“Black Metallic”

by Catherine Wheel. This is one of my all-time favorite songs. It was in my head quite a bit as I was writing Wintertide. It’s really the perfect theme song for Daniel. It’s part of Daniel’s playlist at the end of the book. I think I anguished over that playlist almost as much as I did over the book as a whole. When I first heard “Absolute Zero,” I thought that was a good song for Daniel, too. I made it the first song on his playlist. But the overall feeling of it is much too passionate to be a theme song for Daniel. The moody atmospheric sound of Black Metallic and my interpretation of what that song is about, suits him much better. I really wanted to add more Disturbed songs to the playlist, but they just didn’t fit the story - too much relationship stuff and too much emotion overall. Daniel just isn’t a real emotional guy.