Popular music has played a huge part in storytelling in films and television in recent years. For example, this past weekend saw the end of the television series Breaking Bad with the final scene of the series having the song Baby Blue from Badfinger playing as it panned up from Walt’s body. It was an effective use of the song, neatly tying up the series’ theme of the obsession that overwhelmed Walt’s life. Some have felt that it was even too spot on but I’m not here to debate that. It just reminded me of some other songs that have been used to great effect in this ( Crystal Blue Persuasion will be forever linked in my mind to a montage of meth production from this show) and other series.
In the Sopranos, which almost always was brilliant in its choice of accompanying music, one of my favorite endings came when Tony Soprano was particularly cruel to his sister, leaving her home and walking down the street as I’m Not Like Everybody Else from the Kinks played. It just perfectly summed up the scene and Tony’s self-justification for his often horrible behavior. Just a great scene.
But I think my favorite came in Mad Men, when ad man Don Draper could not understand why his clients, in 1967, so wanted the music of the Beatles for their ads. It was all just music to him and he felt that any musician could easily put together something similar to the Beatles sound. The episode ended with Don settling in at home with a drink after putting on the Beatles’ Revolver album on his hi-fi. The song Tomorrow Never Knows comes up and the eras suddenly converge for Don, a revelation that the world he knew is changing, moving beyond his control. It is a beautiful summation of generational change.
Here’s the song with a film that Neil Aspinall put together in developing a third Beatles movie in 1967, which never came about. The film would have made a wonderful juxtaposition to Don in the show. The painting at the top is an older piece of mine, Faust’s Guitar. I did a few versions of this image years ago and it remains a favorite of mine.
Redtree Times 