Playlist Assignment: Paper Towns

Paper Towns by John Green

Margo,

            Noticing your wide selection of records in your room, your need for adventure, and your mysterious personality I have taken the time to recommend you some songs.

            The song “All Apologies” by Nirvana is about someone feeling lost, depressed, like something is missing, feeling like everyone else around them is a cookie cut out of one another (or a “paper town”), and they are an outcast. “I wish I was like you, easily amused, find my nest of salt, everything is my fault, I’ll take all the blame.” I know that’s why you kept running away because you didn’t like the paper town or the paper people. You didn’t care about the things most people cared about. “It amazes me that you can find all that shit remotely interesting.” (33)

            The song “Always Something” by Cage the Elephants is a song about how there is always something that happens to make you go off the edge or to have your “last string” and you don’t have any control over it. “It’s always somethin’, before the late night, around the corner, there’s always somethin’ waitin’ for ya, can’t hold the hands back, can’t make the sun rise,it’s always somethin’, you know its always somethin’.” I know your “something” or your “last string” occurred and that’s why you decided to leave and I understand. “But it was the last string. It was a lame string, for sure, but it was the one I had left, and every paper girl needs at least one string, right?” (58)

            The song “Creep” by Radiohead is about someone who is an outcast or isn’t like everyone else, someone that always feels like they have to run or hide. “She’s running out the door, she’s running out, she run run run run…, run…” I know like you always feel like you have to “run” from people, but I know Q doesn’t want you to. “And I kept waiting for that loneliness and nervousness to make me want to go back. But it never did. It’s the one thing I can’t do, Q.” (295)

            The song “Where is my Mind” by The Pixies is about someone that is mentally lost and is trying to find themselves, they are distracted. “With your feet on the air and your head on the ground, try this trick and spin it, yeah, your head will collapse, and you’ll ask yourself, where is my mind, where is my mind, where is my mind?” I know you were mentally lost for a long time and I think you could relate to this song a lot. “Nothing ever happens like you imagine it will.” (293)

            The song “Chasing Cars” by Snow Patrol is about two people that would do anything for each other and just leave their world behind as long as they had each other. “We’ll do it all, everything, on our own, we don’t need, anything, or anyone, if I lay here, if I just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world?” This reminds me of your relationship with Quentin (or Q.) Even though you hadn’t even spoke in years he still went on a crazy adventure with you to get revenge on your friends. “”Q,” she said, “we have to go.” And so I went.”” (28-29)

           Sincerely,

           Radar (Eve Stoltz)