a Wrinkle in Time fan soundtrack

This soundtrack involves me explaining and/or gushing about various points in the book. I glaze over things. It probably helps quite a bit to have read the book if you're going to read the comments. Quite frankly, I've read this book probably twice a year since I was a pre-teen. It's not about knowing the ending. It's about how you get there and what happens along the way.

I don't think I need to write an essay about how much I love this book, and how much it and its sequels have shaped the way I look at religion, magic, and life as a whole. I think everyone should read L'Engle in general; she's good for the soul.

I can only say I hope this does her justice.

"It was a dark and stormy night…"

Asunder, Life

If thunder were played on guitars instead of cymbols, I think a storm would sound something like this. Consider this the "opening credits", setting the scene with an instrumental that's lovely and crashing and a bit haunting. I discovered Asunder while browsing the music available for download on archive.org. They do lovely things with guitars and no words. I would recommend checking out their other offerings as well.
Masters of Chant, Ordinary World

This one's for Meg's everyday life. She hates school. She doesn't fit in, she doesn't get on with the teachers or the principal, and she feels hopeless. It doesn't help, of course, that her father is missing and everyone in town seems to have a snide comment ready about it. He was always the one who made her feel better, competent, and loved. Meg knows her mother tries, but it's just not the same.

I wanted to use this song before I'd even heard this cover. I found it quite by accident when I was trying to decide between the DDR version, which had a girl vocal and an innocence going for it, and the original, which I thought fit the mood better. This, I decided, was perfect. (Though it is on the long side.) It has an otherworldly quality and gorgeous guitars.
Switchfoot, This is Your Life (this is your life / is it everything you dreamed that it would be)

Calvin looks like everything Meg is not: academically talented, popular, and utterly unhappy at home. He worries that what he sees in his mother and his family is all life has to offer him, and that he will end up miserable. Calvin has an instinct that there's something more out there, but he doesn't know how to pursue it… yet. Meg and Charles Wallace are about to change that.
Loreena McKennitt, The Mystic's Dream (A voiceless song in an ageless light / Sings at the coming dawn)

And then there's Charles Wallace. Precocious and brilliant, Charles Wallace is highly unusual for a boy of his age. There's knowledge and awareness there that makes people uncomfortable.

I was unable to think of a song that compliments the Mrs. W's. I suspect if one exists, it's not an earthly one, but I'm open to suggestion.

"[A] straight line is not the shortest distance between two points" -Mrs. Whatsit

Wolfsheim, Approaching Lightspeed (when time stands still / a moment lasts / approaching lightspeed)

And then the adventure proper begins as Meg, Calvin, and Charles Wallace, in the company of the Mrs. W's, venture through a tesseract, a wrinkle in the fabric of spacetime on their way to rescue Meg and Charles Wallace's father. I've associated this song, both lyrics and ambient-techno style, with tessering since I first heard it, actually, and I'm thrilled to be able to use it.
Peter Gabriel, In the House of Stone and Light (Holy lady show me my soul / Tell me of that place where I must surely go)

The planet Uriel is a steppingstone along the way, a lovely and inspiring place, and this is where the children first begin to understand the nature of the W's.

"As the skipping rope hit the pavement, so did the ball. As the rope curved over the head of the jumping child, the child with the ball caught the ball. Down came the ropes. Down came the balls. Over and over again. Up. Down. All in rhythm. All identical. Like the houses. Like the paths. Like the flowers."

Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb (This is not how I am. / I have become comfortably numb.)

Camazotz scared the hell out of me long before I had Brave New World or 1984 to teach me about the creepy danger of conformity.
Marilyn Manson, Resident Evil Main Theme

And then there is IT. (Please pay no attention to the name of the artist there. The track is a really perfect instrumental.)
U2, Numb (Don't think. / Don't worry. / Everything's just fine.)

Charles Wallace thought he could go into IT and come out again. He was wrong. Meg watches as her happy reunion with her father falls apart.
Nine Inch Nails, a Warm Place

Another instrumental piece with an alien melody that is somehow comforting, much like Aunt Beast. Meg is healed physically, and she, her father and Calvin are healed emotionally.

"'We do not know what things look like, as you say,' the beast said. 'We know what things are like'" -Aunt Beast

Fleetwood Mac, Landslide (Well, I've been afraid of changing / 'Cause I've built my life around you)

Meg has spent the entire book to this point wanting to find her father because she believed that his presence would make everything okay again. He could fix it because he was Dad, and that's what dads do. And now, really talking to him for the first time in years in the safety of Aunt Beast's planet, Meg realizes that her father is a person, flawed and weak, just like anyone else. It's a really heartbreaking moment because she's been clinging to this image of her father and suddenly she doesn't know what she can stand on or believe in.

This next trio was chosen to go together for Meg's return to Camazotz. "Storm" starts with dissonant guitars, the return to Camazotz, and then settles into a delicate acoustic ballad. Meg is desperate to rescue her brother. She simply has no idea how she could possibly do it. She wonders if they're asking too much of her. "Letting the Cables Sleep" is her talk with the submerged Charles Wallace, seeking her brother and trying to draw him out. "Harbor" is the moment of epiphany and triumph as she brings him home.

Lifehouse, Storm (barely surviving has become my purpose / cause I'm so used to living underneath the surface)
Bush, Letting the Cables Sleep (Whatever you say it's alright / Silence is not the way / We need to talk about it)
Vienna Teng, Harbor (the light in me / will guide you home / all I want is to be your harbor)

"Love. That was what she had that IT did not have."

Coldplay, the Scientist (Nobody said it was easy / No one ever said it would be this hard / Take me back to the start)

Yes, I know it's common, but Alex and Kate (Mr and Mrs Murry) are one of my favorite fictional couples and they get a song after everything they went through, dammit. Reunited as a family, it is time to heal the wounds left by long absences and the attack of dark forces.

Until the next book, anyway.