My musical tastes are slowly being shaped by “Scrubs.” In one episode entitled “My Lunch,” three patients die one after the other, and Dr. Cox’s futile efforts to save the last one with the defibrullator–followed by his explosion of anger–were heartwrenching. During that scene the soundtrack was playing this haunting song that I wasn’t familiar with, which I eventually learned was called “How to Save A Life” by The Fray. The thing was, when I saw it on “Scrubs” I was aware of the refrain and the melody, but wasn’t listening closely to the words. At my request, Kath went out and got me the album and once I heard the whole thing, I realized what it was really about: A poor devil whose friend has committed suicide, and he’s blaming himself because he didn’t take the time to stay by his friend’s side and hear him out. What a tragically sad song. At any rate, I’ve listened to all the songs and am playing it while I’m writing. Great stuff.
PAD
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I always felt there should be a button you could press on your remote and a subtitle would pop up that will tell you the name of a song playing during a movie or TV show, because I’ve done the same thing: “What’s this song? I love this song!” The WB used to feature one or two artists in their pre-credits wrap-up during shows (“Tonight’s music on Dawson’s Creek included music by Creed”) but never the one I was looking for.
Thankfully, nowadays there are enough internet fan sites that will list and post the music you hear on various TV shows. Yet another reason I love the interconnectivity of the internet: the combined knowledge and freely shared info of the faithful fan base.
Someday, maybe on a advance or 3.0 version of Apple’s new AppleTV module, I’ll get my little magic music-identifying button. Until then, thank you, fan bloggers and website people!
I’ve got a couple of Fray’s songs on my computer, including “How to Save a Life”, but those are the only two I’ve heard from them so far. Or at least the only two I recognized as being theirs.
I’ve yet to go listen to the entire album to see if it’s worth buying (worthy album = at least 3 songs I like… harder and harder to find these days).
I think that song has now been on every medical show on TV…
Personally, I have my “Grey Bones” playlist on my iPod. Has most of the songs played on Grey’s Anatomy or Bones – whomever picks their music does a pretty awesome job!
I totally agree. The Fray is a great band. FYI, The Fray is one of the feature bands on Channel 101 on Direct TV this month. There is an hour long live concert and they sound as good live as on the album (a rare occurance these days).
James
I think of “how to save a life” as the unofficial theme song to Grey’s Anatomy, as ABC used it for a whole month to promote the return of new episodes. That song and the clips the commercial showed convinced me to watch the show…for about three episodes.
Figures you’re a Scrubs viewer. Scrubs has a similar tone to your writing, in that it expertly balances comedy with tragedy/dark undertones. It’s easily one of the best written and most creative shows in decades.
Turn on the closed captions. They usually give the artist and song title…
I really like the song, and they used it to very good effect in that episode. The ability to balance the comic with genuinely powerful emotion is one of the things that drew me to Scrubs. And to your writing, for that matter.
Scrubs introduced me to one of my (now) favorite artists. Colin Hay (formerly of Men @ Work…you know…they had the 80’s hits Who Can It Be Now and Land Down Under).
But I did enjoy the Fray CD.
That’s funny that you say that.
I am going to a concert this Friday for a group called “Sleeping At Last” They are a local indy group and I thought that nobody has ever heard of them. Lately, I’m realizing that this is not so. They were featured on Gross Anatomy and my wife, who is Japanese, told me that they are starting to sweep Japan as well. Mixi, the equivelant of myspace has 40 fans and I was like cool. Anyways, Ill now take a listen to The Fray and maybe when you have time, you could do the same for this group.
Check out http://www.tv.com. At least for Scrubs, they list the music along with guest stars, etc.
I’ve never watched _Scrubs_, and to the best of my knowledge, I’ve never heard the music of The Fray (radio stations don’t always identify song titles and/or artists, or they wait till the end of a very long set to do so; and I rarely stay on one station that long), but I agree that in some cases playing music during a particular scene (either as part of the soundtrack or on an in-scene radio, or on a record/tape/CD/MP3/etc. player) in a TV show or movie can add just the right touch. I haven’t thought about the matter too much, but off the top of my head, I think I’d prefer the music be part of the scene, rather than suddenly show up on the soundtrack. When the music is part of the scene, the _characters_ listen to it, along with the audience. In a sense, the scene becomes a shared experience. But when a soundtrack plays, that’s just the audience hearing it, not the characters; and the audience is taken a bit out of that fictional world.
And yet… the scene PAD described from _Scrubs_ couldn’t have worked if the music was playing in-scene. Even if someone had a radio on- for whatever reason- it would’ve strained credulity if “How to Save a Life” _just happened_ to be playing on the radio when Dr. Cox tried to save the patient’s life.
So let me amend the above to say that when it would be logical to have music (and especially a particular song) playing in-scene, I’d rather a TV show or movie take that route, than to have a soundtrack start playing for the viewing audience alone.
