The Dawson’s Creek / Jann Arden connection
My friend and I recently decided to purchase all the Dawson’s Creek seasons on DVD last month thanks to an impressive sale at Walmart. where we paid $12.99 per season.. Anyone who has purchased TV on DVD knows that it’s a really good bargain.
Last week, we reached the former WB series’ third season and just as we were about to yell out Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Wanna Wait”, we were shocked to discover a different tune. Instead, we got Jann Arden’s “Run Like Mad”. How could that be? Where’s “I Don’t Wanna Wait”? My friend went into shock. “You can’t have Dawson’s Creek without its theme song!” she yelled.
Listen, I’m not really complaining…I’m a fan of Jann Arden’s work but we were so conditioned to the Paula Cole theme. We grew up with it. A part of me wasn’t that surprised as I had read something online years ago about Sony Pictures using Jann Arden for the international airings of season one. I never really thought of Canada being the foreign market because when the show aired during its original run on Global (a week - sometimes even infuriatingly two - behind The WB), it had “I Don’t Wanna Wait.”
So of course, I did some digging and found out that due to licensing issues, a lot of the music from the second season onward (on DVD) had to change…and come the third season, economically, Sony could no longer use the Paula Cole theme.
So why Jann Arden? Executive producer Paul Stupin used some of Arden’s music on Party of Five so when he went to work on the Creek, his crew asked Arden to pen the opening. The final version of Arden’s “Run Like Mad” wasn’t ready for the series’ January 1998 debut, so producers decided to go with Paula Cole while the original pilot had Alanis Morissette’s “Hand in My Pocket”.
Any fan of Jann Arden’s knows that her music can probably end up on any television drama, however there seems to be a special connection with Dawson’s Creek. Arden is still featured in the pilot episode with “Good Mother” as Bessie (Nina Repeta) and Joey (Katie Holmes) squabble (as usual) before she heads to the movies with the gang. Luckily for fans of both Jann Arden and Dawson’s Creek, the pilot in the DVD set still has the “Good Mother” seen amongst its other signature sounds. In later seasons of the show, Arden’s hits “You Don’t Know Me,” “Hanging by a Thread,” “In Your Keeping,” “Mend” and “Sleepless” appear.
Good news for all you Dawson’s Creek fans who are feeling nostalgic, you can catch the show every weekday at 1pm on TVTroplis (re-airs the next morning at 5am). You can also catch a bunch of episodes right now in GlobalTV.com’s TV Classics section here.
Jann Arden is also going to be on TV this week. Bravo! will be airing Jann Arden at the Concert Hall this Tuesday (Dec. 8th) at 10pm (7pm PT). The special was taped at the Masonic Temple (MTV’s current HQ) and features songs off Arden’s latest album, Free. Don’t worry, longtime fans will still be able to enjoy her classics hits like “Good Mother” and “Insensitive.”
