1. Viva la Vida - Coldplay

Okay, this is the first of the "obvious" songs, what with "shattered glass and the sound of drums".

I see it - for the purposes of this mix - as Time War era Jacobi!Master, who's got his new set of lives, only to find himself a puppet of the Time Lord leadership - while the Time Lord leadership is crumbling over him. He's looking more back than forward because when he looks forward all he can see is the end of everything. Angry and desperate and alone and feeling, above all, old and washed out and hopeless. But still, he's alive, truly alive, again. And all the cloister bells are ringing...

Actually, this entire Coldplay album would work for Time War songs, but one must set a limit somewhere.

2. Sound of the Drums - Suzanne Palmer

This is Yana's song. He has no past and has no family or origin, and no future at all, and nothing is closing in at all sides. He's got only the sound of the drums spurring him onward to do something, to "keep holding on till the darkness is gone". (You do have to swap out the pronoun gender, though. As awesome as girl!Yana would have been. Someone should write that.)

This is the first of the "Sound of the Drums" songs on this mix - I have one for each continent, a theme which more or less happened without my trying, as the Master's rule swept over the whole Earth. Suzanne Palmer is part of the Chicago House / Trance scene, which means that this song has about fifty kajillion dance remixes, and it took me forever to find an mp3 of the original. (Some of the remixes are good, but they're all so long they would've taken over the fanmix.)

3. Lindsey Buckingham - Go Insane

The Master is back - but he's trapped on Earth, has regeneration sickness much worse that usual, and can't hear anyone else. Luckily, he knows exactly what to do in that situation: take over the world. And then he finds his Lucy. I see Lucy as very much the Master's Rose; he met her when he was at a very low ebb, and with her beside him he found his way again. Her sort of madness just inlocked perfectly with his, in a way that really reminds him of a certain other crazy person he fell head-over-heels with once... and the Doctor will be coming back, just like he's meant to.

This song is often credited to Fleetwood Mac, but it's actually off of Lindsey Buckingham's second solo album after leaving the band, which was very much a break-up album. (There's a song on there called "Bang the Drum", but alas the lyrics wouldn't have worked on this mix.)

4. Capital Inicial - Vem Bater no Meu Tambor

He's found his new balance, he's used to himself and ready to put the last of his plans in motion (beyond ready, please, he was bored with this period on earth about six incarnations ago, and Lucy is already a bit much.)

This is the "Sound of the Drums" song for South America - the only one of the seven that I had to go looking for, but it worked so well. Here's the lyrics, as translated by my Spanish and Latin and an online dictionary of Brazilian Portuguese:

    Come Sound My Drum

    When routine wins and fools dictate rules
    Frankly I believe in murder.
    Who wants something different?
    Something less complacent?

    You say hope is necessary,
    But there's no hope without blood and flame.
    Come beat my drum.
    Enough of talking about love.

    I don't know why I was given the will
    To do things that are wrong:
    Who wants something different?
    Something less complacent.

    I think so
    So I'll be calmer
    Come beat my drum!
    Enough of talking about love.

5. Voltaire - Because I'm Evil

Oh yes, the Master is back! And the Archangel Network is finally online. (So maybe he doesn't remember the drums ever being this bad before, so what.)

6. Randy Newman - Political Science

In which the Master announces his run for Parliament. He's always found the political side of things to be trivially easy. (Why hasn't he ever tried it on Earth before, anyway?)

Yeah, this song is way too America-centric, but for some reason, there's a real shortage of songs about the British blowing up the rest of the world in a fit of pique.

7. Garbage - The World Is Not Enough

This was the first dance at the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Saxon. Some of the onlookers wrote it off as just another eccentricity of Mr. Saxon; some of them thought it was a romantic love song that must have meaning to the happy couple; some of them thought it was one of Mr. Saxon's borderline-bad-taste jokes, considering the upcoming election. Everyone noted how much Mrs. Saxon and her husband were having fun dancing to it. (None of them realized that the song had been her idea.)

This is, of course, the theme to the 1999 Bond film. So, question for the audience: is James Bond a) a Celestial Intervention Agent gone bad, b) all of the Master's missing regenerations, or c) both of the above?

8. Kula Shaker - Sound of Drums

"What this country needs" - *wink* - "is a doctor." The proper audience is assembled at last, the dominoes are all lined up, the drums are beating and -- time to have some fun!

The song the album title comes from, which is a apt summary of most of the Master's plans, but this one more than most I think, seeing as he clearly is having a ton of fun and doesn't really bother to pretend to have any other motivation. And this is the "Sound of Drums" song for Europe.

9. Great Big Sea - The End of the World As We Know It

I had this song on the mix before I rememebered the Master had actually quoted the title, on the deck of the Valiant, as the Toclafane streamed by. He's just enjoying the hell out of himself at this point, and seriously, why not?

The first of the songs on this mix which are right out of the episode. Er -- why is it a cover version by a Canadian folk-rock group? Well, as Mr. Saxon would say, why not? I was trying to keep a certain theme to the sound of the music in the mix, too, and the GBS cover just seemed to work better than the original, which is almost too familiar sometimes.

10. Rogue Traders - Voodoo Child

Directly off the episode soundtrack, but I couldn't not include it at this point in the mix. And the more I listen to the bits of it that aren't in the episode, the more I realize it's the perfect summary of how the Master is feeling about the Doctor at this point, now that he has him at his mercy at last. Part resentment, part confidence, and mostly just "coming undone".