For the record, when I speak of a soundtrack, I refer to actual songs, with lyrics. A movie’s (or individual character’s) theme music is something different. When Indiana Jones (for example) goes into action, the scenes would be lacking- no matter how visually exciting they might be- without that familiar theme music. Never mind that Indy himself can’t hear it.
(By the way, I wonder how many people who’ve grown up watching movies where the theme song plays during exciting action sequences find themselves wondering- perhaps only on a subconscious level- why there’s no theme music during a real life moment of action. Or perhaps they supply their own theme music. Might the football player and _Raiders of the Lost Ark_ fan who runs 90 yards to score the winning touchdown find himself humming the _Raiders_ theme as he dodges opposing players? Would he be consciously aware of it at the time?)
Speaking of good music, on Jan. 16, 1938, Benny Goodman performed the first jazz concert at Carnegie Hall. The concert was recorded and subsequently released on a two-record album in 1950. I own the album, and this past weekend bought a two CD version of it at Borders (I figured it’d be good to have a back-up). The CDs include a few songs not on the original records, as well as moments of applause between sets (also not on the original album), which better bring across the fact that it was a live performance. If you like Benny Goodman and/or jazz and/or music of the late 1930s in general, you might want to seek out this album. Especially since the government continues to have its priorities screwed up and isn’t putting any effort into building a working time machine. As the guy says in the Malt-o-Meal cereal commercial, “Good stuff, Maynard.”
Rick
P.S. PAD, do you often listen to music while you write? I understand that Joe Straczynski does so, and wondered if you take a similar approach.
How come when I go to peterdavid.net or .com I get taken to spam site? What happened?
-Rudy
The exact same thing happened to me. I had to get that song after I heard it on Scrubs.
I’ve had the same experience while watching the 4400.
Yeah Scrubs used the song way before Grey’s Anatomy adopted it.
Personally I liked the song when it first started, but now am quite sick of it since it comes on every 3 minutes.
Zach Braff is a big indie rock fan, so a lot of good stuff is played on Scrubs.
Other tv shows with good music: The OC, Weeds, Grey’s Anatomy, Studio 60
Yeah, Scrubs really uses music to great effect.
I continue to be amazed at the show’s ability to handle both laugh-out-loud humor and gut-wrenching emotion in the same episode–examples that immediately come to mind are the episode Peter references (the episode after that one includes what I think may be the only time after the first season that Dr. Cox calls J.D. by his real name), the one where Jordan’s brother Ben returns from his year abroad and last week’s road-trip episode.
I’d go into more detail, but I want to avoid spoilers.
>How come when I go to peterdavid.net or .com I get taken to spam site? What happened?
I’d clean my hard drive if I were you.
Scrubs consistantly has the best music of any show I’ve ever seen. When I was writing a lot I would throw in all the music I had accumulated through the years of watching and finding songs I liked and it went a long way to setting the mood I wanted.
http://scrubs.mopnt.com/music/
This websight was without peer during that time. Welcome to the club, Peter, make sure to stock up on Josh Grobin, Cary Brothers, and The Shins CDs.
The Rhapsody music app (competitor to iTunes) provides a way to “share” playlists, sending them to others such that the entire song can be listened to (legally) through your browser, up to 25 tracks a month. (Yes, I do work for them.)
If I’ve done it right, here’s a link to that Benny Goodman concert album:
http://rhaplinks.real.com/rhaplink?rhapid=3012910&type=playlist&title=Playlist&from=real
And to The Fray’s “How to Save a Life”:
http://rhaplinks.real.com/rhaplink?rhapid=3012916&type=playlist&title=Playlist&from=real
Great show and wonderful use of todays’ cutting edge music…. During the episode last season called “My Front Porch” , J.D. had a love affair with “Julie”, played by Mandy Moore…. During a romantic interlude, they kicked into “Hey Julie” by ‘Fountains of Wayne’…. we’ve loved FoW ever since…Both this band and ‘Bowling for Soup’ are two terrificly talented and much overlooked acts.
See You at Farpoint!!
Bobby Ahrens
I’ve noticed that suicide is a recurring theme in your recent work: the Vulture’s disgust at his infirmity, Monet seeking to escape the shell-shock victims of her experience are prone to, your confirming Mysterio’s suicide bringing him back as a ghost. Maybe this goes back further, but I’ve only recently started refrequenting comic shops again.
Are you consciously taking opportunities to address the topic of suicide? Maybe this is part of a larger topic you’re addressing, or maybe this is part of a dialogue among published writers I’m missing.
I absolutely love that show and have both soundtracks and whenever I hear a new song on scrubs it’s all I can do not to go out and buy the album. So far the only time I’ve been disappointed was when I got Leroy which only had the one good song.
Still, Scrubs=Awesome, Scrubs Music=Awesome Icing on awesome cake
It’s amazing how much music is a part of that show. They use a lot of great music for the soundtrack. They have Ted’s a cappella band for cool comedy moments, but sometimes they sing something like the theme to “Charles in charge” and it has just the right amount of satisfying sappiness for the moment. As Thom mentioned, having Colin Hay actually on the show singing was great, too.
