If You Leave Me, I'll Die: 9 Popular Songs That Unlock BioShock Infinite's Mysteries

LOS ANGELES – As you're traveling through the dystopian city of Columbia in next year's BioShock Infinite, make sure to keep your eyes – and your ears – wide open.

Ken Levine, creative director of the upcoming game, told reporters here on Thursday that he was pushing back its release date by one month, to March 26, for extra bug-fixing and polish. Wired then played the first six hours of Infinite to see firsthand what the team is lavishing such extensive care on.

2007's BioShock was praised for its intricate, highly detailed depiction of Rapture, an underwater city that fell victim to its own hubris. With Columbia we see another such city, but this one in its prime, not yet having destroyed itself. It is a hundred times more detailed and extravagant than Rapture, and players who explore every nook and cranny will find all kinds of messages, supporting story elements and thought-provoking details buried by Levine and his writing team.

BioShock made great use of period music to set a particular mood, and some of the songs were clearly chosen for their lyrics, which mirrored elements of the story's plot. For BioShock Infinite, this is taken to the extreme. Dozens of popular songs are scattered liberally throughout the game, whether played on gramophones and radios or sung by characters. As I played, I jotted down the lyrics I heard so that I could revisit the songs later. Not only do the songs mirror the plot of the game – sometimes capturing the gameplay at exactly that time – but there are significant themes that emerge as you look at the soundtrack as a whole.

"It's very intentional, and you will learn about that," Levine told Wired on Thursday. "We don't break the fourth wall a lot, we're not commentating in that way. But music is an important aspect of what's going on in that world."

Here are nine pieces of music that I found as I explored BioShock Infinite's opening sequences; note that these may change slightly in the final version of the game. Also note that some minor plot spoilers will necessarily be included.

"(Give Me That) Old Time Religion," traditional

It was good for the Hebrew children
It was good for the Hebrew children
It was good for the Hebrew children
It's good enough for me.

Gimme that old time religion
Gimme that old time religion
Gimme that old time religion
It's good enough for me.

"Old Time Religion" is in the genre of songs known as "Negro spiritual," a song created by enslaved African Americans and subsequently being incorporated into white gospel singing as well. More to the point, this particular song was sung gleefully at the murder of Leo Frank by an antisemitic lynch mob in 1915.

It plays on a gramophone as main character Booker DeWitt enters a lighthouse off the coast of Maine, the entryway to the floating city of Columbia. Not only will he discover soon that it is an overtly racist society (wherein the Irish and the Jewish people do not count as white), but the pathway to the entrance is lined with overtly religious text whose meaning will soon become clear.

"Will the Circle Be Unbroken," traditional

You can picture happy gath'rings
Round the fireside long ago,
And you think of tearful partings
When they left you here below.

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by, by and by?
Is a better home awaiting
In the sky, in the sky?

As DeWitt enters Columbia and becomes acquainted with the city's founding "prophet," Father Comstock, a chorus sings this traditional hymn. The song, sung in character by Courtnee Draper, who plays the game's leading lady Elizabeth, was used in a trailer released one year ago. The lyrics concern the one question humans have been asking, and getting no answer to, for millennia: What happens after we die?

But there's a little more to it than that, as shown in these verses. First, there's the notion of loved ones leaving you, the tearing of separation, a theme which will recur again and again in the songs of BioShock Infinite. And of course, the "better home in the sky" serves as the conflation of Heaven with the man-made floating paradise of Columbia.

"Ain't She Sweet," Ager/Yellin

Ain't she sweet?
See her walking down the street
Now I ask you very confidentially
Ain't she sweet?

BioShock Infinite doesn't turn violent for at least an hour, maybe two, after its beginning. This song plays during the peaceful early hours, on a radio in an abandoned store. It is the most innocent and upbeat selections of the popular music that plays in the segment of the game I experienced.

By the time you hear this song, you've heard about "the Lamb," the Prophet's child, who is adored but not ever seen by all of the residents of Columbia. Those residents are on the lookout for the "False Shepherd," who is said to be coming to the city to deceive and take the Lamb away. If you're a total music nerd, you know that the song was written in 1927, making it an anachronism in Infinite's 1912. But by this point, the game has already heavily suggested that some degree of time travel or alternate universes might be at play here.

