Every Part of The Legendary has a soundtrack. When you see a cue line in the book, that’s your signal to press play. This story was plotted as an animated series first, and the music was there from the start. Over the next few weeks I’m going to walk through the Volume 2 soundtrack one Part at a time and tell you why each song is where it is. No spoilers, hopefully.

Get Some – Lykke Li

I wanted this song for a fight scene from the first time I heard it, years ago. It has a backbeat that won’t quit, and then these pauses that drop out of nowhere. If you storyboard action, those pauses are gold. Every one of them is a still on film or panel break in a graphic novel.

But it wasn’t my call alone. The Vegan Marauder is based on a real person, and when I finally wrote her into the story, I asked her what track she’d want playing over a fight with her character. Get Some was the first thing out of her mouth. Same song. I didn’t have to sell her on anything.

It fits her perfectly. And there’s a bonus joke in it for anyone paying attention: the song has a shotgun in it, and Frank spends that entire fight trying to use his.

Mouthful of Diamonds – Phantogram

Part 9 ends on a closing-credits song, and this is it. Phantogram has an electronic, digital tone to everything they do, and that sound belonged on the moment an AI wakes up for the first time. I can see the shot every time I hear it.

The song opens with a wake-up call, which is almost too on the nose. But the deeper reason is what it’s about: detachment, and the cycles we can’t seem to break. Those are traps Frank is already walking into, and they’re the real danger of getting too personally invested in an AI. There’s a lot of subtext about the rest of Volume 2 in this one.

Full Volume 2 playlist on YouTube

The Legendary: Volume 2 is out October 31 on Amazon and Kindle.