Supernatural: It's Thursday, How About Some Music?
I don't sing in the shower.
Mainly because I’m usually not awake enough for coherency, let alone trying to string both tune and lyric together.
However, I am one of those people who sing in the car.
I don’t murmur or softly hum along. I’m the one who opens up the sunroof, rolls down the windows, opens mouth wide and belts it out as loud as possible as I’m cruising down the road. I am absolutely in love with one of the nifty little things I have discovered about my new Baby. Doesn’t matter the volume that I have her set with when we begin to pull out of the driveway, because the faster I let her go, the louder she will automatically increase the volume of the song playing. Awesome. Turnpike driving at 75mph is the best, trust me.
I will be the first to admit I don’t sing the prettiest, but no one can say I don’t sing joyfully.
Needless to say, the scene in season three’s No Rest for the Wicked, with Dean and Sam belting it out with Bon Jovi, was a definite season highlight for me.
No doubt about it … Dean loves his music and Sam? Well, he may argue it, but in my humble opinion, I think he enjoys it as well. Afterall, he grew up with the sounds of his brother’s favorite “mullet-rock” songs, and no matter what music he enjoyed at Stanford, when he got back in the Impala, he got back into the music. The three of them unavoidably go hand in hand - Dean, music, and the Impala.
Now … I’m not really the knowledgeable one when it comes to music. I know the songs I like and once the music starts, the words just seem to come. Usually they’re the right words but sometimes I can be like Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Jumpin’ Jack Flash trying to transcribe the words to the title song … smacking the floor and yelling at the stereo “English, Mick! Speak English!” Give me the lyrics to a song cold and I’m of no use. Ask me the title of a particular song and I’ll look at you blankly. I leave the matching the words to the song title skill to those who excel at it *coughMoscoughPengycough*.
You are probably wondering after such a declaration, why I would then be writing about Supernatural music. To be honest, I’m not really sure. That’s kinda why I call this blog a “ramble”. Sometimes I do have a course plotted, things I want to talk about and the path to saying those things charted. Sometimes, I get smacked with something that just gets my mind working in a different direction. That happened to me this week. I had a whole different blog prepared and actually ready to go but a couple of things happened and I decided to save it for next week. (Wow! You mean I’m actually ahead?? Seriously? *takes a moment to relish not being behind*)
Here’s what happened: Tuesday morning I was driving into work. It was one of those really beautiful mornings - a sun filled blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, a light breeze continually rippling the trees and the flags along the road. It was the kind of morning made for an open sunroof and windows wide with music playing. I had popped out my CD the previous night and before I could insert a new one, my radio station started playing Bad Company’s Movin’ On. Now, I may not know my music the best, but there are certain songs that just scream a particular scene in my brain and Movin’ On is one of them. It was season one and the episode was Dead in the Water. Dean and Sam are leaving Andrea and Lucas and heading down the road together, looking for their father, following the family business. The words and music blended so perfectly as we watch the Impala drive on down the road.
Not a bad way to start the day, right? Bright sky … open windows … good music … thoughts of Supernatural.
Know what made it better? The next song was a Supernatural song as well.
As Movin’ On finished and before I could clear the boys from my head, here comes the opening notes of BOC’s Don’t Fear the Reaper. Who can hear that song and not think of Faith, not think of the girl running through the forest trying to escape the man in the black suit as her scenes are interspersed with scenes of the boys in their tacky motel room piecing together the information that they have and Dean’s words ...
Dean: “The old man I saw on stage. I didn’t want to believe it but deep down I knew it.”
Sam: “You knew what? What are you talking about?”
Dean: “There’s only one thing that can give and take life like that. We’re dealing with a reaper.”
... what song could possibly have been more apropos?
(I have to share something … I have Don’t Fear the Reaper loaded on my phone as a ringtone. I have it set for when I get a call from either my office or my manager. I thought it was funny. You see … I work with senior adults. *grins* Get it? Heehee!)
The music dies down and the radio station does their little ad moment while I’m sitting at a stop light, waiting to turn onto the highway. As I turned onto the entrance ramp the strains of Kansas’ Carry on My Wayward Son begins. I kid you not. Baby is approaching 65mph and the music just swells and my brain explodes with all seasons of Supernatural scenes crashing in my minds eye. Singing at the top of my lungs, hurtling down the highway, I knew that even though it wasn't Thursday, this week Tuesday was going to be a Supernatural day for me.
