In 1996, thanks to a booklet included in InQuest Magazine's polybag, I got hooked on Vampire: The Masquerade and immediately recruited my closest friends to play the game. This was a good year before I ever even played a game of D&D. Vampire was my first love.
One thing I found neat about the game back then was the inspiration pages (little did I know Gygax had done it decades before), and I delved into all the suggestions, looking for the moods and themes that I never really could get to gel in my own chronicles.
After all these years, only one of those songs has been a near-constant staple in my playlists. Shadowplay is eerie, haunting, and a little dangerous. There's imagery early in the song that hints at what one is able to do beyond death, and it wraps up with the harsh lessons learned through the practice of Prestation, the favors and boons that fuel the vampiric Jyhads.
Joy Division is classified to most as goth, cut from the same scenes as Siouxie and the Banshees, et al., but also have a familiar intensity that bands like Thin Lizzy and Iggy and the Stooges were cultivating in that era.
I understand that some might prefer the Killers' cover of the song, but nothing beats the original.
Joy Division - "Shadowplay"
To the center of the city where all roads meet, waiting for you,
To the depths of the ocean where all hopes sank, searching for you,
I was moving through the silence without motion, waiting for you,
In a room with a window in the corner I found truth.
In the shadowplay, acting out your own death, knowing no more,
As the assassins all grouped in four lines, dancing on the floor,
And with cold steel, odor on their bodies made a move to connect,
But I could only stare in disbelief as the crowds all left.
I did everything, everything I wanted to,
I let them use you for their own ends,
To the center of the city in the night, waiting for you,
To the center of the city in the night, waiting for you.
*As always, I don't own this, blah blah blah.
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