Small Town: Devil Town

[purchase the soundtrack]

Lots of TV shows have been set in small towns, but my favorite, by far, was Friday Night Lights. In fact, I’d argue that season 1 of the show was as good as any first season of any show I’ve seen. While there were some creative ups and downs over the show’s five season run (really, Landry killed a guy?), it still ranks as one of my all-time favorites. If you haven’t seen it, it is available on Netflix, and elsewhere, and you really should.

I’m not from Texas, and I’ve never lived in a place where football held such importance as the fictional town of Dillon, where the show is set, but what made the show so great was the way that it created a world that was nevertheless recognizable to more than small town dwelling Texans. Not only recognizable, but relatable.

The show also used music well. I’ve written before about the role that Explosions in the Sky had, although not as prominent a role as it did in the film on which the TV show is loosely based, but it also used popular music in a way that enhanced and commented on the narrative. Many articles have been written about the show’s music, so it isn’t just me.

One of the most memorable musical moments comes at the end of the first season, a season that started with a tragedy and built toward the Dillon Panthers’ rocky road to “State,” the championship game in (now demolished) Texas Stadium. SPOILER ALERT: The Panthers win, with an improbable second half comeback. Look—it is a TV show, and in its first season, with no guarantee of renewal, so forgive the creators (notably, Jason Katims, who went on to create Parenthood, and used a number of FNL actors as guests) if they wanted season 1 to have a happy ending.

After the triumph on the field, and the requisite hugging and mugging, the scene shifts to the team’s victory parade down the main drag in Dillon, with what seems to be the whole town out to cheer. But rather than set the parade to something easy and triumphant, they used the song “Devil Town,” which is anything but.

Originally written and recorded by Daniel Johnson, a talented songwriter who has battled mental illness, but whose voice, admittedly, is an acquired taste,“Devil Town” has been covered by others, probably most famously by Bright Eyes. In fact, when the Friday Night Lights episode was shot, the editor used that version, but when they sought permission to use it in the final broadcast, Bright Eyes declined. Bad move, Conor. Instead, the publishing company suggested a number of other artists, and the creative team decided to commission Austin, Texas singer/songwriter Tony Lucca to cover the song which was used in the scene.  It was also used earlier in the season, and again toward the end of the series. And in a very creepy promo for the show.

The song focuses on the dark side of a small town, and its references to the town’s residents as vampires resonated as a commentary on the odd hero worship that the residents of Dillon, and by extension, other similar places, had for a bunch of athletically gifted teenagers. Prior to writing this, I watched the episode in question again, to see how the song worked in context—and it really was perfect. The entire season didn’t shy away from showing the darker side of Dillon, while also providing a fair number of uplifting ones.

The show essentially starts with the team’s golden boy quarterback, destined for glory, getting paralyzed on the field, and ending up in a wheelchair. That opens the door for the feel good story of the shy, artistic and sensitive backup quarterback to learn leadership skills, have a relationship with the coach’s beautiful daughter and win the state championship. There are characters who are dealing with missing parents, or bad parents, or no parents, as well as strong families. There is love, lust and betrayal, both by adults and teens. People struggle to survive, and others succeed. The show illustrates both racial divisions and racial harmony. There are dreams achieved, and dreams dashed. There is the pure joy of watching a team come together and triumph, and there are craven boosters who use the team for their own benefit. And during the parade sequence, all of this was summarized in the faces and expressions of the characters, as the song played.

Fittingly, the episode, and the season, ended on an ambivalent cliffhanger. We see the victorious coach, who announced his intent to leave the team for a Division I college job, but had expressed second thoughts to his wife, listen to his paralyzed former star turned assistant coach lecture the team on what they need to do in the off season to repeat as champs, in language that could have come from his own inspirational speeches. He enters the locker room and receives a slow-clapping ovation from his team.

Will he go, or will he stay? Season 2 is also on Netflix.

fireworks: U2/Promenade

U2: Promenade
purchase [promenade]

Yes, the fourth is still a few days away, but the upcoming celebration was a part of the thought behind our current theme of fireworks. July 4th ... there may be reunion somewhere in your fireworks, but I'll make no further attempt at a conceit/an effort to combine these two themes. Just a fire-related thought or two to get us rolling ...