Sometimes you just have to give in and accept. As I pulled into the office I was laughing. As I made my way to my desk, I was lighthearted. I had visions of The Boys in my head to entertain me. (Yeah … tell me that doesn’t sound like I should be in a Sanitarium … oh wait! … I am.) What was truly fun was the fact that Tuesday was one of those rare days that I was able to spend time wandering in my little Sanitarium, interacting with my inmates in a way I don’t always get to do.
As I was leaving the office that day, I had to grin to myself and wonder what music might take me home. When I started the car, it was in time to catch the station’s news minute and then advertisements. Then came the music. I nearly stopped dead in the middle of the entrance ramp back onto the highway. Seriously. First song? After the advertisements? CCR’s Run Thru the Jungle. At first I thought it was my phone, since that is my primary ring tone, but it didn’t start right. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or sing. I chose both. Supernatural had taken me to work that day and it seemed that it was taking me home, beginning with that wonderful scene in Sin City when the boys arrive to check out the town and Dean almost gets waylaid by a woman in the back of a car before Sam comes back to move him along.
As the song’s music died, I briefly wondered if the radio station would continue with its unknowing theme for my day. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or a bit freaked that it did when Styx’s Renegade began to play. For the Supernatural Obsessive, this song’s excellent pairing with The Boys escape from Agent Hendrickson and the bank at the end of Nightshifter, is as infamous as the Ghostbusters phrase “Who you going to call?” Can you honestly say that when you hear the opening lyrics you don’t see The Boys heading up the stairs to the parking garage, decked out in full SWAT gear? Can you honestly say that you don’t see them getting into the Impala, breathing heavy, removing helmets and face masks? Can you honestly say that in the pause of music, you don’t hear Dean’s quiet “We are so screwed” before he starts the car and pulls out to the screaming strains -
“The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me.
The renegade who had it made, retrieved for a bounty.
Never more to go astray,
This will be the end today of the wanted man.”
Flying down the highway, I was literally in Supernatural heaven.
Unfortunately, the remainder of my drive consisted of the traffic report, weather update, and radio station advertisements, and one final song. It wasn’t a Supernatural song - atleast not yet - but the lyrics of Tesla’s song Signs as I pulled into my driveway had me pulling out my little notebook that I keep tucked in my purse to jot down thoughts and after I turned off the car (but still had the music playing) I wrote down the Supernatural music that I had heard that day. Afterall, the lyrics were telling me … “signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs”. Evidently the music of my day was my sign, indicating that I needed to take a musical look at our favorite show.
Combine my radio adventures with the news that came out Tuesday that Katie Cassidy would not be reprising her role as Ruby in season four. I made the comment in a couple of places that as much as I appreciated Katie, if it was a choice between having her or more music in the budget for season four, I would have to choose the music.
From the very first episode, this show has been about Dean & Sam Winchester, the Impala, and the music. In a very real sense, the music is the fourth main character. I mean no disrespect to Bobby. Bobby is a definite mainstay, yet he is recurring. Season three did not feel right when the music was relegated to a recurring role as well.
Think to season one … who can hear the music of Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and not think of Rebecca tied up as the shapeshifter Dean threatened her before escaping in Skin?
What about BOC’s Fire of Unknown Origin? Do you honestly not hear those words and picture Dean pranking his sleeping brother and then belting out the words as he plays the steering wheel in Hell House?
Season two … Everybody Loves a Clown … Three Dog Night’s Shambala backs up the sight of Dean, underneath the wrecked Impala, trying to rebuild the wall around the pain in his heart as he rebuilds his beloved car.
Of course, there’s AC/DC’s Back in Black … first heard in the Pilot as The Boys begin their trip, it’s played again to a shot by shot sequence of the gleaming, restored black beauty of Dean’s Baby in Bloodlust.
Season three did have some excellent moments, though. Asia's Heat of the Moment will be a song that Sam may have once loved but now will forever abhor after continually waking to it after Dean dies in Mystery Spot.
