The Wizard Of Oz Character Study Soundtrack

I had for a long time wanted to make a soundtrack to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz using mostly goth music and such, but it took years to finally come to fruition, and it came to a fruition in a roundabout way. I like doing themed mixes about certain topics. I had one mixtape about fantasy that I drew a portrait of Princess Ozma on in 2019. Then in 2021 I did a mixtape with songs that were all about hearts, and drew the Tin Woodman on the cover. And over the next year and a half or so, the mixtapes kept coming. By the time I did the Scarecrow’s tape, Mind, I had a plan. I did one for each of the main characters, the Wizard, and the Wicked Witch of the West. The soundtracks can end up being more about the themes they represent than the characters themselves. They’re designed to be philosophical meditations. It ended up consisting of seven 90 minute mixtapes, and one corresponding146 song YouTube playlist so I could both share it and listen to it on the go. 

Lost 

Dorothy Gale; Themes: Lost, Home

“And yet I face this battle all alone. No one to cry to, no place to call home.” Alice in Chains - Nutshell

This tape goes to some dark places, but it has a happy ending. It represents the struggles of feeling lost in a strange unfamiliar place, alone, and not having a place to call home. It starts with a fan song about Return to Oz, appropriately enough. I borrowed a song from the 1985 Alice in Wonderland TV adaptation with “No Way Home”, wrong story but it works for Dorothy. “Overkill” through “Lost Woods” chronicles Dorothy’s time being lost in the forest, fleeing kalidahs and other dangers. “Colours” by Node is kind of a break in the narrative, but it does remind me of Dorothy, particularly the section:

“When I am in the blue country, I want to be yellow.

When I am in the yellow country, I want to be blue.

I just want to be me. 

I just want to be green.”

The song is by an Armenian coldwave artist, Node, and I feel like they’re talking about how it feels to be in the diaspora, belonging to two countries. The colored countries metaphor also really work for Oz of course. Yellow Country is Winkie Country and Blue Country is Munchkin Country. But Dorothy, for a while when she’s going back and forth between Oz and the real world, starts to feel like she belongs to both and at the same time neither, before she finally moves to Oz permanently. Perhaps it works better for the sequel books. 

After this we have another Armenian song, and this one is a tearjerker. Translated to English, we have lines like “birds make a nest where my home used to be”. Armenians were exterminated from their former homeland by the Turks, much of the old buildings left to ruins. We spent a lot of time being a homeless nation. Complimenting this song is “Something in the Way” by Nirvana, a song about being homeless and living under a bridge. The Yung Cortex song “Time Won’t Stop” has the line “My house doesn’t feel like it’s a home to me”. I feel that line deeply, since throughout my life, I have had very little control over my living arrangement. It never feels like my home, I’m always living under someone else’s roof, relying on their kindness and mercy. The Velvet Acid Christ song “Melting” is there because it includes voice samples from a very strange adaptation of The Wizard of Oz, which I think came from The Kentucky Fried Movie. Our last three songs are the happy ending. Back Road Vulture is a modern band which takes a lot of inspiration from Alice in Chains, which fits well with the next song “Don’t Follow” which has a kind of country twang to it that reminds one of Kansas, and “Home” by Smashing Pumpkins is a happy song about home. 

Side A

• Karlien - Return to Oz 
• Alice in Chains - Nutshell
• Telly Savalas - No Way Home
• The Foreign Resort - She is Lost
• The Wallflowers - One Headlight
• Stratovarius- Soul of a Vagabond
• Ministry - Overkill
• Kramm - Lost (note: this song got scrubbed from YouTube for some reason.)
• Forever Grey - Lost in a Moment

Side B

• The Cure - A Forest
• Vestron Vulture - Lost Woods
• Node - Colours
• Isabel Bayrakdaryan - Andouni (Homeless)
• Nirvana - Something in the Way
• Yung Cortex - Time Won’t Stop 
• Velvet Acid Christ - Melting
• Back Road Vulture - Home Today
• Alice in Chains - Don’t Follow
• Smashing Pumpkins- Home

Mind

The Scarecrow; Themes: The Mind, Mental Health

“My mind is an ocean of chaos.” Slow Danse with the Dead - Strangers in the Dark

This tape is a twisted journey into the dark recesses of the mind, tacking topics such as mental illness, drugs, and the very nature of consciousness. You come away from the mix wondering why, oh why, does the Scarecrow want a brain? It ends up having very little to do with the character himself, admittedly, and more about what he represents. A mix that allows our most complex organ to ponder itself.

