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Joy Music
If Allentown is its own character in The Joy Divisions, music is a second major player. From the opening sentence, where it is implied that Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" plays while Ed's old friend, Serge, watches out for people who he thinks are following him, music provides a soundtrack--both tonal and symbolic--to the lives of these GenX kids. The 1990s goth-punk-indie scene that Ed enjoys plays behind him like the soundtrack to his life, providing an eclectic mix through coffee shops, record stores, diners, and dorm rooms, like the best of alternative 80s & 90s music.
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List of Songs
Quoted Directly / Indirectly Referenced Songs
Love and Rockets, “Mirror People” (12)
The Dead Milkmen, “Punk Rock Girl” (14)
Joy Division, “Love Will Tear Us Apart” (15)
Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians, “Superman” (18)
The Cure, “Hot Hot Hot” (19)
Smithereens, “Behind the Wall of Sleep” (29)
Pantera, “Cowboys from Hell” (36)
U2, “Bullet the Blue Sky” ("Rattle and Hum") (36)
Morrissey, “Ordinary Boys” (39)
The Goldcoast Singers, “Plastic Jesus” (44)
Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” (55)
The Kinks, “Lola” (55)
Janis Joplin, “Me and Bobby McG” (55)
The Doors, “The End” (103)
Pink Floyd, “Careful with that Axe, Eugene” (104)
R.E.M., “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” (118)
Radiohead, “Creep” (121)
Nirvana, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (122)
Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall, Part 2” (124)
Other listed bands (with some of the author’s favorite songs)
The Cure, “Plainsong/Pictures of You” (9, 15)
The Smiths, “Ask,” “Panic” (9)
XTC, “Dear God” (9)
The Dead Kennedys, “California Über Alles” (15)
The Damned, “New Rose” (15)
The Church, “Reptile” (15)
Camper Van Beethoven, “Take the Skinheads Bowling” (15)
Siouxsie Sioux, “Cities in Dust” (27)
L7, “Shitlist” (122)
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