This is a cool little post from Flavorwire, musing over what would be found in the musical collections of fictional characters. They even went so far as to put together a hypothetical playlist for Eli and Charlie Sisters, the two cowboy assassin brothers from Patrick DeWitt’s novel The Sisters Brothers. Here are the selections they came up with:

“Don’t Play No Game That I Can’t Win” — Beastie Boys (feat. Santigold)

We think any couple of rough and tumble boys with a sense of humor would have at least one Beastie Boys song on their iPod, and these two, who strike fear into the hearts of scoundrels and good men alike, definitely don’t play any games they don’t win.

“I Wish” — Skee-Lo

Charlie might roll his eyes every time this track comes on, but we think Eli would insist — after all, if he’s the kind of cowboy who goes on a diet to please the imagined wishes of a lady, he’d be the kind of guy to lament his physical shortcomings in old school rap.

“Zero Dark Thirty” — Aesop Rock

Something about this song just sounds like the traveler’s life out in the American West to us, with all its rough insanity. Not that “zero friends minotaur fugly stepchild devote lunch jumped over” would make any sense to either Charlie or Eli, but we bet they’d be faking it.

“Gold Guns Girls” — Metric

This was probably meant to be a love song, but for the Sisters brothers, it would become Eli’s plea to Charlie — is it ever going to be enough?

“Power” — Kanye West

The Sisters brothers are Kanye fans if we’ve ever met them.

“Moonlight Mile” — The Rolling Stones

Charlie and Eli never had a problem with snow (at least not in this novel), but this is still one of the best songs we can think of for riding your horse quietly into the night, across the great plains of America.

“(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” — Blue Oyster Cult

Whether this song would psych Charlie up for killing or assuage Eli’s feelings (or both), we’re not sure, but we have an inkling they’d be into it.

“Psycho Killer” — Talking Heads

We can just picture Eli giggling softly to himself while listening to this song, with cranky old Charlie rolling his eyes and telling him he’d better take their life’s work a little more seriously.

“Hey Joe” — Jimi Hendrix

Who better to soundtrack a hot night than Hendrix? And if this song can be believed, he knows a little something about killing, whether he wants to or not.

“Wanted Dead or Alive” — Bon Jovi

Well, we just couldn’t help ourselves. Cowboy brothers on a death errand!