Refurbished: The Clover Initiative Playlist

I’ve always been a musical person. I get attached to songs that might remind me of someone or fit a specific mood in my life. If I had to live in any movie, I’d fit in a musical.

With all this in mind, when people ask me if there is a playlist for the Refurbished Saga, the answer is simple: Just one playlist?

Here’s the playlist for Book 1, The Clover Initiative! You’ll find more details about the songs included in the list below. (Beware spoilers! If you haven’t read the first book, come back after you do.)

1. Harder, better, faster, stronger - Daft Punk

The Refurbished Saga’s Theme Song.

If there was a song I’d use to describe the whole Refurbished saga, it would be this one. Before the first book was even a reality, I revisited the Interstella 5555 album and found that Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger described perfectly what GENEs would be. Genetically Enhanced Entities are engineered to be better, faster, stronger, and are assumed to withstand harder work than regular soldiers. In my wildest dreams, I’ve pictured a Refurbished animated series with this song as the theme song. But imagine the royalties I’d paid for it!

2. Sunflower - Post Malone, Swae Lee

Miguel’s Theme Song.

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is a great movie with an even greater score led by Sunflower. After watching the movie, I became quite obsessed with this song. I naturally had to research the story behind the lyrics and found that “… sunflowers are known to rapidly deplete their soil of nutrients. Swae and Post use this as a metaphor for the effects that several characters have on Miles, which simultaneously overwhelms and motivates him throughout the movie.” 1

I felt like this metaphor spoke to Miguel’s story. Miguel and Miles are both young people faced with the incredible responsibility of having superpowers. Their stories speak about the pressure to become heroes. Their powers can destroy the integrity of their personas, and it is up to them to produce something beautiful with them, just as the soil produces sunflowers.

3. Days of Thunder - The Midnight

Alyssa’s Theme Song.

The Midnight has quickly become one of my favorite bands, and this has to be my favorite song from them. It has a feel that screams 80s music. The music is electric and the lyrics poetic, making it the perfect theme for Alyssa.

Not only the title fits Alyssa’s code name—Crimson Thunder—but it also fits her character journey. The lyrics speak about burning bridges and change into darker times. This fits the tumultuous time in Alyssa’s life portrayed in the book.

4. Bulletproof Love - Adrian Younge

James' Theme Song.

Netflix’s Luke Cage has to be my favorite representation of the superhero Power Man. When James was created, my co-creator and I looked at Luke for inspiration. When we saw Mike Colter’s representation of Luke Cage and heard this song, we knew it would be the perfect representation for James.

The lyrics of this song do not speak to the man James is in Book 1, but it might be a glimpse of the future. In the meantime, this song makes me picture James pumping 5 tons at the Clover Building’s gym while he listens to songs with this same vibe.

5. Woman - Kesha

Robin’s Theme Song.

Have you met Robin? If you have, this song needs little to no explanation. Robin is my favorite character to write. I have a lot of fun playing with her voice and her fabulous self. Woman describes perfectly how I’ve pictured Robin’s life outside of Clover.

6. Run for Your Life - The Seige

0397’s Theme Song.

This song has all the energy and vibe I had in mind when crafting 0397’s journey. The lyrics remind me of the phrase, “when push comes to shove”. This is what I pictured for this character’s catalyst. What happens when the wrong person, in the wrong state of mind, finds themselves in the wrong situation? If you’re there to find out, you better run for your life.

7. White Rabbit - Jefferson Airplane

Shadow Braid’s Theme Song.

With Shadow Braid’s story, I knew I wanted to use surrealism to include magical realism in a SciFi book. What better inspiration to do this than Alice in Wonderland? When elements in her storyline got weirder and weirder, I would stop to consider if I should dial it back. But I always returned to the image of Alice falling down the rabbit hole and this song and kept going.

8. The Man - The Killers

Esteban’s Theme Song.

To say that Esteban Tomasetti thinks highly of himself is an understatement. He’s the only secondary character to get a theme song. Esteban was the character whose personality ended up giving him more “screen-time” than I planned for. He did things I wasn’t expecting, and he quickly became a character I love to hate. This song fits him and his ego perfectly.

9. The Lion, The Beast, The Beat - Grace Potter & The Nocturnals

The climax.

This song set the climax of the book, especially for Miguel’s storyline. Miguel’s arc follows the structure of the Hero’s Journey, so the line “I found the heart of a lion in the belly of the beast.” really spoke to me while writing his last chapters.

10. Daft Punk - Pentatonix

Books 1: Outro.

Pentatonix’s a cappella cover of Daft Punk’s songs worked as the perfect way to celebrate the end of this book.