Dean's dream of family was highlighted so poignantly with Dream a Little Dream of Me by The Mamas and the Papas in the episode with the same title.
So many episodes contain such awesome musical backgrounds, the words and the beat of each song blending together with the emotions and actions taking place on the screen. A true Supernatural Obsessive has not only the music but the scenes each song represents, deeply planted in their psyche … the music has been downloaded into our iPods, has been burned to our CD’s. Those of us old enough to remember the songs from their original vinyl albums give thanks to The Kripke for the rejuvenation of the music of our youth. Those who aren’t old enough have been introduced to the classics and found them to be most excellent.
One of the really unique things about a show with an ensemble cast is the way each member of the cast works to support and enhance the acting of the other cast members. Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki effortlessly bring this to mind in their portrayals of Dean and Sam Winchester, both young actors complementing each other by expressions, action/reactions, and words. They play off of each other, learn from each other, take support from each other. The other two members of Supernatural's ensemble cast (again, not slighting Jim Beaver, for he definitely falls in this category) are the Impala and the music.
The Impala may not offer words, but she has her own expressions - the rumble of her engine and the creak of her doors - and she offers her own comfort - the feel of her leather seats, the familiar scents that remind her occupants that when they are inside her, they are home.
In its own way, the music also offers support and comfort to our boys, as well as being expressive and giving word to the moment.
Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door supports Dean in Houses of the Holy as he attempts to make sense of the possibility he had seen “God’s will”.
Queensryche’s Silent Lucidity backs up Sam in his anguish at realizing what he must do to Madison in Heart.
Foreigner’s Cold as Ice offers a play at humor against the incredibly stern faced Ellen in No Exit.
Actors are given the potential to make or break a scene by how they express the words and give life to the character. Isn’t it terrific how The Kripke and his crew have done the same thing with the music of this show? Isn’t it thrilling that the songs they have chosen have not only risen to the occasion, but have enhanced each scene that they background to a point to where those scenes indelibly remain in our minds and our hearts?
Can any other television show say the same thing?
Mainly because I’m usually not awake enough for coherency, let alone trying to string both tune and lyric together.
However, I am one of those people who sing in the car.
I don’t murmur or softly hum along. I’m the one who opens up the sunroof, rolls down the windows, opens mouth wide and belts it out as loud as possible as I’m cruising down the road. I am absolutely in love with one of the nifty little things I have discovered about my new Baby. Doesn’t matter the volume that I have her set with when we begin to pull out of the driveway, because the faster I let her go, the louder she will automatically increase the volume of the song playing. Awesome. Turnpike driving at 75mph is the best, trust me.
I will be the first to admit I don’t sing the prettiest, but no one can say I don’t sing joyfully.
Needless to say, the scene in season three’s No Rest for the Wicked, with Dean and Sam belting it out with Bon Jovi, was a definite season highlight for me.
No doubt about it … Dean loves his music and Sam? Well, he may argue it, but in my humble opinion, I think he enjoys it as well. Afterall, he grew up with the sounds of his brother’s favorite “mullet-rock” songs, and no matter what music he enjoyed at Stanford, when he got back in the Impala, he got back into the music. The three of them unavoidably go hand in hand - Dean, music, and the Impala.
Now … I’m not really the knowledgeable one when it comes to music. I know the songs I like and once the music starts, the words just seem to come. Usually they’re the right words but sometimes I can be like Whoopi Goldberg’s character in Jumpin’ Jack Flash trying to transcribe the words to the title song … smacking the floor and yelling at the stereo “English, Mick! Speak English!” Give me the lyrics to a song cold and I’m of no use. Ask me the title of a particular song and I’ll look at you blankly. I leave the matching the words to the song title skill to those who excel at it *coughMoscoughPengycough*.
