Soundtrack Sunday – “Black Sunday Afternoon”

Happy New Year! jk, everything’s fucking awful, I know. If you’d like to help out in Australia, here’s a list of places that need your donation pennies and here are instructions for needed pouches for orphaned joeys.

I’ve been working the last few weeks (or was–I have to go back and retool some things) on the first Waverly Jones novel, The Killing Beach–well, sorta first. There’s also a prequel I’ve had in progress off and on because that’s very much where Waverly’s journey begins.

She’s seventeen when the murders start in her small hometown–a brutal serial killer who takes three lives in an area before disappearing for months at a time. Along with him comes Detective-Sergeant Sebastian Kyle, who has tried–and failed–to capture the elusive killer.

Since the prequel will likely be for Patreon subscribers and the jacket copy for The Killing Beach is already out there, I can tell you that Waverly’s younger sister is the last victim before the killer goes dormant–for good. At the same time, Sebastian–who Waverly is entirely infatuated with–disappears.

The Killing Beach picks up eleven years later. Waverly is a PI with modern cases to contend with, but she’s still haunted by her sister’s murder, the missing detective, and the killer who was never caught.

So “Black Sunday Afternoon” by Anna Ternheim belongs on the prequel’s soundtrack most of all, but I still have it on my general Waverly playlist.

I have a memory–a recent one!–of reading about that song and how it was written about a murdered (or missing?) girl. Of course, I cannot find that reference now and I’m not sure if I imagined it, confused this song with another, or mistakenly read an incorrect interpretation. (If anyone knows the truth, let me know!)

(Also check this acoustic version, which I prefer.)

They gather up, something's wrong
They ask around, no one knows
Well, have you been where the rivers cross
by the water in the moss?
Nothing really moves on black Sunday afternoons 

Even if my memory is quite mistaken and I’m confusing things, it certainly fits lyrically. It’s a very haunting song that always makes me think of Waverly in the moments when she knows something’s happened but doesn’t have the full picture yet.