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1. Okkervil River - "Missing Children"


2. Radical Face - "Black Eyes"

"What are you doing here," I says. "I thought you promised here you wouldn't come back. I thought you had more sense than that...I'm not surprised, though. I wouldn't put anything past you. You don't mind anybody. You don't give a damn about anybody." --Jason Compson, The Sound and the Fury (c. 1911)

3. Laura Marling - "You're No God"


4. Torres - "Honey"

"Nothing," Jason said, "Not anything. I wouldn't lay my hand on her. The bitch that cost me a job, the one chance I ever had to get ahead, that killed my father and is shortening my mother's life every day and made my name a laugh stock in the town. I won't do anything to her," he said. "Not anything."

5. Cold Specks - "Old Knives"


6. Patty Griffin - "Little God"


7. Aimee Mann - "Guys Like Me"

Talking about peace on earth good will towards all and not a sparrow can fall to earth. But what does he care how thick they get, he hasn't got anything to do; what does he care what time it is. He pays no taxes, he doesn't have to see his money going every year to have the courthouse clock cleaned to where it'll run. They had to pay a man forty-five dollars to clean it. --Jason Compson (c. 1928)

8. Fleet Foxes - "Helplessness Blues"

You know if I had my way, you'd have an office of your own to go to, and hours that became a Bascomb. Because you are a Bascomb, despite your name. --Caroline Compson (c. 1928)

9. Neko Case - "The Next Time You Say Forever"


10. Electric Six - "I Don't Like You"


11. Porches - "Car"

It's a good thing I dont have any more ties than a pigeon, I'll say that. --Jason Compson, (c. 1928)

12. Matthew Good - "Alert Status Red"

"Jason, what were you doing with three thousand dollars hid in the house?" --Jefferson Sheriff, (c. 1928)

13. The Mountain Goats - "No Children"

"I wish I were dead. I wish we were all dead." Then she ran. We heard her run up the stairs. Then a door slammed.
"That's the first sensible thing she ever said," I says. --Jason Compson (c. 1928)

14. Natalie Maines - "Mother (Pink Floyd Cover)"

Jason he has never given me one moment's sorrow since I first held him in my arms I knew then that he was to be my joy and my salvation...that's it go on criticize Jason accuse me of setting him to watch her as if it were a crime while your own daughter can I know you don't love him that you wish to believe faults against him you never have yes ridicule him as you always have Maury you cannot hurt me any more than your children already have and then I'll be gone and Jason with no one to love him shield him from this I look at him every day dreading to see this Compson blood behinning to show in him at last...let me have Jason and you keep the others they're not my flesh and blood like he is strangers nothing of mine and I am afraid of them I can take Jason and go where we're not known I'll go down on my knees and pray for the absolution of my sins that he may escape this curse try to forget that the others ever were --Caroline Compson (c. 1909)

15. Josh Ritter - "Rattling Locks"


16. Sharon Van Etten - "Pay My Debts"

I don't want to make a killing; save that to suck in the smart gamblers with. I just want an even chance to get my money back. And once I've done that they can bring all Beale Street and all bedlam in here and two of them can sleep in my bed and another one can have my place at the table too. --Jason Compson (c. 1928)

17. Colleen Green - "Grind My Teeth"


18. Amanda Palmer - "Runs in the Family"

because how the hell can I do anything right, with that damn family and her not making any effort to control her nor any of them, like that time when she happened to see one of them kissing Caddy and all the next day she went around the house in a black dress and a veil and even Father couldn't get her to say a word except crying and saying her little daughter was dead and Caddy about fifteen then...Blood, I says, governors and generals. It's a damn good thing we never had any kinds and presidents; we'd all be down there at Jackson chasing butterflies. --Jason Compson, (c. 1928)

19. Grimes - "Kill V. Maim"

"Do you think I need any man's help to stand on my feet?" I says. --Jason Compson (c. 1928)

20. Daughter - "Numbers"

Sometimes I think what's the use of anything. With the precedent I've been set I must be crazy to keep on. --Jason Compson, (c. 1928)

21. Destroyer - "Midnight Meets the Rain"

I'm glad I haven't got the sort of conscience I've got to nurse like a sick puppy all the time. --Jason Compson, (c. 1928)

22. Patrick Wolf - "The Bachelor"

Like I say if I was to get married you'd go up like a balloon and you know it and she says I want you to be happy and have a family of your own not to slave away your life for us. But I'll be gone soon and you'll never find a woman who is worthy of you and I says yes I could. You'd get right up out of your grave you know you would. I says no thank you I have all the women I can take care of now if I married a wife she'd probably turn out to be a hophead or something. That's all we lack in this family, I says. --Jason Compson, (c. 1928)

23. Deerhunter - "Snakeskin"

[Jason's irrationality] is a significant, usually ignored, side of this pathetic man who spends his Good Friday crucifying himself to crosses he alone provides. --Donald M. Kartinganer, "The Meaning of Form in The Sound and the Fury"

24. Hop Along - "Texas Funeral"

...to him all the rest of the town and the world and the human race too except himself were Compsons, inexplicable yet quite predictable in that they were in no sense whatsoever to be trusted... --William Faulkner, The Compson Appendix (1945)