Mockingjay Playlist

Mockingjay Playlist

By: Kelly Dearth

1. MAD WORLD- By: Gary Jules
2. HORSE AND I-By: Bat for Lashes
3. IF I DIE YOUNG-By: The Band Perry
4. FRAGILE-By: Kerli
5. RANGERS-By: A Fine Frenzy
6. HEARTBREAK WARFARE-By: John Mayer
7. FEAR-By: One Republic
8. GET OUT ALIVE-By: Three days Grace
9. THIS IS WAR-By: 30 Seconds to mars
10. CHAOS- By: Mute Math
11. STILL HERE-By: The Perishers
12. FLY AWAY-By: Poe
13. THE LANGUAGE FT LATEEF THE TRUTH SPEAKER-By: Stateless
14. STILL ALIVE-By: Lisa Miskovsky
15. PALE- By: Within Temptation
16. HUMAN-By: Civil Twilight
17. NO ONES EVER GONNA LOVE YOU-By: Band of Horses
18. FIX YOU-By: Coldplay
19. THE HANGING TREE-By: Suzanne Collins

This is a playlist that I put together for the book, "Mockingjay" for a book club give-a-way I did this month and I have to say, its a pretty GOOD CD, I've been listening to mine for the past two weeks!  If you are in my book club and would like a copy then just let me know and I can get one for you. (Even if you weren't on the winning team, "Team Gale!")  

Several of you have asked me why I choose the songs I  used on the CD so I decided to post an explanation to each song. I thought about the book as a whole and tried to find songs that explained all the major chapters and crucial moments of the book. I also arranged the songs in a way that it should correlate chronologically with the events of the book.

Mockingjay Playlist Explained

1. “MAD WORLD”
By: Gary Jules
This song represents Katniss in the very beginning of the book as she’s walking in the ashes of old home, District 12. I imagined this song playing in the background as Katniss questions the state of societal economics and wonders about the world she lives in. How could anyone not feel like they lived in a ‘mad world’ where entire districts of people are being bombed and children have forced to kill one another in a hunger game?

2. “HORSE AND I”
By: Bat for Lashes
Katniss is told over and over again that she is the ‘Mockingjay’ and that she is the face of the rebellion. She isn’t sure that she wants to be the Mockingjay but the rebels are pressuring her to embrace her fate. Katniss IS the ‘the chosen one’ as the song says, and she was the face of the rebellion as the Mockingjay. When Katniss finally realizes her destiny and role in the rebellion, she knows there’s no turning back...she is the mockingjay, she is the chosen one.

3. “IF I DIE YOUNG”
By: The Band Perry
This song represents the premise of the entire series really; children dying before their time having to think about what they will do if they are chosen to enter the Hunger Game. How horrible to have to live in a society where you never feel safe, never knowing if you or someone you love may die. This song is representative for Rue and Prim as well.

4. “FRAGILE”
By: Kerli
These lyrics “You think you see me, like the way I'm strong and stand by you I am fragile too, I am fragile to,” explain how Katniss feels all the time having to be “the Mockingjay,” always needing to seem strong, in control, and mature. But Katniss is always hiding her true feelings, trying to protect those she loves so they won’t hurt or worry about her but she finally realizes in Mockingjay that can’t do everything on her own. Katniss at last admits to herself, Peeta, and Finnick that ‘she is fragile too.’

5. “RANGERS”
By: A Fine Frenzy
“And the ranger’s stream out of their cabins, they are the hunters, we are the rabbits...” All of the rebels must have felt like rabbits trying to be stealthy and quiet as they hid from the capitol who were hunting them down, it would be horrible to live in that anxious state all the time.

6. “HEARTBREAK WARFARE”
By: John Mayer
Katniss is torn between Gale and Peeta throughout the majority of the series. She has conflicting emotions and feelings for both boys as she tries to sort out what’s real and what’s not. Katniss seems to be fighting a rebel war with the capitol as well as a war with her own heart. She’s a 17 year old girl who seems to have to have all the answers as to how to end the war and bring peace to the world but in the stillness of her mind all she wants to do is figure out who she loves.

7. “FEAR”
By: One Republic
Fear is the one constant thing in Katniss’s world. I’m sure fear has taken up residence in everyone’s lives like a next door neighbor. In the end of the book, I imagine Katniss looking out her window at her two children thinking she was tempting fate by being so happy but thankful that her children don’t know the true meaning of fear as her and Peeta do.

8. “GET OUT ALIVE”
By: Three days Grace
As Katniss and her squad make their way to the Capital to find Snow, they encounter trial after trial which takes the life of many. Finnick unfortunately didn’t make it out alive and Katniss has to keep telling herself and Peeta that they “need to hold on, even if their burning with guilt inside, they need to hold on.’

