Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Savannah, Georgia, where we lay our scene. One house, the vampire-killing Burns clan, who’ve sworn to protect the world. The second, the Fairmont family of Legacy vampires, who have the ability to walk in the daylight. Love, war, they’re intertwined with these two families. And as far as First Kill showrunner Felicia D. Henderson is concerned, the two collide in the sapphic series’ soundtrack as well.

Music is central to the star-crossed love story between Calliope (Imani Lewis) and Juliette (Sarah Catherine Hook) in First Kill. As teens, their relationship is full of the rush of firsts, from kisses to aching betrayals. To capture that push-and-pull of angst, Henderson, a self-professed music buff, knew she needed to lean into her characters’ journeys musically when curating the soundtrack for the series.

“I fully believe that I was a musician in another life because I love music so much,” Henderson tells Tudum. So when she was asked to create a playlist for the show, she immediately said that she wasn’t just going to need one. “I'm gonna need two,” she says.

The official playlists, which will be shared on Spotify, are First Kill: First Love and First Kill: First War. Natural fits for Cal and Jules’ romance born of strife, no?

After all, the couple’s theme song is Stephanie Mabey’s “The Zombie Song,” with lyrics promising that they wouldn’t eat each other’s brains if they were zombies. All they want, of course, is the other’s heart. No matter how much it hurts their families to get it.

As a storyteller, Henderson explains that she wanted her curated playlists to have a narrative. “That's why I'm like, ‘I need two.’ I need one that's just about love and all you go through with love when you’re in love, when you’re outta love, when love is good, when love is bad, but it’s all of that on the first playlist. And then, on the second playlist, it’s the way we war with ourselves. It’s about the war between the [families]. It’s about the little wars between brothers and sisters and about the war [you’re] waging to just be yourself.”

Brian Douglas/Netflix

The series features famous needle drops like Carrie Underwood’s “Before He Cheats,” as Juliette and her BFF Ben (Jonas Dylan Allen) drive to school, and Billie Eilish’s “bury a friend,” as Juliette and her older sister Elinor (Gracie Dzienny) go on the Legacy prowl one night. And Henderson credits her close relationships with the series’ composer, Kurt Farquhar, and music supervisor, Ashley Neumeister, for helping to develop a shorthand for pulling music for the show that reflected such a large set of musical arcs for the characters.

“Even when I sit down to write, I have to know what a character would listen to so that I can listen to that,” Henderson says, before noting that she spends an “inordinate amount of time” reflecting on her characters’ musical tastes, especially for an ensemble show like First Kill. She remarks, “Man, there’s gotta be some emo rock and some emo pop going in there” for the “teen girls falling in love from two different cultures,” while Calliope’s older brothers Theseus (Phillip Mullings Jr.) and Apollo (Dominic Goodman) lean more towards hip-hop. 

Both sets of upper middle class parents’ listening habits are a different story, naturally. The Fairmont vamps would probably be keen on classical and jazz, “like, the earliest forms,” Henderson says, and the Burns would give some love to “old school R&B.” Henderson feels that these overlapping genres and musical interests come as “wonderful opportunities within this world without feeling forced. It all comes together very naturally.”

One of Henderson’s favorites off of the playlists is Shameka Dwight’s “Tug O War.” “I love, love, love that song,” Henderson says. “It plays during Episode 2 during the fight sequence on the roof of the school between Juliette and Cal, and it’s so different and all of the beats of it really work for our show. I hadn’t heard anything like it.” 

Henderson notes that Dwight has a few other songs on First Kill, including “Love Affair,” because she “became one of the main sort of sounds of the season.”

She also cites “Sneak Dissin’” by independent artist SuNWhoa Love as another beloved track, which plays in Episode 2 when Theseus and Apollo head out for a nighttime hunt. “This song is just the two boys listening — I call them boys — but the two young men as they’re driving to the cemetery to kill some ghouls. This is their music that gets them in the mood. It’s this kind of cool laid-back vibe, but it’s hip hop, and Calliope is in the backseat probably wanting to listen to something else. But the boys are like, ‘This is what we bob our heads to.’ I’m a big fan. I still sing that song. I still walk around singing that song.”

Henderson shouts out “16 Shots” by Stefflon Don, too. It’s the song that closes out the season. “That’s a song that Ashley [Neumeister] found, actually. And when I heard it, we were in an editing session and I literally stood up out of the chair. I just stood up and started dancing. The beat was so infectious, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, what is that?’ I felt so strongly about it.”

But to be fair, Henderson loves every one of the songs because, “I curated both lists, you know what I mean?”

These three tracks and more are featured on Henderson’s curated playlists for First Kill. Sink your fangs into First Kill: First Love and First Kill: First War below.

With additional reporting by Jean Bentley.