Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story may be set in the late 19th century, but it thrums with a very modern energy, in no small part thanks to its soundtrack. “You don’t want a period piece to feel stuffy and like it’s in some sort of diorama,” says co-showrunner Ian Brennan. “You want to remind the viewer that these are real people.”
As we follow Lizzie Borden (Ella Beatty) through the grisly murder of her parents, Monster deploys a series of familiar tunes, from the Runaways’ classic banger “Cherry Bomb” to a Chromatics cover of Bruce Springsteen’s aching “I’m On Fire.” The soundtrack’s anachronism is in keeping with the spirit of Monster; the series trips backwards and forwards in time, exploring the weight of history on Lizzie’s life and her subsequent impact on generations to follow.
“We both go back in time to Lizzie, then go further back to Elizabeth Báthory and then come back sooner to Aileen Wuornos,” Brennan says. “So we’re sort of jumping through time anyway and extending that to the present day with music, felt like the right move.”
Read on to find every song on the soundtrack of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story, now streaming on Netflix.
