The Self Fulfilling Prophecy of 2012 Playlist

Well, the end of the world is gonna happen this Friday... or, you know, that's what half the Internet wants you to believe. I'm surprised local business people haven't had "End of the World" sales to take advantage of another manufactured day people should care about. Personally, I don't think the world is going to end. Whether it's a total misunderstanding of the Mayan calendar or Nostradamus or planets aligning or old Chinese predictions or the Jehovah's Witnesses predicting Armageddon... again... for like, the third or fourth time, people have their predictions on when, how, and why the world will end.

Personally, I don't think the world will end. Sure, I enjoy my zombie movies and video games, I love Fallout 3 (New Vegas is okay but I gave up way too early), and I can be a paranoid mother fucker, but I don't think the world will suddenly end if the planets align with the galaxy, or Earth will suddenly start hating humans (it all ready does) and instantly develop killer grass to send scents that will make us want to commit suicide. I don't think the Mayans predicted our demise, but I do think they were predicting the end of the calendar year (not really much of a prediction, but you know...) which we do every year... on New Years' Eve... with booze.

I do think, however, that if the world was going to end, or if society as we know it was going to end, then it's by human hands. I do fear that this whole end-of-the-world crap will get into some psychotic fucker's brain and might hack into the nuclear launch computers, or an asshole leader will start a war with another country, taking us into World War III that may or may not involve nukes that will ultimately fuck us all over, or dumbasses will go into mass hysteria mode, thinking, "Well since the end of the world is happening anyway, we might as well create a whole bunch of anarchy," and riot everywhere. That last one might not really be end-of-the-world material, but I think it's the more realistic of the three, though from what I see in the tension between Israel and Palestine, and Iran, and North Korea, and the shit between China and Japan, and Republicans and right-wing shitheads being total assholes all the time... that second one is pretty realistic, too.

So, with that said, people's tendencies to believe in stupid shit has inspired me to make another playlist. I made this several weeks back, but I've just had the inspiration now to describe the background and thought process going into it. It's in Spotify... again... so there may be other updates with the playlist in other formats or apps or stuff. And for the non-Spotify users, I'll just list each song and maybe a short description.


#1-6. Stage 1: Premonition/Prediction/War Is Bad
#1. "I Predict A Riot" by Kaiser Chiefs
#2. "Bad Moon Rising" by CCR
#3. "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones
#4. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2
#5. "Zor and Zam" by The Monkees
#6. "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel

So #2-4 is a gimme, am I right? #3 and 4 are famous anti-war songs about death and destruction and how we're so close to wiping each other out. And "Bad Moon Rising" is all about predicting the end. Same with "Sound of Silence." To me, I just think there will be at least one major riot that might happen on the 21st, and it might not even be about the end of the world... it could very well be about any major problem that's going on in our world, whether it be the stuff in the Middle East and Asia, or gun control here in the States. And that's why I added #1. If you want something more fun, you can switch it with "Riot" by The Sounds.

#7-9. Stage 2: Shit's Going Down
#7. "One Winged Angel" originally composed by Nobuo Uematsu for Final Fantasy VII
#8. "Los Angeles Is Burning" by Bad Religion
#9. "Anarchy In The UK" by Sex Pistols

So #8 and #9 describe the shit that can go down during the end of the world scenario. And who knows, like in "Anarchy In The UK" maybe it is the Antichrist that starts it all, not that I believe in that shit. Was that shit even mentioned in the Bible or is that a Nostradamus thing? Who the fuck cares? But #7 probably needs explanation from those who don't play awesome roleplaying games. You see, in Final Fantasy VII, the end boss and big bad villain, Sephiroth, wants to end the world and in doing so, learns the spell Meteor to crash into the planet and destroy everything. However, during the big boss battle, Sephiroth morphs into his final form that looks like a one winged angel, and his big major move, called Super Nova, brings a huge comet/meteor looking thing that doesn't destroy the planet, but destroys the fucking solar system, crashing into the planets as it hits the Sun and creates a Super Nova that just does like 90% damage instead of, you know, destroying the solar system and Earth along with it.

And that's another thing that confused me in the game. All this time, I didn't think the Final Fantasy games were fought on Earth, but according to VII, all that shit was on Earth the entire time. And if he all ready knew Super Nova, why would you need Meteor? And why would you go through all that convoluted bullshit, destroying the planets and all, to do major damage but not fatal damage? Oh Final Fantasy and your weird logic.

#10-13. Stage 3: Aftermath and Acceptance
#10. "1999" by Prince
#11. "Cities In Dust" by Siouxsie and the Banshees
#12. "It's The End of The World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)" by REM
#13. "RE: Your Brains" by Jonathan Coulton

#11 and #13 are the aftermath of the apocalypse; #10 and #12 is acceptance. Yeah, I know "1999" isn't about the apocalypse, but back in 1999, when people thought the world was going to crash along with Y2K, it definitely got indirectly linked to it. And to be honest, anything that gives me an excuse to put in "Cities In Dust" in a playlist, I'll take advantage of it. And seriously, a song about Mount Vesuvius and the City of Pompeii is about Armageddon and destruction. And #13 is basically a zombie song inside the Zombie Apocalypse, which some seriously think is going to happen.  And if that happened, I think I'd be more afraid of humans than zombies, especially of the slow, Romero kind.

And that's my end-of-the-world playlist. I'm sure there are other songs about the world ending that might fit this but I probably don't know them, or they probably suck, and that's probably why it's not in here. Plus, having it a 13-song playlist wasn't by accident. In closing, I hope you all enjoy this list on the 21st. Hope to see you all on the 22nd... well, most of you, that is.