#thinking about that scene in c@ptain @merica with star wars/trek marvin gaye thai food

[rotzaprachim]

For the 3-sentence: I'd love to see Nile and another member of the Old Guard discussing some form of pop culture. (Unrelated but I feel like Joe would go really hard for Star Wars while simultaneously calling all other sci-fi nerdy and bad.)

thank you so much for this prompt! doesn’t have too much.. discussion as i always seem to lean more toward exposition i guess! (AND yes i agree strongly about Joe and star wars. he has Strong Opinions about every star wars film!) hope you enjoy

essential listening (768 words, G, AO3 here)

(And a link to every single song/artist mentioned on spotify here- it’s 1hr 46 minutes instead of 9 but u can just look through) 

Joe wanted to do a cassette, but Nile talked him into a Spotify playlist, and by the time they’ve compiled the bare essentials in the last three hundred years of music, shuffled into a vaguely chronological order, the playlist stretches into the six hour mark. Wild how what was once pop culture can become, if canonised, a classic worthy of academic attention, Nile thinks as she slots in Frank Ocean after Fairuz and Fabrizio De André, wonders how the music of her own time will go down the years- although there’s long been a power attached, even in the long term, to whiteness, maleness. Put a white face on the record cover and that’s the version that hits the top one-hundred. It’s the original version of Universal Soldier by Buffy Sainte-Marie Nile adds to the list, rather than the one most people seem to know, the cover by Donovan. Odetta’s God’s Gonna Cut You Down over Cash’s.

Joe has his own opinions, additions, Souad Massi and Donna Summer and Bruce Springsteen and the Star Wars opening theme which, Nile argues back, is pointless without the context of Star Wars itself, which when they’ve tried to explain it to Quỳnh has caused more confusion than the actual moon landings or satellite TV. But how much music exists without the context of its time? Nile flicks through the list. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the lord. It ain’t me, it ain’t me, I aint no senator’s son. Una mattina, mi son svegliato, e ho trovato l’invasor. We shall overcome. Go tell the rambler, the gambler, the backbiter, tell ‘em the almighty’s gonna cut ‘em down.

Nile looks to where Quỳnh’s wiping down her set of 11th century Damascene watered steel knives with nail polish remover while she dedicatedly watches the tv, eyes swallowing news, history, turns of phrase and culture. It feels presumptuous and strange, in a way, to be doing this, three hundred years to a woman who’s seen five thousand, has known and forgotten more ballads and lullabies and folk songs than Spotify has on its server. Music is language is context, and how could she, even Joe and Nicky, ever even vaguely understand the worlds that wrote those songs? Quỳnh, like Andy, came millenia before "quel Nazzareno," before "the man from Galilee," although Nile’s never asked either of them about it, not sure if she really wants the answers.

“Calice, Chico Buarque and Milton Nascimento.” Nicky says when he returns, and she adds it, a song with context if there ever was one. “Cancion por el Fusil y la Flor. Mercedes Sosa.” He hands her breakfast, a salteña and a cup of hot, sweet coffee, and organises away his other findings with a military efficiency: medical gauze, unmarked magazines, a fresh pair of cheap-ass plastic sunglasses for Joe. Nicky calls out other suggestions. Má vlast. Sinnerman. Arturo Márquez - Danzón No. 2. Goran Bregović. They never take any songs off the playlist, only add others on. Seven hours, eight. “Essential” means something different to everyone on earth. “Exactly how much Sanremo did Joe suggest be put on there? Oh, and add the Star Trek theme.”

Andy returns from scouting while Joe’s replacing the lisence plate on the car. Nile downloads the whole thing onto a freshly air-gapped phone. She needs to stop ribbing on Joe’s old-man cassette-and-tape-deck ways, or Nicky’s even-older-man preference for vinyls- at least those don’t come with the threat of a digital footprint, the chance of being caught over some road trip jams. Joe packs everything into the trunk of the car while Nile checks the route and writes down the key highways and intersections onto a napkin. Maybe it’s a universal in all families, even immortal ones, that the youngest person gets to be the navigator when digital maps are involved. She gets to ride shotgun, at least, climb in in front next to Nicky. He’s absentmindedly tapping out a melody on the steering wheel. She doesn’t recognise it.

“My education begins,” Quỳnh says from the back. She always has a glint of humour in her eyes, a joke- Nile can never quite tell when she’s being sardonic or serious. Nicky pulls away from the curb. Nile queues up the playlist. Hadyn’s Cello Concerto in C. And then the Star Wars Cantina Band song. Maybe she didn’t do quite as good a job at organising things as she thought she did. Nine hours, final cut- long enough to make it over the border to Peru, at least, allowing for some pauses for periodic arguing over directions, getting lost, and roadside snacking.

“Yeah.” Nile presses play. “Let’s get started.”

#the old guard fic #the old guard #nile freeman #my writings #this ended up being---way more than three sentences.... but yeah prompt me if you have anything! #this leans into the genres i vaguely know something about and is very american. apologies #anyway i could make a playlist of everything mentioned here? #thinking about that scene in c@ptain @merica with star wars/trek marvin gaye thai food