Things in the sky above use are naturally spacy (as in ether = air?). You look up. You see the stars. You see lights. You see beyond.  And it's often even more awesome/beautiful when there are human-made colors and lights above your head. For example, airplanes, satellites and fireworks.

This is one of those songs that embodies the qualities of the air/the sky: As in the lyrics, as in the stars above - there is a spiral to the guitar, to the music. The song makes use of a repetition that seems to embody the motion of the stars, to lights in the sky: to the continuity of "earth, sky, sea and rain". To me, it calls to mind the roman candles of its lyrics, lights that spiral and spin through the heavens and enthrall us from below.

For some reason, this song also called to mind a realization that there is a similar effect in Midnight Mile off of Sticky Fingers - part of it is that guitar, part of it is the vocal style and part of it is the ethereal lyrics. Cf:

Mixed Formats: Your Hand In Mine

Explosions In The Sky: Your Hand In Mine
[purchase]

I used to have a subscription to Mojo, an English music magazine that epitomizes the rock snobbery that I have to sheepishly admit to sometimes indulging in. I used to love their album reviews, which often seemed to create micro sub genres on the fly—“Oasis influenced post-apocalyptic arena rock” “Neo-Goth industrial grindcore” “Downtempo synth-banjo drone” (OK—I made those up, but the real ones were similar). How to classify music by genre is, as with most things critical, a matter of personal taste.

When I worked at WPRB in college, we had classical, jazz and rock shows, and late at night, we had “specialty” shows—prog rock, punk, avant-garde, etc. And I think most people were comfortable that Mozart was classical, and John Coltrane was jazz, and Led Zeppelin was rock. That Genesis was prog and The Ramones were punk. But could you play a Phillip Glass piece on a jazz or rock show? Or Pat Metheny on a rock show? I know I heard Van Morrison’s “Moondance” on a jazz show. And what the hell were you supposed to do about Brian Eno? Luckily, there was no formal test, although when I was program director, I might have made a call to a DJ who played the Sex Pistols during the classical programming or segued Beethoven from The Police.

When I started using an mp3 player, I was confronted with the “genre” field, and iTunes also allows you to use narrow sub genres—Alternative Rock. Indie Rock. Alternative and Punk. Punk. Not to mention Unclassifiable. I tend to keep things pretty broad—Rock, Jazz, Folk, Blues, etc. But even that can lead to moments of staring at the screen trying to decide the proper genre.

Which brings me to Explosions in the Sky, and “Your Hand in Mine.” The band is usually classified as “post-rock,” a genre which seems to assume that “rock” is over, and we have moved on. This would probably be a surprise to pretty much anyone who listens to rock music. According to Wikipedia, “The term ‘post-rock’ is believed to have been coined by critic Simon Reynolds in his review of Bark Psychosis' album Hex, published in the March 1994 issue of Mojo magazine.” Mojo magazine strikes again!! Reynolds defined the genre as "using rock instrumentation for non-rock purposes, using guitars as facilitators of timbre and textures rather than riffs and power chords."

The original version of “Your Hand in Mine” appears on Explosions in the Sky’s album The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place, in an 8:16 version, featuring the four members’ chiming guitars and active drumming. The producer of the movie Friday Night Lights (adapted from the book of the same name) approached the band, and much of the movie soundtrack was Explosions in the Sky music. The version of “Your Hand in Mine” that appeared in the movie was shortened, and strings were added by the arranger David Campbell, who happens to be the father of Beck (someone also familiar with cross-genre music).

The movie Friday Night Lights is very good. It was adapted into one of the great TV series of all time. The theme for the TV version of Friday Night Lights sounds like Explosions in the Sky, but it isn’t. It was written by W.G. Snuffy Walden, a veteran composer of TV themes (including The West Wing, another great TV show). Check out the video:


But it really, really sounds like Explosions in the Sky, whose music was, in fact, used in a few episodes of the show.

So, to sum up, this song was written for an album, adapted for a movie version of a book. The movie was adapted for a TV show, whose theme was influenced by the original music. I think that qualifies as “mixed formats.”