Set in 2007, Goblin – a dark theatrical comedy penned and performed by Derek Mitchell – is the story of Eliot, an emo kid with an imaginary goblin who just wants to be loved. We asked for a few songs that inspired it.
Work Bitch – Britney Spears
This is the song that, while I was having a pandemic-induced mental breakdown in 2020 which led me to run endless circles around the city of Amsterdam listening obsessively to this song and this song only, inspired me to make a show about a horrible gay spin instructor.
And while that premise – once tested – turned out to be neither good or funny, it was the kernel of an idea that pushed me to figure out why that horrible gay spin instructor was so horrible, and who he was as a teenager. A sweet, deeply good, naive emo teen who just wanted to be loved. Goblin was born!
Welcome to the Black Parade – My Chemical Romance
In some ways I think this is the quintessential anthem for my idea of what emo is, in the context of Goblin. I should note – I am not, nor was I ever, a genuine emo. I was too much of a wallflower to have a strong look of any kind. But I really admired the emo kids and thought they were beautiful and haunted.
Gerard Way’s vocals lead on what is essentially a pop punk opera, an emo ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ that’s narrative, epic, and has a beginning, middle and end. It’s bold, anthemic and I’ve lost myself in it on many a bus journey over the years of developing this show.
Wake Me Up When September Ends – Green Day
Full disclosure, pop punk is not the music I would turn on for myself outside the context of work on this show. But I also like to immerse myself in the music of the world of the show I’m making, and so my Spotify algorithm has, over the past couple years, determined I’m maybe one of the biggest emo listeners on the market.
That said, I’ve included tracks on my Goblin playlist that would probably make emo purists cover their ears, mock-scream and post a tumblr image of themselves with the caption ‘can I haz real emo plz?’ This song by Green Day is maybe one such track.
But this show is really inspired by music that makes me feel intensely nostalgic for 00s cringe. Bush-era battle cries, emotional self-seriousness – and ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ is THE one as far as that’s concerned. It reminds me of driving to school with my mom and brother mid family crisis, wondering whether I’d ever get out of our small town.
Vindicated – Dashboard Confessional
Dashboard feels like one of THE bands that a particular kind of scene kid loved to namecheck in 2007. I remember listening to ‘Vindicated’ on someone else’s iPod nano in the middle school locker room and wondering to myself why these grown up men were so sad, and what they could possibly need to be vindicated for.
It wasn’t until I became a grown-up that I realised the reason they were so sad is because it can be extremely fun to pretend you’re sad for attention, and that this attention can absolutely feel like vindication too.
Not to mention the fact that it’s wild to me the band hails from Boca Raton, Florida (which would be like a British punk band being from Guernsey). And that lead singer Chris Carraba is both hugely hot and also has maybe THE quintessential emo vocal sound of all time?
Sprawl II – Arcade Fire
Another track that’s not emo but which has helped with building out the psychic world of Goblin as I’ve written and developed it. Arcade Fire is indie rock, and their earliest, most authentically ‘indie’ beginnings coincided with the heyday of pop punk.
There was a time when namedropping Arcade Fire (Funeral and Neon Bible era) immediately signalled cool to me. But it was their Grammy win for The Suburbs – on which ‘Sprawl II’ appears – that to teenage me signalled the death of their cool and meant they’d sold out, big time.
Of course, it was also one of their most artistically ambitious and accomplished works. And it’s about suburbia (huge in Goblin) and its vast homogeneity being disrupted by flashes of brilliance and pain.
I Miss You – Blink 182
Blink 182 is often held up as the OG pop punk outfit. Pop punk was an industry-side invention by the labels – it wasn’t an underground movement or phenomenon, but rather manufactured with a young, post-9/11 listener in mind.
And Blink 182 was arguably one of the earliest groups that can be slotted into the slip stream of that whiney, put-upon treble and lyricism that now feels simultaneously iconic and cringe. This was one of the first songs I had on repeat while developing the earliest draft of Goblin in 2022. I stayed in a haunted-as-hell basement AirBnb in Margate and wandered along the seaside listening to this anthem about lost love.
Avril 14th – Aphex Twin
This sketch of a song is a melodic departure for Aphex Twin, and for this list. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with emo, but it, maybe more than any other track, emblematises the bleak feeling of unknowing that characterised my teenage years. Driving around the suburbs smoking American Spirits, listening to this song and wondering whether I’d ever get out.
To me it captures aural melancholy better than maybe any other song ever, and sometimes it makes me cry in true emo fashion. It’s now also the song that closes out Goblin.
Derek Mitchell: Goblin, Summerhall, 31 Jul-24 Aug (not 11, 18), 9.50pm