Stellar Soundtracks: The Handmaid’s Tale
Hulu’s dystopian show The Handmaid’s Tale has used music to great effect over its three seasons, as all great TV shows and movies do, from dark, foreboding, even anxiety-inducing notes to its lighter moments, rare as they may seem. And although it relies largely on its score, it does occasionally turn to popular music, and often to great effect.
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Tq7o9naSpykLwREJB7rk9?
The show’s music supervisor, Maggie Phillips, gave some insight into how music is chosen, making it all the more poignant. In an interview with Stylist, Phillips said, “I often ask myself what Offred would be listening to if she could press play in a scene. It helps the audience relate to her and reminds us that she came from our world — but it also helps illustrate the not-so-distant past during the flashbacks, amplifying the freedom felt in pre-Gilead times.”
The music in flashbacks is often a stark reminder of how much has changed for the everyone in Gilead, but particularly the women — season three’s episode dedicated to Aunt Lydia’s backstory featured her doing karaoke to Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton’s “Islands in the Stream,” casting her in a light we’ve never seen before. And probably never will again.
In fact, some of the series’ best musical moments have come this season, from excellent use of The Boomtown Rats’ “I Don’t Like Mondays,” a song inspired by a school shooting, as The Waterfords’ house burned down in the first episode to Roy Harper’s “How Does It Feel” during a voiceover from June about choices in the third. We see June singing “Heaven Is a Place on Earth” to herself — another contrast in Gilead — and we even get an episode centered around music and, to some degree, the loss of it in Gilead in episode five, Unknown Caller, when we learn the mercurial Commander Lawrence used to make mix tapes for his wife and the two fittingly listen to “Cruel to Be Kind” together — and later hear U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” as the Waterfords use June in a video as an attempt to get baby Nichole out of Canada. One of the best scenes, though, both musically and cinematically, is Kate Bush’s “Cloudbusting” in the aftermath of June killing Commander Winslow.
The series has also included snippets of Radio Free America, which give us both music and snippets of news outside of Gilead — most notably with Bruce Springsteen’s “Hungry Heart.” Who better to broadcast in what’s left of America than The Boss?
Other great choices throughout the series — often over the closing credits — include “Walking on Broken Glass” by Annie Lennox, the punk song “Oh Bondage! Up Yours!” by XRay Specs after a handmaid’s suicide bombing, the all-too-appropriate “You Don’t Own Me” be Lesley Gore, Janine singing Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” to her newborn, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds, a haunting rendition of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” when a protest turns ugly, “Fuck the Pain Away” by Peaches, “Daydream Believer” by The Monkees, “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane, “Feeling Good” by Nina Simone, and perhaps best of, “American Girl” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers in the season one finale.
Season four may be far off, but it will undoubtedly include more poignant moments with both pop culture’s biggest songs and little-known tracks packing a punch.