You are probably wondering after such a declaration, why I would then be writing about Supernatural music. To be honest, I’m not really sure. That’s kinda why I call this blog a “ramble”. Sometimes I do have a course plotted, things I want to talk about and the path to saying those things charted. Sometimes, I get smacked with something that just gets my mind working in a different direction. That happened to me this week. I had a whole different blog prepared and actually ready to go but a couple of things happened and I decided to save it for next week. (Wow! You mean I’m actually ahead?? Seriously? *takes a moment to relish not being behind*)
Here’s what happened: Tuesday morning I was driving into work. It was one of those really beautiful mornings - a sun filled blue sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, a light breeze continually rippling the trees and the flags along the road. It was the kind of morning made for an open sunroof and windows wide with music playing. I had popped out my CD the previous night and before I could insert a new one, my radio station started playing Bad Company’s Movin’ On. Now, I may not know my music the best, but there are certain songs that just scream a particular scene in my brain and Movin’ On is one of them. It was season one and the episode was Dead in the Water. Dean and Sam are leaving Andrea and Lucas and heading down the road together, looking for their father, following the family business. The words and music blended so perfectly as we watch the Impala drive on down the road.
Not a bad way to start the day, right? Bright sky … open windows … good music … thoughts of Supernatural.
Know what made it better? The next song was a Supernatural song as well.
As Movin’ On finished and before I could clear the boys from my head, here comes the opening notes of BOC’s Don’t Fear the Reaper. Who can hear that song and not think of Faith, not think of the girl running through the forest trying to escape the man in the black suit as her scenes are interspersed with scenes of the boys in their tacky motel room piecing together the information that they have and Dean’s words ...
Dean: “The old man I saw on stage. I didn’t want to believe it but deep down I knew it.”
Sam: “You knew what? What are you talking about?”
Dean: “There’s only one thing that can give and take life like that. We’re dealing with a reaper.”
... what song could possibly have been more apropos?
(I have to share something … I have Don’t Fear the Reaper loaded on my phone as a ringtone. I have it set for when I get a call from either my office or my manager. I thought it was funny. You see … I work with senior adults. *grins* Get it? Heehee!)
The music dies down and the radio station does their little ad moment while I’m sitting at a stop light, waiting to turn onto the highway. As I turned onto the entrance ramp the strains of Kansas’ Carry on My Wayward Son begins. I kid you not. Baby is approaching 65mph and the music just swells and my brain explodes with all seasons of Supernatural scenes crashing in my minds eye. Singing at the top of my lungs, hurtling down the highway, I knew that even though it wasn't Thursday, this week Tuesday was going to be a Supernatural day for me.
Sometimes you just have to give in and accept. As I pulled into the office I was laughing. As I made my way to my desk, I was lighthearted. I had visions of The Boys in my head to entertain me. (Yeah … tell me that doesn’t sound like I should be in a Sanitarium … oh wait! … I am.) What was truly fun was the fact that Tuesday was one of those rare days that I was able to spend time wandering in my little Sanitarium, interacting with my inmates in a way I don’t always get to do.
As I was leaving the office that day, I had to grin to myself and wonder what music might take me home. When I started the car, it was in time to catch the station’s news minute and then advertisements. Then came the music. I nearly stopped dead in the middle of the entrance ramp back onto the highway. Seriously. First song? After the advertisements? CCR’s Run Thru the Jungle. At first I thought it was my phone, since that is my primary ring tone, but it didn’t start right. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or sing. I chose both. Supernatural had taken me to work that day and it seemed that it was taking me home, beginning with that wonderful scene in Sin City when the boys arrive to check out the town and Dean almost gets waylaid by a woman in the back of a car before Sam comes back to move him along.
As the song’s music died, I briefly wondered if the radio station would continue with its unknowing theme for my day. I didn’t know whether to be pleased or a bit freaked that it did when Styx’s Renegade began to play. For the Supernatural Obsessive, this song’s excellent pairing with The Boys escape from Agent Hendrickson and the bank at the end of Nightshifter, is as infamous as the Ghostbusters phrase “Who you going to call?” Can you honestly say that when you hear the opening lyrics you don’t see The Boys heading up the stairs to the parking garage, decked out in full SWAT gear? Can you honestly say that you don’t see them getting into the Impala, breathing heavy, removing helmets and face masks? Can you honestly say that in the pause of music, you don’t hear Dean’s quiet “We are so screwed” before he starts the car and pulls out to the screaming strains -
“The jig is up, the news is out, they finally found me.
The renegade who had it made, retrieved for a bounty.