Side A

• System of a Down - Mind
• Korn - Blind
• Nirvana - Breed
• Alice in Chains - I Can’t Remember
• And One - Take Some More
• Vomito Negro - Inside Your Brain
• We Are Temporary - Medication
• Carnal Machinery - Voices
• Node - Brain Fog

Side B

• Mortal Boy - Passion Dance
• Glaring - Consciousness 
• Infact - Fatal Error
• Haunt Me - Into the Black
• Lebanon Hanover - Northern Lights
• Buzz Kull - Existence 
• Pretty Addicted - Heather
• Desmond Doom - The Dissociation Song 
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Strangers in the Dark
• Cabaret Grey - Subconscious
• Phosphor - Skull
• Mystic Priestess - Small-Minded World

❤️ Heart ❤️ 

The Tin Woodman; Themes: Heart, Love

“Grey would be the color, if I had a heart.” Nine Inch Nails - Something I can Never Have

It’s really easy to find songs that mention the heart. No one really sings about the liver or the spleen. So of course, limiting a themed mix about the heart to just 90 minutes is a difficult task. I tried to throw in some songs that reminded me of the Tin Woodman himself too, of which there are quite a few. That said, I feel like the mix has less of a central thesis than some of the others do, perhaps because there are just so many songs about the heart. But the association between the heart and love is a recurring theme. I feel like love really has more to do with the brain than the heart, but it’s definitely a correlation that L. Frank Baum used in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. 

Anyway, we have some non-English tracks that I can explain. Rammstein’s “Mein Herz Brennt” translates to “My Heart Burns”. And in German, it has a different meaning than what we would think of heartburn. It means passion. And One’s “Für Zwei” is there because of the line “Mein herz, dein herz, ein herz.” Or, “My heart, your heart, one heart.” Sounds a lot better in German. And the second verse of the song “Averak”, a cover of a traditional Armenian song by Jrimurmur, translates to:

“You left, you took my heart away, you left fire instead.

Take away my countless hopes, you left a poor lamp,

Where instead of oil, my life burns in the ruins of my heart.

You, Yerevan, and I, Ani, you left me in ruins.”

To explain the context, Yerevan is the current capital of Armenia, a modern city of a million people, while Ani was the capital of Armenia in medieval times, and today is abandoned ruins, on the Turkish side of the border. 

I used Desmond Doom’s cover of “Heart-Shaped Box” in the style of The Cure, rather than the original by Nirvana, because the mix doesn’t really include rock music and it might sound out of place.

Side A

• Smashing Pumpkins- Cupid de Locke
• This Cold Night - Circuits
• Rammstein - Mein Herz Brennt
• [:SITD:] - Revelations
• Twin Tribes - Heart & Feather
• Michael Sembello - Automatic Man
• A Flock of Seagulls- Modern Love is Automatic 
• And One -Für Zwei
• Timecop 1983 - Back to You
• Ayria - Big City Lullaby 
• Tearful Moon - Heart is Fire

Side B

• Nine Inch Nails - Something I can Never Have
• The Midnight - Synthetic
• Jrimurmur - Averak
• Light Asylum - Heart of Dust
• Urbandoned - Only Heartache
• Silent Em - Pure Heart
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Heart of the Night
• Desmond Doom - Heart-Shaped Box
• Glaare - Your Hellbound Heart

Fear

The Cowardly Lion; Theme: Fear

“I’m a lion in a cage, and I cannot find my way out.” Minuit Machine - Lion in a Cage

This mix examines the concept of fear. How it can be limiting and petrifying, but at the same time, toward the end of the tape we get songs about how fear can be useful and positive. I started the tape with a sample from a speech by Bill the Butcher from the film Gangs of New York. “That’s what preserves the order of things. Fear.” It would be difficult to replicate this on the YouTube playlist version. The song “Lion in a Cage” by Minuit Machine had just been released before I made this tape, and it was perfect timing. Not too many songs out there about lions. Maybe it symbolizes how the Cowardly Lion’s courage was trapped in a cage, which symbolizes fear. The songs mainly cover different forms that fear takes. I ended up grouping together songs that had similar or the same names. Serj Tankian’s “Goddamn Trigger” is specifically about the type of fear and cowardice that leads conservatives to stockpile guns and ammo, something that is endemic to America. These type of people picture themselves as brave or tough, but in reality they’re cowards. They’re like cowardly lions.

