The Official BREATHE Playlist
Every song behind the story.
What started as a few songs that reminded me of certain characters or scenes eventually turned into an entire soundtrack. Some chapters only needed one song. Others apparently needed four or five because I have no self-control.
When it came time to format the physical copy of BREATHE, though, I had to make a choice.
There was absolutely no way I could fit every song into the book without turning the playlist into several pages, so I chose one official song for each chapter. Those are the songs readers will see in the final copy.
But those aren’t the only songs that belong to BREATHE.
This is the complete version.
Every song below was chosen because something about it reminded me of that chapter—the atmosphere, a character, a relationship, an emotion, or sometimes one very specific moment.
I’ve also included whose POV you’re reading in each chapter and marked the song that made it into the physical book with a 🖤.
So grab your headphones.
Welcome to the full soundtrack of BREATHE.
Chapter One — Aria
🖤 “Exit Music (For a Film)” — Radiohead
“The Day the World Went Away” — Nine Inch Nails
“Hello” — Evanescence
Chapter Two — Aria
“PDA” — Interpol
🖤 “Winter Bird” — AURORA
“Under Control” — The Strokes
Chapter Three — Damien
“Eat Your Young (Bekon’s Choral Version)” — Hozier
🖤 “If I Had a Heart” — Fever Ray
“Afraid of Everyone” — The National
Chapter Four — Aleric
🖤 “Atlantic” — Keane
“Munich” — Editors
Chapter Five — Aria
“Youth” — Daughter
“Shiver” — Coldplay
“Hide and Seek” — Imogen Heap
🖤 “Bring Me to Life” — Evanescence
Chapter Six — Aria
“Maps” — Yeah Yeah Yeahs
“Holocene” — Bon Iver
🖤 “Breathe Me” — Sia
Any song with BREATHE in the title was an instant yes.
Chapter Seven — Aleric
“3 Libras” — A Perfect Circle
🖤 “Set the Fire to the Third Bar” — Snow Patrol
Chapter Eight — Kaelis
“Teddy Picker” — Arctic Monkeys
🖤 “Dear Agony” — Breaking Benjamin
Chapter Nine — Aria
🖤 “Softcore” — The Neighbourhood
“Talk Show Host” — Radiohead
Chapter Ten — Aria
🖤 “Bloodletting (The Vampire Song)” — Concrete Blonde
“I Will Follow You Into the Dark” — Death Cab for Cutie
And yes, of course The Vampire Song made it into my vampire romance. There really wasn’t another option.
Chapter Eleven — Aleric
🖤 “Analyse” — Thom Yorke
“Delicate” — Damien Rice
Chapter Twelve — Aria
🖤 “Cosmic Love” — Florence + The Machine
“Going Under” — Evanescence
Chapter Thirteen — Damien
🖤 “Hurt” — Nine Inch Nails
“Feral Love” — Chelsea Wolfe
“Lovesong” — The Cure
Chapter Fourteen — Aria
🖤 “Special” — Garbage
“With or Without You” — U2
“Sweet” — Cigarettes After Sex
“Sextape” — Deftones
“Dark Paradise (Slow + Reverb)” — Lana Del Rey
Five songs for one chapter. I’m not explaining myself. You’ll understand eventually.
Chapter Fifteen — Damien
🖤 “About Today” — The National
Chapter Sixteen — Kaelis
🖤 “Read My Mind” — The Killers
“You Make Loving Fun” — Fleetwood Mac
Chapter Seventeen — Aria
🖤 “Apocalypse” — Cigarettes After Sex
“Coastline” — Hollow Coves
“You and Whose Army?” — Radiohead
Chapter Eighteen — Aleric
🖤 “Vicarious” — TOOL
Fun fact: this is my dad’s favorite band. I had to include it. He has been a big help with my medical issues, and I love him so much for being the best dad and papa to my daughter.
Chapter Nineteen — Aria
🖤“NFWMB” — Hozier
“Wings” — Birdy
“Light Years” — The National
Chapter Twenty — Aria
“Everybody’s Changing” — Keane
🖤 “Life Eternal” — Ghost
Chapter Twenty-One — Aria
🖤 “Down by the Water” — PJ Harvey
“Pet” — A Perfect Circle
Chapter Twenty-Two — Aleric
“Strong” — London Grammar
🖤 “Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors” — Editors
Chapter Twenty-Three — Aria
“Smother” — Daughter
“No Light, No Light” — Florence + The Machine
🖤 “Will I Make It Out Alive” — Tommee Profitt
This one deserves a little more explanation.