9. “THIS IS WAR”
By: 30 Seconds to mars
This song is pretty self explanatory. Panem is in the midst of a full blown war, everything is chaos and we know that the end of the war is coming. All of a sudden, in the middle of the peak of the war, Katniss see’s Prim helping victims on the front line right when the silver parachutes are dropped…..

10. “CHAOS”
By: Mute Math
“Everything around is breaking down to chaos, I always see you when my sight is lost. It’s hard to trust anyone again after all the let downs I’ve been through, haunted by what I’ve been through.” Those lyrics are what I think of when Katniss is burning and in a drug induced coma after the war ends. She is swimming in a river of those who have died before her when she see’s Prim. She has to let go of her and re enter the world of chaotic and bad memories.

11. “STILL HERE”
By: Mute Math
This song represents Katniss’s feelings after she wakes in the Capital up burned and knowing she’s lost Prim. The lyrics “Take your problems somewhere else, I could use some help myself, I wonder who will be there for you when I’m gone” is how she felt knowing she couldn’t save Prim after all. After all she did to protect Prim from the Hunger Games, she lost her in the midst of the war. “When your gone I’m still here…..”

12. “FLY AWAY”
By: Poe
Birds are the constant icon throughout the Hunger Games trilogy appearing in almost every form of symbolism. But, this song doesn’t remind me of the Mocking jay, no, it reminds me of Rue and Prim. They both were described as small, sweet and bird like, and in the end, both girls” had to fly away” when their time came. “It makes sense that it should feel just this way, That you slowly fade and yet still remain, as if to say: Everything matters in such an invisible way, as if to say: It's O.K….Fly...away.”


13. “THE LANGUAGE FT LATEEF THE TRUTH SPEAKER”
By: Stateless
Katniss was a large political pawn in the rebellion and felt used a lot of the time. She never wanted to fight the way the capitol did but Beetee and Gale thought they should fight just as dirty as they did so they created bombs that fought “fire with fire” and in the end, “everyone got burned” because of it.

14. “STILL ALIVE”
By: Lisa Miskovsky
Poor Katniss. How many times did she almost die but by the grace of God ended up making through another day.? How many times did Katniss apologize for being alive while so many others died around her in her life? Her father, the tributes from the games, almost her entire district, Cinna, Rue, Finnick and now Prim. She is “still alive through all of that…how could you not feel some sort of regret for still breathing while so many you loved are dead? “I'm still alive and I can't apologize, no, so silent, No violence, But inside my head, so loud and clear.”

15. “PALE”
By: Within Temptation
After Prim is killed by the bombs in the silver parachutes, Katniss finds herself in a physically and emotionally raw state. As her physical pain slowly fades away she has to fight to break free of the pain and regret in her mind that’s pulling her down into a river of sorrow. Katniss “Has to try to break free, free from the thoughts in her mind. Use the time that she have, she can't say goodbye…”

16. “HUMAN”
By: Civil Twilight
I felt Katniss’s pain many times while reading Mockingjay. I saw how Katniss started to see herself… less and less human with each loved one that was killed and with each life she herself took. When she was on the verge of losing her humanity after Prim died, she would remind herself of her reality, reminding herself that she is only human and she will get through her trials with herself intact and go on. “It's only love, it's only pain, It's only fear that runs through my veins, It's all the things you can't explain, That make us human….make us human.”

17. “NO ONES EVER GONNA LOVE YOU”
By: Band of Horses
This song represents the end of the book when Katniss and Peeta reunite. Peeta plants a prim rose bush for Prim and helps Katniss grieve through her depression. Peeta and Katniss have both changed immensely from who they were before the hunger games but they found a way to grow back together again. “ No one loves Katniss more than Peeta does,” Peeta is Katniss’s dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad the losses.

18. “FIX YOU”
By: Coldplay
“And the tears come streaming down your face, When you lose something you can't replace, When you love someone, but it goes to waste, Could it be worse? Tears stream down on your face, I promise you I will learn from my mistakes."

Tears stream down on your face..” This song represents how Katniss and Peeta felt as they write in the book they started to remember all the people they loved, the memories that can’t be forgotten and Prim. Tears streamed down my face as I read about her death and l know her loss left a hole in Katniss that can never be replaced by anything or anyone. Peeta helped guide her home as they forever try to fix each other.

19. “THE HANGING TREE"
By: Suzanne Collins
I found this song on You Tube and converted it to an MP3 file so you may notice that its NOT an official recording of any kind but I liked putting a tune with the lyrics from the book, it was wonderful to have some background on Katniss and her Dad throught this song.
After Katniss first sings the Hanging Tree, and then explains how it’s about a murderer calling out to his love to come join him in his actions, in death, for a better world, Gale tells her maybe he’ll be like the guy in the song. And he kind of is, by story’s end. In the end he becomes the murderer, and she won’t come to him. I thought the murdered three were Katniss and Peeta, who complete their metamorphosis after becoming victims of the bomb, and Gale himself, who loses everything after his devices kill many innocent people, Prim included.