They’ve also done a great job of balancing the drama with the comedy. The episode where someone close to Dr. Cox died was incredible. They managed to show the death having a gigantic affect on him without making the whole show dreary.
The show SCRUBS is a very weird mix. On the one hand, it’s quite silly (Zach Braff has said he thinks of it as a live-action SIMPSONS) with goofy imaginings and wacky situations. At the same time, they’ve said that patients die about 1/3 of the time. (And in a kicker, the episode where J.D. thought that — where he, Turk, ane Elliott all had difficult patients — ended with all three dying.) I still laugh a lot when I see it. (And yes, I loved the musical; I’d buy the soundtrack to it, if they released it.)
I suspect the music of SCRUBS is picked by Zach Braff. They’ve had two songs by Rhett Wilson, a whole episode with the lead singer from Men At Work playing “Overkill” in the background, etc. As for “How To Save A Life,” the scene with it was quite powerful. The song is okay, but it’s very sing-songy (you can hear the lead singer’s voice going up and down on each syllable of the chorus) and amazingly overplayed.
Yeah, the Fray (Denver natives) hit it big while I was working out there. Who knew piano rock would strike such a chord in listeners? Bad pun.
I became cognizant of that song for the same reason, Peter. It’s not every episode that Perry has a breakdown like he did in that episode.
I love how hearing a song in a TV show or movie can make you fall in love with it in a way that hearing it elsewhere may not. I heard the Dixie Chicks’ “Not Ready to Make Nice” in the trailer for Shut Up and Sing, but I didn’t fall in love with it until I heard it in the film, heard the lyrics, and understood their connection.
Tonight, we had a screening for the film Penelope, Christina Ricci. It’s a heartwarming fantasy that will probably be perceived as a movie for kids, teens and girls, but I loved it, not only because Ricci looks beautiful even with a pig’s nose, but because music that accompanied the resolution (more like two of them) was so dámņ beautiful. Since the music that you hear in a research screening is not necessarily the final music, I don’t know if this is the music that will accompany those scenes when the film is released in April, but I hope it is, because it works so well.
I have the first Scrubs soundtrack. I would love to have a second. It is one of my favorite albums. So much more satisfying than the Veronica Mars soundtrack.
After hearing all the great comments about some of the other music, I’m a little embarrassed to admit I had to find a CD with the version of the “Underdog” theme sung by Ted’s Band on the show. The search led me here:
http://www.theblankswebsite.com/FCD.htm
I got the CD. It’s strange, but kinda fun. And I want to see an Adult Swim series to go with the lyrics The Blanks do for a should’ve been Hanna-Barbera show called “Testy Tiger.”
This is going to get me hatred, but I have to be honest. I am SICK of all the dámņ folksinger music they put behind shows like “Grey’s Anatomy” and the recent episodes of “Scrubs.”
One of the stations I work at runs the earlier, about the first three seasons worth, of “Scrubs” in syndication. Those shows are more comic (although with serious overtones) than what’s currently on the network. And they did the right thing; when they needed background music, they paid composers who specialize in film scoring to do the music. They didn’t hire some guy off a subway platform in New York to moan into a nicrophone to establish a mood.
My other station runs “Grey’s Anatomy,” and the folksinging death music behind the serious scenes drives me up the wall. Especially with a “sandy” voiced female doing some imitation Irish keening or whatever it is. Last night the network ran the episode where an explosive shell is removed from a patient, and the bomb squad guy takes it down the hallway and gets blown up. The music stopped, and for a moment, I thought the guy’s life was not given in vain, because it killed the freaking folksinger too.
No such luck. She was back caterwauling after the commercial break, with that horrifying high-pitched sound that makes the bones in my arm itch.
Lalo Schifrin and Jerry Goldsmith, you are sorely missed.
The scene that Peter’s describing is up on youtube for anyone who wants to know what he’s talking about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbEkKa-W55s
“Are you consciously taking opportunities to address the topic of suicide? Maybe this is part of a larger topic you’re addressing, or maybe this is part of a dialogue among published writers I’m missing.”
Nope. It’s just things that present themselves appropriate to the story I’m telling. It’s not as if someone close to me committed suicide and I’m working it out in my writing (thank God.) It’s just one of those things.
PAD
Hey, PAD, I think I remember you saying that you watched “Friday Night Lights”, and I just saw Late Night w/ Conan tonight (02/20)and “Explosions In the Sky” was the musical guest. Apparently, “Explosions” music is used in “Friday Night Lights” on a weekly basis. They’re a purely instrumental band and I saw them once years and years ago opening up for a club show in London (they gave me and my buddy a discount on their 2001 CD release “Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever”). The riffs are all pretty prog-rock, emo-style without any singing, but its catchy as hëll. Maybe you’d recognize thier tunes from the show. Apparently they’re all over the offical soundtrack as well (like any good indie-style band, they put out a Vinyl Edition as well) Haven’t seen the movie or TV show, but the band is pretty decent.