"God Only Knows," The Beach Boys

If you should ever leave me
Though life would still go on, believe me
The world could show nothing to me
So what good would living do me

God only knows what I'd be without you

And speaking of anachronisms: Just as you walk out of that abandoned store, a barbershop quartet called (ahem) The "Bee" Sharps appears, singing what is titled on a nearby poster as "A Song For Columbia!" but is actually Brian Wilson's 1966 masterpiece. You could be forgiven for not noticing that a song from 1927 is out of place in 1912, but this is a more overt indication that something is not quite right. Moreover, the song's lyrics again bring up the idea of separation and co-dependency and death: Without you, I'd be so despondent and useless that I might as well just not be alive anymore.

"Goodnight, Irene," Huddie Ledbetter

Sometimes I live in the country,
Sometimes I live in town.
Sometimes I take a great notion
To jump in the river and drown.

Good night Irene, good night Irene
I'll see you in my dreams.

Wow.

In case you missed the previous songs because you were rushing through, Infinite takes extra special care that you do not miss "Goodnight, Irene." You can hear it being sung a mile away as you make your way towards the town square; the chorus of voices grows stronger and stronger until you come upon a group of people all standing in front of an outdoor stage, a band leader conducting them all in a lusty chorus of the song. The lyrics, for the third time in half an hour of gameplay, overtly reference heartbreak, loss of a loved one, thoughts of suicide.

Why is this particular song so prominent? "Goodnight, Irene" was the most famous song by Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter, an African-American blues musician with a fascinating if haunting life story: He was convicted of murder and then of attempted murder, both times winning pardons from prison (after serving most of his sentence), which some believed to be simply because of his musical skills. In 1937, Life magazine profiled Ledbetter, titling the piece "Lead Belly: Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel."

It is immediately following this song that we get a first-hand glimpse of the racist structure of Columbia. I won't say exactly how; you should experience it for yourself (although other previews of the game do spell it out).

"It All Depends on You," Henderson/DeSilva/Brown

I can save money, or spend it
Go right on living, or end it
You're to blame, baby, for what I do
I know that I can be beggar, I can be king
I can be almost any old thing
It all depends on you

Isn't it sweet to know, dear, you can help me on?
Wouldn't it hurt, to know, dear, all my hopes were gone?
Wouldn't it make you proud, dear, if I made a name?
But if I failed to win, dear, would you want all the blame?

Again, this upbeat and seemingly chipper love song played on a radio in a Columbia home has dark undertones in the lyrics: Whether I live or die is all up to you. If I succeed, it's thanks to you; conversely, if I fail, it's your fault and you'll have to live with it, and wouldn't that be terrible? Why would you do that to me?

"Makin' Whoopee," Donaldson/Kahn

He's washing dishes and baby clothes
He's so ambitious he even sews;
But don't forget, boys, that's what you get, boys
For makin' whoopee

A well-known popular song with a then-risque and now-adorable euphemism for sex, "Makin' Whoopee" is a playful admonishment to men to beware of marriage: What seems like endless fun will inevitably end in taking care of babies, having affairs, getting divorced and paying alimony.

"Everybody Wants to Rule the World," Tears for Fears

There's a room where the light won't find you
Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down
When they do I'll be right behind you

Okay, let's say you really don't know that "God Only Knows" was written in the Sixties by a performer who is still touring. When you first meet Elizabeth and she opens up a "tear," which happens to be a window into 1980's Paris and you hear a couple instantly-recognizable seconds of this song and see "La Revanche du Jedi" (Revenge of the Jedi) on a theater marquee, this scene is for you, and it means to say HEY IDIOT, THIS GAME INVOLVES TIME TRAVEL AND ALTERNATE UNIVERSES.

So why this song, when any other recognizable 80's pop hit would have sufficed? The lyrics from its bridge, quoted above, don't appear in the game, but they are actually an exact description of the gameplay that occurs seconds after the song plays: Elizabeth is trapped in a tower away from the world, the two of you meet and make a daring escape as the walls collapse around you, and she even runs ahead of you. Surely some players will be humming the bridge in their head as it plays out in front of them.

"After You've Gone," Ella Fitzgerald

After you've gone and left me crying
After you've gone there's no denying,
You'll feel blue, you'll feel sad,
You'll miss the bestest pal you've ever had

After the demo of BioShock Infinite came to an end and I sat in the chair decompressing, not really wanting to move yet, I fiddled with the game's menu and looked at the Credits screen, and this song played. Underscoring yet again the theme: I love you, and I know you're going to leave me, and won't you just feel horrible when you do. By this point, I'd already ripped Elizabeth out of her tower as the Songbird, a giant mechanical monstrosity tasked with protecting her, came after me. Is it Booker and Elizabeth's relationship that is doomed, or are we to play the agent of destruction? Or both?

BioShock Infinite will surely answer these questions, but the answers will probably not be so obvious. Many may be in a song lyric.