From the Twilight OST

I prefer my vampires to be pistol-wielding, martial arts performing, black clad monsters ala Selene in Underworld. Or if they have to be metrosexual, then Lestat in Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles will do very well too. Granted I loved the Twilight series when I first read it, and vampires sparkling in the sun because they had diamond skin (hard and cold) didnt seem as strange. Then Robert Pattinson happened. And Twilight lost much of its appeal. Because a constipated looking, rosy-lipped, blingy-skinned, love-struck, 'vegetarian' vampire just doesnt shout "Danger!". So sue me.


Digressed from the first para itself, heh. Ive been listening incessantly to Iron and Wine's "Flightless Bird, American mouth" and Muse's "Neutron star collision", both of which featured in the series' OST. The series has great soundtracks, btw. 

Muse's "Neutron star collision" generated a lot of hate from muse fans who think the band sold out to the pop-culture infested Twilight. One fan remarked: "The jokers that are saying that they love this song and want go see Muse because of this are not Muse fans, but twilight fans disguised as Muse fans serving only to ruin the rock gods that existed before" :D

Twi-haters aside, I think this is another great song from Muse. Written after a break-up and reminiscing on the first flush of romance when everything feels like its gonna be eternal joy. The celestial-sounding romantic elements aside, my fave parts of the song are the lines:

"The world is broken and halos fail to glisten

We tried to make a difference but no one wants to listen
Hail the preachers, fake and proud 
Their doctrines will be cowed
Then they'll dissipate like snowflakes in an ocean".


A song full of exuberant hope and an "us against the world" mentality of young lovers. In contrast is Iron and Wine's  "Flightless bird, American mouth", a great track which speaks of the loss of individual innocence and the degradation of the American dream or of dreams in general: 
"Now Im a fat house cat
Nursing my sore blunt tongue
Watching the warm poison rats
Curl thru the wide fence cracks
Pissing on magazine photos
Those fishing lures thrown in the cold and clean
Blood of Christ mountain stream"


Satiated through over-indulgence, the once eager impulses deadened by ennui, faith corroded by too much too soon. The promising great soaring eagle we once were is now a "Flightless bird, grounded, bleeding".