Putting the right song with an image on screen is trickier than you think. You can’t just plunk down a Bob Dylan song or a track from Carousel into any place in any show and expect it to work. It becomes even more difficult when the show or film you are working on has a singular, noteworthy tone. With Apple TV+’s Roar, Hulu’s Only Murders in the Building and the Daniels’ Everything Everywhere All At Once, music supervisors Bruce Gilbert and Lauren Mikus had their work cut out for them.
Roar is one of the most unique limited series of the season. It features eight different stories of female empowerment, but it can veer off into the delightfully absurd. When Merritt Wever’s character ends her abusive relationship with a duck (you read that correctly), Gilbert and Mikus use The Primitives’ “Way Behind Me” to capture the exhilaration of independence. In episode three, Betty Gilpin’s character feels liberated in a surreal dance sequence as “Song of the Wanderer (Where Shall I Go?)” plays in the background.
For John Hoffman’s Only Murders in the Building, the duo was tasked with condensing the vastness of New York City so it fill the Arconia. It was also a natural choice to include music by Sting since he was, at one point, a suspect in the murder of Tim Kono.
Gilbert and Mikus also briefly talk about the hurdles they have to jump over to even get a song clear to be used. It’s a fascinating craft that more of us don’t know more about. In some ways, I don’t want to know everything about the process, because when a song truly hits, it can be pure magic.
