This month, I’m looking back at movies and tv shows to rediscover songs that graced the screen. The scenes and the music are inseparable. They’re engrained in our heads and our hearts. And they’re proof that the best music we have doesn’t exist in isolation. It attaches itself to a moment or an experience. #SceneSongs
TV Series: Lost
This is one of my favorite television shows of all time for many reasons. But perhaps its two biggest strengths have always been the character development and the ensemble cast’s chemistry. These two strengths are on full display at the end of Season 1. Sawyer, Jin, Michael and Walt sail away on a raft. The song for the scene was perfect. Sawyer sings it. A moment of redemption, but a moment of peril is alluded to in the first verse of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song”.
One of my favorite Bob Marley tracks, “Redemption Song” is considered by many critics to be one of the greatest songs by any artist. it was probably the most unlikeliest of his songs. More Bob Dylan than Bob Marley. Most of his recordings had the ability to transport us to Kingston. But “Redemption Song” liberated us. It was stripped of any accompanying instrumentation—not a hint of reggae in there. Just Marley’s beautiful vocals and his acoustic guitar.
“Old pirates, yes, they rob I, Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit. But my hand was made strong By the hand of the Almighty. We forward in this generation Triumphantly.”