The Song That Helped Shape BREATHE.
Of every song on this playlist, “Will I Make It Out Alive” holds a particularly important place in my heart.
It didn’t simply remind me of a chapter.
In many ways, it helped shape the emotional heart of BREATHE.
When I began writing this story, I was at the highest anxiety and PTSD level I had experienced after my own medical trauma. There were moments when fear felt bigger than everything else, and this song captured something I didn’t always know how to put into words.
That feeling found its way into Aria.
Aria has spent much of her life surviving.
As a child, she grew up with a mother who never gave her the security and love she deserved.
Later, after college, Aria found herself trapped in an abusive relationship. When she finally finds the courage to leave Las Vegas and run to Michigan, she thinks she’s escaping the worst of her life.
She has no idea what is waiting for her there.
Three brothers.
A connection she can’t explain.
A dark secret that will completely change the way she understands the world.
And a past that isn’t quite finished with her yet.
Throughout all of it, there’s a question underneath Aria’s story:
Am I going to make it out alive?
That’s why this song means so much more to me than simply being part of the soundtrack.
I knew what that question felt like.
My circumstances and Aria’s are very different, but I gave her some of the fear I understood—the feeling of wanting desperately to get to the other side of something when you can’t quite see where the other side is yet.
I won’t tell you what happens in Chapter Twenty-Three.
But when you get there, you’ll understand why this was the song.
And maybe you’ll understand a little more about why I wrote BREATHE, too.
Chapter Twenty-Four — Damien
“Time Is Running Out” — Muse
🖤 “This Is What Losing Someone Feels Like” — JVKE
“Saturn” — Sleeping At Last
Nope.
I’m not explaining this one either.
You’ll have to trust me.
Chapter Twenty-Five — Aria
🖤 “Breathe Again” — Sara Bareilles
“Vampires Will Never Hurt You” — My Chemical Romance
I don’t think I could have ended Aria’s main chapters with a more fitting song than “Breathe Again.”
Especially considering where she began.
Bonus Chapter — Aleric
“Kiss Me” — Ed Sheeran
🖤 “Kill of the Night” — Gin Wigmore
One Story. Two Playlists.
Technically, I suppose there are two versions of the BREATHE soundtrack now.
The version printed inside the book contains one song for every chapter and the bonus chapter—the song I ultimately felt represented that chapter best.
And then there’s this version.
The messy, oversized, couldn’t-possibly-fit-it-in-the-book version.
The real writing playlist.
These are the songs I listened to, connected with, and mentally attached to different pieces of Aria, Damien, Aleric, Kaelis, and the world they inhabit.
Sometimes it was the lyrics.
Sometimes it was the sound.
Sometimes it was simply the feeling a song gave me.
And sometimes I heard a song and immediately thought:
That’s them.
Listen Along With BREATHE
You absolutely don’t have to listen to the playlist while reading BREATHE.
But if you’re a reader who loves completely immersing yourself in a fictional world, I made this for you.
I am definitely that reader who loves a built in playlist.
You can listen chapter by chapter, choose only the official song printed in the book, or listen to every song all at once.
One warning, though:
I wouldn’t study the later song titles too closely before you get there.
Some of my choices may not mean anything to you yet.
Eventually, they will.
Music Gave BREATHE Another Language
Writing BREATHE has always been deeply personal to me.
Aria isn’t me, and her story isn’t my story. But pieces of the emotions I was trying to understand while writing found their way onto these pages.
Fear.
Anxiety.
Feeling trapped.
Wanting safety.
Learning how to trust.
Finding people who make you feel less alone.
And slowly realizing that surviving something and actually beginning to live again aren’t necessarily the same thing.
Music helped me find those emotions when I couldn’t always find the words myself.
That’s probably why this playlist became so enormous.
Every song holds a tiny piece of the world I was building.
And now that BREATHE is becoming something other people will actually get to hold and read, I love the idea that you can hear that world too.
Maybe you’ll disagree with some of my choices.
Maybe you’ll find a song and think, THIS should have been the chapter song.
Maybe one of these songs will become permanently associated with Aria or one of the Cross brothers in your head.
I actually hope that happens.
Because once the book is in your hands, the story isn’t only mine anymore.
You get to experience it your way.
So turn the music up.
Open Chapter One.
And breathe. 🖤
— J. L. Ski
Comments