, this whole song fits so well. All of it. All the lyrics; the vibe of the song in a general sense. I'm lucky to have found it.
Jackrabbit - San Fermin - most relevant toward the end of the book, but good foreshadowing for what's coming. ("Want to live like an animal? By the skin of your teeth? You're fooling no one/You're a jackrabbit underneath.")
Delilah - Florence + the Machine - "I'm gonna be free and I'm gonna be fine" = Hannah in a nutshell.
La La La - the bird and the bee - kind of symbolizes Hannah's default mode re: go-to defense mechanisms.
Run - Jasmine Thompson - ooh, do we detect a hint of romance?!
East of Eden - Zella Day - pretty self-explanatory ("keep me from the cages/under the control/running in the dark...")
It Will Come Back - Hozier - Hannah wouldn't care for the wolfishness of this song, but there's so much in it that fits into my larger themes ("don't let it in with no intention to keep it").
Under Control - Ellie Goulding - sometimes we think we have things under control and we! do! not!
The Curse - Agnes Obel - this is more for the ambiance than anything else. When I first started writing this novel, I lived in a small town where I'd often have to walk home at night, and I listened to this a lot while thinking about the story.
Dear Fellow Traveler - Sea Wolf - the official Topher song. I love it for him.
Magpie - The Mountain Goats - sinister and transformative and not too obvious.
What's in the Middle - the bird and the bee - very much Hannah's state of mind at a certain point in the story (think age 16 or so).
Leave My Body - Florence + the Machine - inevitabilities, ignoring things that shouldn't be ignored, and (I mean) literally leaving one's body.
Safest Place - Echosmith - so painfully accurate in so many ways. As with Lorde, I liked that I could use a song that was performed by a teenager (at the time) to inspire my fictional teenager. This whole thing is Hannah and her struggle between not wanting to face certain things and wanting to know all the truth all the time.
Yellow Flicker Beat - Lorde - "We're at the start, the colors disappear/I never watch the stars, there's so much down here"... and then there's "I got my fingers laced together and I made a little prison/And I'm locking up everyone who ever laid a finger on me." I love lyrics that work.
Tokyo (Vampires and Wolves) - The Wombats - Also mostly for ambiance. I'd just discovered this song and really loved it, so I slapped it on the playlist, deciding that the tentative "wolves" reference would be enough.
Sleeping Giants - The Crane Wives - Blue Ridge Mountains vibes, plus the eerie aptness of the second verse and the wolfish chorus.
Fear and Loathing - MARINA - I wouldn't exactly say that the message of this song fits Hannah as a person, but it fits something I was trying to say here. I listened to it on repeat as I wrote the last chapter.
We Are the Kids - Walk the Moon - this is the other ridiculously perfect song. ("You know the bigger picture changes when your colors run"... "we shout at the cops, we howl at the moon...") The only bit that doesn't fit is the hint at an engagement -- and maybe that could symbolize two of my adult characters, if you squint?
Blue Ridge Laughing - Carbon Leaf - obligatory Blue Ridge Mountains song. And I like the vibes.
