Q: Tell us how the various season montage songs were chosen? [Jason Tippitt, Jim King]A: As mentioned earlier, "Step By Step" by Jesse Winchester was a theme song of sorts for the first season in David's mind, so it made sense as the final montage song. "I Feel Alright" by Steve Earle was the only serious contender for Season 2 - Steve Earle has a recurring role as Bubbles' NA sponsor, and we had wanted to use some of his music. The song as used has a real ironic dissonance over the scenes of failure and devastation, which is something David likes to do with music. He has said that in real life you never get songs playing which reflect the moment, but rather songs which play against the mood. If you walk in to a bar and meet your soul mate, the song playing on the jukebox won't be a swelling love song, but more like "96 Tears."
Season 3's "Fast Train" by Solomon Burke was chosen by David (not sure if someone else suggested it) and has echoes of The Wire's symbolic train theme, as well as the season's concern with issues of reform (slow train coming...). We tried quite a few other songs on Season 3, but "Fast Train" was the best.
Season 4 was wide open, and I made David a CD with about ten songs that I thought might work, among them the ballad "Tupelo" by James Bracken, which is most known as performed by John Lee Hooker, but this was a version performed by Steve Cropper, Pops Staples & Albert King (which I discovered on the excellent music blog "The Captain's Crate"). I thought "Tupelo" was a great mood, but was a bit too specifically about something else. I also liked "Slipping Into Darkness" by War, but it was a bit too "on point" (being "on point" is one of the cardinal sins with music on The Wire).
We were trying to use New Orleans music where possible in Season 4 because Katrina was on our minds, and we liked the idea of sending a few dollars to New Orleans artists in the months after the devastation down there. I came across Dr. John's song "I Walk On Gilded Splinters," which had great lyrics - relevant but not too "on point," with overtones of saints and sinners - but the original version didn't have the energy that I thought we needed. So when I found Paul Weller's version, it seemed perfect. I was a fan of Weller's band "The Jam" as a teenage punk growing up in England, and saw them play live several times in the late 70's. I never really followed Weller's solo career, but when I heard his version of "I Walk On Gilded Splinters," I loved it. So maybe being a white kid from the UK did inform my sensibility in a way which ended up helping the show after all.
Q: "I Walk On Gilded Splinters" sounds a lot like "Step By Step." Did you notice? [Jim King]
A: Uh...no. They don't seem similar to me at all, although listening now, I realize they are in the same key and do have a similar tempo. Jim, nothing gets by you on The Wire, does it?
Q: Thanks, Blake, and good luck with Season 5. [Jim King, waiting for those hi-hats to kick in]
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