And of course, I just had to stray from my goth/underground roots and include “Somebody’s Watching Me” by Rockwell. I think everyone likes that song. 

Side A

• Minuit Machine- Lion in a Cage
• Portrait- Coward
• Cross Chapel - Are you Afraid of the Dark?
• Scary Black - Are you Afraid of the Dark?
• Scry - Inhibition Exhibition 
• Pretty Addicted - Phobia
• Korn - No Place to Hide
• Serj Tankian - Goddamn Trigger
• David Bowie - Afraid of Americans
• Rockwell - Somebody’s Watching Me
• The Sound - I Can’t Escape Myself

Side B

• Gothic Archies - The World is a Very Scary Place
• El Ojo y la Navaja - Agorafobia
• Minuit Machine- Agoraphobia 
• New Haunts - Agora
• Bean Si - Nyctophobia
• Tearful Moon - Anxiety 
• This Fear - Haunting Me
• Masquerade- Panic Paranoia 
• Autumn Sonnet - Apparition 
• Sleepless - Fear is Your Friend
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Don’t Fear the Night
• Dimmu Borgir - Fear and Wonder

Lies

Oscar Diggs, The Wizard of Oz; Theme: Lies

“Magic only truly exists in one place: the human mind. None of this stuff is real, and none of it works.” Ministry - Believe Me

This tape gets hard and heavy, a lot of industrial metal songs are about lies, apparently. And the band Ministry sang about lies a lot, both before and after they went from synthpop to industrial metal. The themes on this mix are a meditation on how the corrupt politicians lie to the people in order to control them, how the media is inundated with lies and “fake news”, how religion is often built on lies, and how we lie to each other and ourselves. It’s an emotional roller coaster for me because I think about how people’s lies have impacted my own life and led me astray. The Wizard himself was a lying politician when he ruled the Emerald City, so the comparisons are appropriate. The songs that relate the most to the character himself are Voltaire’s “The Projectionist”, and Slow Danse with the Dead’s “False Guru”. The final song, “Acid Theatre” by The Kovenant, implores the listener, “never believe the lies they feed you, never do what they want you to do, never be who they want you to be”. And I think that was a fitting way to end the mix.

Side A

• Mortiis - The Great Deceiver
• Alice in Chains - The Devil put Dinosaurs Here
• Ministry - Disinformation 
• The Kovenant - Planet of the Apes
• Nine Inch Nails- Terrible Lies
• Digital Factor - Lies
• Slow Danse with the Dead - Happy Lies
• Death Loves Veronica - Lies
• Ministry - We Believe
• Kalte Nacht - Humans Are Mistakes

Side B

• Aurelio Voltaire - The Projectionist
• Ministry - I Wanted to Tell Her
• The Wasteland Wailers - Broken Wing Recital
• Type O Negative- Anesthesia
• Alice in Chains - Get Born Again 
• Slow Danse with the Dead - False Guru 
• Desmond Doom - I Could Have Lied
• Ministry - Believe Me
• The Kovenant- Acid Theatre

Wicked

The Wicked Witch of the West; Themes: Wickedness, Witchcraft, Feminine Societal Taboos

“Burn me at the stake again, I’ll take sinister revenge…I’m a woman and I’m wicked.” Twin Temple - “I’m Wicked”