This is the "Sound of Drums" song for the continent of Australia, and marks the climax of both the arc and the fanmix. Here the rising action ends and the falling action starts.

11. Dean Gray (Greenday/KLF/Gary Glitter/Delia Derbyshire) - Dr. Who on Holiday

'Cause when it comes right down to it? I think the Master really did intend the whole thing as giving the Doctor a holiday. He sets it up with the Paradox Machine so they can do whatever they want and it won't have any of those pesky consequences the Doctor always worries about, and all the people who get killed won't ever actually have been killed once they fix the TARDIS, so the Doctor won't have anything at all to whine about and the two of them can just play for as long as they feel like it.

After the last couple centuries he's had, he needs the time off. It's still all about the Doctor; why bother pretending anymore? (So why why why is the Doctor refusing to play with him? It's not *fair*!)

Every Dr. Who fanmix should have a Dr. Who remix on it (there are certainly enough of them.) This one is actually a mashup (with Greenday's "Holiday") with a mashup (The Timelords' "Doctoring the TARDIS" which was a mashup with "Rock and Roll (Part 2)".) Circles within circles seems appropriate for this point in the Master's plan. (And I can't be the only one who gave a little stifled cheer when he killed the President...)

Interestingly, the final result doesn't actually preserve any of that recurring four-note motif from the original song. The Master hears it anyway.

12. Cypress Hill - Insane In the Brain

Because every fanmix needs at least one really embarrassing hip-hop song on it. And the Doctor is refusing to play.

13. They Might Be Giants - Kiss Me Son of God

The Master is on top of the world, exactly where he belongs, and the Archangel Network is still running, and he's still beloved by five billion people. And he's starting to lose thing. He's starting to lose Lucy (she loves him, she'll always love him, she's *his*, she made the most part of him out of nothing). He's starting to think he never had the Doctor (of course the Doctor loves him, the Doctor's clearly pining away, and the Master doesn't care for him one whit, who's winning now, Doctor, and why won't he play??) And the Master needs music he can dance to.

14. The Ting Tings - Great DJ

Everything is GOING EXACTLY ACCORDING TO PLAN and the Master is ENTIRELY IN CONTROL. Why do you ask?

I started this fanmix when this was a new single playing on the radio. That's how long it's been eating at me.

15. Dhol Foundation - Big Drum, Small World

A long drum instrumental seems appropriate at this point. (Warning: the beat will get stuck in your head.)

This is the Asia song for Round the World With the Sound Of Drums. Dhol Foundation is run by one of the same people who plays with Afro-Celt Sound System, another sound that fandom introduced me to. Dhol is bhangra music, originally played on Vaisakhi, which celebrates the turning of the year. ...yeah. Unfortunately, I have no clue what the non-English (presumably Punjabi) lyrics are about.

16. The New Pornographers - The End of Medicine

Boom goes Japan! Boom goes New York! There's no hope for the Earth or the Doctor now, no matter what that Martha person thinks she is doing, 'cause the Master's in charge.

Fun trivia: This is the only song in the whole mix where the word "Master" actually appears in the lyrics.

17. Scissor Sisters - I Can't Decide

The Master likes this song because it's the only thing he's ever found that's earwormy enough to overpower the drums. He started playing it a lot more toward the end of the year. Most of the occupants of the Valiant started really missing the Geneva Conventions after a couple of weeks on repeat on the PA.

(God, seriously, it's possible this whole fanmix came out of an attempt to get "I Can't Decide" to stop looping in my head. Make you kill things. Really.)

18. Gnarls Barkley - Crazy

"Sparkly Tinkerbell Jesus - are you kidding me? Really? And I'm supposed to be the crazy one?" And the Master wins. Again.

A week after I put this song on the fanmix I saw a vid to it at a vidshow (it's up here, unfortunately you have to ask for a password). Technically it's to Life on Mars rather than Last of the Time Lords, but I understand from fandom that Life on Mars is a LotTL AU where the Master ended up hiding in Earth's past, under a malfunctioning chameleon arch, right? So it's really a Master vid anyway.

19. Angélique Kidjo - The Sound of the Drums

He's not really dead. Probably. He's coming back. We hope. ... Surely he's coming back? He won. Didn't he? He won. It'll work, whatever the plan was, it'll work. And the drums.

This is Africa's song for the Sound of Drums Worldwide Tour. I didn't manage to get a translation of the non-English words in this one either, but if anyone knows Fong, get in touch!

20. Walter Murphy - A Fifth of Beethoven

During WWII, the BBC used to open its broadcasts with the famous four-beat motif from the beginning of Beethoven's Fifth, because five stands for V stands for Victory, and so does dit-dit-dit-dah.

Every time I tried to explain the drumbeat to a non-Who person, I ended up singing Beethoven's Fifth instead, so this had to go on. And if a song is good, a disco cover of it is better, right? Just ask McMurdo Station.

21. Bonus Track
Roos - Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb

This is the Master's favorite book. He used to make Lucy read it to him before bed on his bad nights, and then he'd feel better, and go quote bits of it at the Doctor, and then kill a few million more monkeys. (dum-diddy-dum-diddy-dum-dum-dum.)

...yes, there does exist a dance mix of this book. Isn't the internets great?