The Sound of Olympia: A Playlist for Les Boulevardiers
Some stories begin with a sentence. Others begin with a place.
Les Boulevardiers began with Olympia: a fashionable block of Paris near the Opéra where gaslight catches in the mist, carriages rattle over wet cobblestones, and every open door seems to lead somewhere more dangerous than the last.
It is a world of theaters, cafés, brasseries, private clubs, brothels, opium rooms, salons, hidden passages, and alleys that do not easily surrender their secrets. By day, Olympia glitters. By night, it changes shape.
So I built a playlist for it.
Not a soundtrack in the traditional sense. There is no attempt here to recreate the music of 1878 Paris with strict historical accuracy. That would be a different exercise. This playlist is more of a tonal map: sixteen songs chosen to evoke the emotional weather of the novel.
Paris noir. Carnival menace. Demimonde glamour. Dangerous romance. Supernatural dread.
The playlist opens with Miles Davis’s “Générique,” from Ascenseur pour l’échafaud, because few pieces of music so quickly conjure a city at night. The horn feels lonely, elegant, and doomed. It could be heard drifting from an upper window above Rue Caumartin, or playing in the mind of someone who knows they are being followed.
Tom Waits appears several times because no one better captures the rough magic of the gutter: the clatter of bottles, the laughter of thieves, the crooked little carnival playing in the next alley over. “Singapore,” “Tango Till They’re Sore,” and “Clap Hands” all belong to the underworld of Olympia. They are not polite songs. Olympia is not a polite place.
Nick Cave brings the devotional darkness. “Straight to You” and “Into My Arms” sit close to the emotional heart of the book: longing, possession, tenderness, and the terrible cost of wanting to be saved by another person.
There are also songs for Raquel.
Mono’s “Life in Mono” has the feel of silk, mirrors, champagne, and melancholy. It belongs to the threshold between the ballet and La Fleur Bleue, between performance and reinvention. Brigitte Bardot’s “Un jour comme un autre” carries the ache of beauty passing through time. Concrete Blonde’s “Dance Along the Edge” feels like survival sharpened into elegance.
And then there is the supernatural current.
David Bowie’s “Lazarus” belongs to the book’s darker bloodstream: death that does not stay dead, transformation that exacts a price, and the theatricality of the unseen world pressing through the visible one. Josh Ritter’s “The Curse” lives in that same atmosphere. It is mythic, mournful, and intimate.
This playlist is not meant to explain the novel. It is meant to unlock a door.
Play it while reading. Play it while walking at night. Play it with a glass of something dark and unreasonable. Let it lead you through Olympia’s bright rooms and into its hidden passages.
The full playlist is available here:
Welcome to Olympia.
Listen closely.