Not to be confused with the book and stage musical by the same name. I thought I was going to be done with this mixtape series after Lies, but last October I by chance heard a song from the 1960s called “Season of the Witch” by Vanilla Fudge. I knew that I had to make a tape for the Wicked Witch of the West. I didn’t really have any deep themes to go with her though, but as I gathered songs about witchcraft, magic, and wickedness, an underlying theme emerged. This tape is really about how aspects of femininity, such as female sexuality, as well as paganism in general, are considered taboo and “wicked” by our puritanical Christian-dominated society. The Salem Witch Trials weren’t really about witches at all, but sexism, after all. In medieval Europe, elderly women who lived alone and followed the old pagan ways were feared, criminalized, and sometimes burned at the stake. Baum’s wicked witches are a holdover from this line of thinking, although he at least had the decency to include two “good” witches I suppose, being a feminist himself. So anyway, the theme emerged in a way I didn’t really intend when I started the mix, it was originally going to be spooky songs about witches and witchcraft with nothing deeper. But, it ended up being very relevant. Wickedness is subjective, evil can only be defined from a certain point of view.

On another note, the song “Smell the Witch” by Mortiis always reminded me of the Wicked Witch of the West. It even has the line “Are you dead, when you are made of straw?” A Scarecrow reference, perhaps? Also, there are many appearances from the Satanic 1950s-style doo-wop band Twin Temple, introducing a genre absent from the other tapes. 

Side A

• Vanilla Fudge - Season of the Witch 
• Kat McKyte- Where Dead Angels Lie
• Mortiis- Smell the Witch
• Mick Smiley - Magic
• Domenico C - Need some Magic
• Howling Syn - Witches of Avalon
• Twin Temple- I’m Wicked
• Mortiis- Way too Wicked
• Lovers/Deceivers - Pickity Witch
• Svetlana Mart - Moon Eclipsed the Sun

Side B

• SpaceWitchPop - Black No. 1
• Mortiis - You Put a Hex on Me
• Twin Temple- I Know How to Hex You
• Ayria - Blue Alice
• SYZYGYX - Silent Spell
• Statiqbloom- Black Walks Eternal
• Raven Said - Aventis Vecordia
• Howling Syn- Black Moon
• Twin Temple- I am a Witch
• Omnia - Wytches Brew
• Dimmu Borgir- Spellbound

Falling Into Fantasy

Ozma of Oz; Themes: Fantasy, Dreams

“I’m falling into fantasy, the dream goes on.” Stratovarius - Falling into Fantasy

I first recorded this mixtape in early 2019, long before I had the idea for this Oz mixtape series. It was not long after I had first begun to read the sequels to the Oz books, in desperate need of escapism from my stressful call center job. Princess Ozma doesn’t appear until the second Oz book, and I’m glad to have some representation from the sequels on this series. She is the ideal ruler, ruling with love and kindness. She made Oz into a near-utopia when she took the throne, making it a moneyless, post-scarcity society, where sexism and all forms of bigotry are nearly nonexistent. Oz isn’t perfect, mind you, but it’s close. I dream of living in a place like that. A leader like her probably could only exist in fantasy. In fact, John Lennon’s song “Imagine” describes Oz perfectly, which is why I included it. It also helps that the song’s lyrics are referenced in Stratovarius’ “Fantasia”. The songs on this tape are all about fantasy and escapism in one way or another. A lot of symphonic power metal, not a lot of darkness, uncharacteristically for me of course. 

One last thing; as for the Hamshen Armenian song “Kuzim” I did a write-up on that song with translated lyrics on this blog in 2020. You can read that for more explanation.

Side A

• Stratovarius - Falling into Fantasy
• Kamelot - Center of the Universe
• Aurelio Voltaire - Riding a Black Unicorn 
• Dragonland - Neverending Story
• Theatre of Tragedy- Poppea
• Katil - Kuzim
• Stratovarius- Atlantis
• Stratovarius- Abyss
• Scissor Sisters - Return to Oz
• Ministry - Game Over
• The Midnight- Crystalline 
• Gunship - The Hegemon
• New Order - Dreams Never End

Side B

• Stratovarius- Fantasia
• John Lennon - Imagine
• Kamelot - Memento Mori
• Smashing Pumpkins- Galapagos
• Omnia - Fairy Tale
• Faun - Unicorne
• Kraftwerk - Tongebirge
• Opale - Sparkles and Wine
• Hybrid - Dreaming Your Dreams
• Smashing Pumpkins- Porcelina of the Vast Oceans