Which Came First, the Title or the Song? Could the Cocteau Twins hit have inspired Sleep Tight Evangeline?

An anonymous reader on an earlier post (who is welcome to message me if they want me to credit them!) pointed out another "Evangeline" song, this one by the Scottish group the Cocteau Twins, that was a big hit in Portugal in 1993, when JKR lived there.  At the risk of being unpatriotic, the song is much more to my taste than The Whiskey Shambles' "Sleep Tight, Evangeline"

The lyrics of this song are definitely worth a closer look. Not only can we imagine how they might have spoken to a young mother and aspiring fantasy writer who was contemplating a major change in life (escape from an abusive marriage), but they seem very appropriate for our favorite Titian-haired Temp, Robin Ellacott. 

Sorrow - for letting someone else
Define you know who you are at every age
What impression am I making?
I see me as other people see me

There is no going back
I can't stop feeling now
I am not the same, I'm growing up again (x2)
There's no going back, I can't stop feeling now

I had to fantasize
I was a princess, mum and dad were queen and king
I ought to have what feeling?
I see me as other people see me

There is no going back, I can't stop feeling now
I am not the same, I'm growing up again (x2)
There's no going back, I can't stop feeling now
Feeling now

There is no going back, I can't stop feeling now
I am not the same, I'm growing up again (x2)
There's no going back, I can't stop feeling now
I had to fantasize

Just to survive
I was a famous artist everybody took me seriously
Even those who did
Never understood me
I had to fantasize just to survive

The weird thing is that the name "Evangeline" doesn't appear in the song. But, look at these words closely and they seem to fit Robin like a glove. Let's start with the chorus:

There is no going back

I can't stop feeling now,

I'm not the same, I'm growing up again. 

Ever since Cousin Katie noted "It's like you're traveling in a different direction than the rest of us," Robin has struggled with her unconventional career path and how she is not meeting people's expectations of her. Recall that that observation came when Robin was playing with her godson. Robin can clearly see that children don't fit in her proposed career path--- and therefore neither does a marriage to RFM--  but is still struggling to accept that she can't go back to being the person who was content to marry the Flobberworm, work in HR and have three kids. Strike knew back in CoE that he "could see it even if she could not: he condition of being with Matthew was not to be herself;" his stairwell behavior in THM shows he knows she is in danger of making the same mistake twice. 

Letting other people "define her" and conforming to their expectations as a "people-pleaser" has been an issue for all of Robin's life. It's why she abandoned her dream of being an investigator when she was young, it's why she married the Flobberworm and it's why she's with RFM now.  She recognizes that these tendencies began in her childhood, growing up as the "easy child" of the family and the only girl ("I had to fantasize, I was a princess, mum and dad were king and queen").  Hopefully, she has realized that she has to grow out of that role, much as Jonathan, the contrasting "problem child," needs to grow out of that role now that he's a father. 

Seeing yourself as others see you is also an ongoing theme in the series, going all the way back to Cuckoo's Calling and the "F*ck Johari" lyrics from Deeby Mac. As Robin explains to Strike, the Johari window is a psychological construct designed to promote self-expression and self-awareness by looking at what a person knows of themselves, compared to what others know. Robin's desire to be a detective was a Johari "hidden area" to her loved ones, even to Matthew. Strike's ability to see what a mistake both MFC and RFM are is a classic example of a "blind spot;"  Robin also reflected on these concepts back in Troubled Blood as she contemplated the Chanel perfume her mother had gotten her for Christmas. 

What, she wondered, had made her mother choose it? What was it about the perfume that made her think, "Robin"? To Robin's nostrils it smelled like deodorant, generic, clean and totally without romance. She remembered her unsuccessful purchase of Fracas, and the desire to feel sexy and sophisticated that ended only in headaches. Musing about the disparity between the way people would like to be seen, and the ways others prefer to see them, Robin lay back down on her bed beside her laptop and flipped open her phone. 

We saw a similar disconnect in The Hallmarked Man's visit with RFM's parents, who were not interested in her work and only wanted to talk about their grandchildren and her nephews. They clearly would rather see Robin as the mother of grandchildren rather than a detective like their son, even though they met on the job.   

I had to fantasize just to survive

I was a famous artist everybody took me seriously

Even those who did never understood me

I had to fantasize just to survive.

Robin, of course, never fantasized about being a famous artist (though she draws well) but she did fantasize about being a detective---  and has achieved at least mild fame at it.  She has certainly had a challenging time getting some people to take her seriously, given her lack of formal police training. Morris, KFC and Lord Bramfoot all come to mind. 

This Cocteau Twins song really fits where Robin is in her journey. All in all, I would have say these lyrics paint a far more optimistic picture for Robin than the ones for Whiskey Shambles' "Sleep Tight Evangeline."  At least no one's "choking, dying and done for."

Ever since the Strike Book Nine title was announced, readers have been floating a couple of possibilities:

• Galbraith somehow became aware of the music of this relatively obscure Midwestern garage band and was impressed enough to co-opt one of its song titles for her book.
• As Nick Jeffrey pointed out, presumably after being asked permission, the band released Sleep Tight Evangeline in 1995, their first album in 11 years, knowing at the shared title will mean guaranteed sales.
• Galbraith composed the title on his own, and the existence of the coincidently titled Whiskey Shambles tune was discovered during the trademark process. 
• The anagram of "The Vengeant Gillespie" is the best piece of evidence for this possibility. 

The remarkable fit of the Cocteau Twins lyrics leads me to speculate about a third possibility:

• JKR remembered the song from her time in Portugal and wanted to incorporate it and its themes of growth and redefining oneself into the book. 
• When searching for Evangeline songs, she came across "Sleep Tight Evangeline" and decided that would make a better title---  perhaps because of the sleep that Psyche falls into in her last trial? 

Of course, as Nick also pointed out, there is a third "Evangeline" song (inspired by the Longfellow poem) that was made famous by The Band and Emmylou Harris---  I haven't had a chance to take a close loo at that one yet. But, with multiple songs, and potentially poems by Longfellow and Poe (epigraph sources?), "Evangeline" lyrics may be to Book 9 what white horses were to Lethal White and what lions were to The Hallmarked Man. But interestingly, if the Cocteau Twins' song does turn out to be more relevant to the Book 9 than the Whiskey Shambles', it might not be the first time the author did some pre-publication misdirection on a book's musical playlist. 

A few days before the publication of Lethal White, Galbraith released a "playlist" that included Andrea Ross's "White Horses."  At the time, I googled the song, but what popped up much more prominently was Taylor Swift's "White Horse," and the lyrics to that song wound up as a much better fit for Robin's break-up with the Flobberworm. I speculated at the time that Galbraith chose to promote the Andrea Ross song instead to avoid spoilers. 

For Robin's sake, I really hope a similar misdirection is happening now.