Never more to go astray,
This will be the end today of the wanted man.”
Flying down the highway, I was literally in Supernatural heaven.
Unfortunately, the remainder of my drive consisted of the traffic report, weather update, and radio station advertisements, and one final song. It wasn’t a Supernatural song - atleast not yet - but the lyrics of Tesla’s song Signs as I pulled into my driveway had me pulling out my little notebook that I keep tucked in my purse to jot down thoughts and after I turned off the car (but still had the music playing) I wrote down the Supernatural music that I had heard that day. Afterall, the lyrics were telling me … “signs, signs, everywhere there’s signs”. Evidently the music of my day was my sign, indicating that I needed to take a musical look at our favorite show.
Combine my radio adventures with the news that came out Tuesday that Katie Cassidy would not be reprising her role as Ruby in season four. I made the comment in a couple of places that as much as I appreciated Katie, if it was a choice between having her or more music in the budget for season four, I would have to choose the music.
From the very first episode, this show has been about Dean & Sam Winchester, the Impala, and the music. In a very real sense, the music is the fourth main character. I mean no disrespect to Bobby. Bobby is a definite mainstay, yet he is recurring. Season three did not feel right when the music was relegated to a recurring role as well.
Think to season one … who can hear the music of Iron Butterfly’s In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida and not think of Rebecca tied up as the shapeshifter Dean threatened her before escaping in Skin?
What about BOC’s Fire of Unknown Origin? Do you honestly not hear those words and picture Dean pranking his sleeping brother and then belting out the words as he plays the steering wheel in Hell House?
Season two … Everybody Loves a Clown … Three Dog Night’s Shambala backs up the sight of Dean, underneath the wrecked Impala, trying to rebuild the wall around the pain in his heart as he rebuilds his beloved car.
Of course, there’s AC/DC’s Back in Black … first heard in the Pilot as The Boys begin their trip, it’s played again to a shot by shot sequence of the gleaming, restored black beauty of Dean’s Baby in Bloodlust.
Season three did have some excellent moments, though. Asia's Heat of the Moment will be a song that Sam may have once loved but now will forever abhor after continually waking to it after Dean dies in Mystery Spot.
Dean's dream of family was highlighted so poignantly with Dream a Little Dream of Me by The Mamas and the Papas in the episode with the same title.
So many episodes contain such awesome musical backgrounds, the words and the beat of each song blending together with the emotions and actions taking place on the screen. A true Supernatural Obsessive has not only the music but the scenes each song represents, deeply planted in their psyche … the music has been downloaded into our iPods, has been burned to our CD’s. Those of us old enough to remember the songs from their original vinyl albums give thanks to The Kripke for the rejuvenation of the music of our youth. Those who aren’t old enough have been introduced to the classics and found them to be most excellent.
One of the really unique things about a show with an ensemble cast is the way each member of the cast works to support and enhance the acting of the other cast members. Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki effortlessly bring this to mind in their portrayals of Dean and Sam Winchester, both young actors complementing each other by expressions, action/reactions, and words. They play off of each other, learn from each other, take support from each other. The other two members of Supernatural's ensemble cast (again, not slighting Jim Beaver, for he definitely falls in this category) are the Impala and the music.
The Impala may not offer words, but she has her own expressions - the rumble of her engine and the creak of her doors - and she offers her own comfort - the feel of her leather seats, the familiar scents that remind her occupants that when they are inside her, they are home.
In its own way, the music also offers support and comfort to our boys, as well as being expressive and giving word to the moment.
Bob Dylan’s Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door supports Dean in Houses of the Holy as he attempts to make sense of the possibility he had seen “God’s will”.
Queensryche’s Silent Lucidity backs up Sam in his anguish at realizing what he must do to Madison in Heart.
Foreigner’s Cold as Ice offers a play at humor against the incredibly stern faced Ellen in No Exit.
Actors are given the potential to make or break a scene by how they express the words and give life to the character. Isn’t it terrific how The Kripke and his crew have done the same thing with the music of this show? Isn’t it thrilling that the songs they have chosen have not only risen to the occasion, but have enhanced each scene that they background to a point to where those scenes indelibly remain in our minds and our hearts?
Can any other television show say the same thing?