1013 RADIO: Over the Rainbow

Carl Sweeney returns for another 1013 Radio, talking a classic from Season 6's 'The Rain King'...

In the early days of The X-Files, it was almost impossible to imagine an episode ending with ‘Over the Rainbow’ playing on the soundtrack. By Season 6, though, the series had changed considerably, and ‘The Rain King’ does indeed conclude with Judy Garland’s Oscar-winning song.

The song itself is one of the most famous American songs ever recorded. ‘Over the Rainbow’ (referred to by many as ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’) was written in 1939 by Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg, for MGM’s The Wizard of Oz. It’s an emotional ballad, sung in the first few minutes of the film when Dorothy is daydreaming about a better place than Kansas. The song won the Oscar that year for Best Original Song, and would remain Garland’s signature tune throughout her career. It’s not, however, a natural fit for The X-Files.

‘The Rain King’ is a sweet little episode, perhaps most memorable for a scene where Mulder dodges a flying cow.  It’s a romantic comedy, really, about not just Mulder & Scully’s investigation in the local resident apparently able to control the weather for financial gain, but about the unrequited love meteorologist, Holman Hardt feels for Sheila Fontaine. Unusually for The X-Files, there’s even a happy ending. Holman & Sheila get together, and normal weather patterns are restored to the town. There’s a short postscript, set one year later: we hear ‘Over the Rainbow’ as we see Sheila cradling her newborn baby. Your mileage may vary, but I think it’s a nice little scene. But the question remains: how did The X-Files, renowned for its scares and its chills, get to the point where it could use a Judy Garland song?

The X-Files moved production to Los Angeles between Seasons 5 & 6. The move had an immediate effect on the series. Gone was the atmospheric drizzle and mist that were such a hallmark of filming in Vancouver. LA’s warmer climate was reflected in the brighter, warmer look of the series. ‘The Beginning’ would open the season with an image of the baking desert sun. ‘Drive’ and ‘Dreamland’ would make notable use of the different types of location that the series now had at its disposal. The show as a whole now had a generally lighter feel than before, which would last until Season 8 attempted to go back-to-basics. If the series hadn’t moved to LA, ‘The Rain King’ may have ended up a very different episode in look and feel.

The move to LA, in my view, not only changed the look of the series but also broadened the types of music that could be appropriately used on the show. Mark Snow’s scores for Season 6 are more varied and more comedic than before (listen to the music that accompanies Mulder’s mirror dance in Dreamland for a particularly stark example of this), and songs which would once have felt out of place now warrant inclusion. ‘Over the Rainbow’, which is very difficult to imagine being used in the early years of the show, feels suitable when used in ‘The Rain King’.

* ‘The Rain King’ wasn’t the first time that the series had tipped its hat to The Wizard of Oz, of course. ‘Triangle’ is heavily indebted to the film, and in ‘Fight the Future’, Mulder jokingly refers to The Lone Gunmen as “Cowardly Lion…Scarecrow…Toto” (Frohike is the one who was unfairly compared to Dorothy’s canine companion).

You can follow Carl @csweeney758 on Twitter.

1013 RADIO: Classical Music

In the latest 1013 Radio, Carl Sweeney looks at the instances of classical music in The X-Files...

I don’t know about you, dear reader, but there’s nothing I like more than to sup from a glass of wine while listening to Beethoven (well, actually, I’m more likely to be drinking a can of Coors Light while playing a Bruce Springsteen album, but there’s no point splitting hairs). This week on 1013 Radio, let’s look back at three times when The X-Files memorably used classical music.

Little Green Men – “I live for Bach”

Senator Richard Matheson has summoned Mulder to his office, where he’s playing Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2. Mulder holds his own in a brief conversation about Bach (he is Oxford-educated, after all), but doesn’t immediately recall that this was the music sent into space with the Voyager probe. Matheson, fearful of being bugged, uses the volume of the music to disguise the real reason he wants to talk to Mulder: to notify him of possible alien contact in Puerto Rico.

Chinga – Scully takes a bath

After five years assigned to The X-Files, who can begrudge Agent Scully a nice holiday in Maine? It’s just a shame she ended up getting embroiled in an investigation involving a murderous talking doll. Still, at least she found time for a relaxing bath while listening to Hummel’s Piano Concerto No. 3.

Trust No 1 – A mother’s lament

In an impressive pre-credits sequence, we see images from past episodes refashioned as surveillance footage, while Scully narrates a message to William. On the soundtrack we hear a version of Tchaikovsky’s Barcarolle, one of the 12 piano pieces that make up The Seasons. It’s an effective montage, and the melodic music works well in this context.

That’s all for now. Join me next time on 1013 Radio for another journey into the musical world of The X-Files.

You can follow Carl on Twitter @csweeney758.

1013 RADIO: Beyond the Sea

In the first of a new series of articles charting the music involved in The X-Files, '1013 Radio', join Carl Sweeney as he goes somewhere... beyond the sea...

Bobby Darin’s version of ‘Beyond the Sea’ is probably the definitive rendition of a song that has been covered by many diverse artists, from Django Reinhardt to Robbie Williams. It’s a romantic pop song about separated lovers that charted in the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic for Darin. The song is used memorably in an early episode of The X-Files with the same name.

The episode was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong. Morgan and Wong regularly incorporated different types of music into their scripts for The X-Files, from Bach to Johnny Mathis. Their use of pop music in the early days of the series paved the way for other writers to follow suit later on, though we shouldn’t hold them accountable for Mulder line-dancing to 'Achy Breaky Heart' in season 10.

We first hear the song at the funeral of Scully’s father, who died at the beginning of the episode. As his ashes are scattered in the water, Mrs Scully explains that the song had been playing on the day he returned from the Cuban blockade and proposed marriage (this is an example of Morgan and Wong’s fondness for intertwining fiction and 20^th century history). Given the lyrical content of the song, this is of course highly appropriate. Bill Scully’s Naval career is central to the way he is represented in The X-Files, as exemplified by the music here and references to Moby Dick in this and other episodes.

Later, the incarcerated killer Luther Lee Boggs (the fantastic Brad Dourif) unsettles Scully by singing, not very tunefully, a portion of the song to her. Boggs’ knowledge of this, and other personal information, coupled with Scully’s vision of her dead father, are at the centre of a superb character piece. It’s probably the best episode of the first season.

Darin’s music would be used several times in the second season of Millennium, as part of Morgan and Wong’s attempt to humanise Frank Black. There’s one further link to the 1013 universe. Morgan’s brother Darin, who would join The X-Files writing staff in 1994, is reportedly named after the singer.

Interestingly, you may not hear Darin’s ‘Beyond the Sea’ when you watch this episode. His recording is on the UK DVD and Bluray release. When viewed on Amazon Prime though, you’ll hear Charles Trenet’s ‘La Mer’ instead (‘La Mer’ was written in the 1940s and has the same music as ‘Beyond the Sea’ but a different lyrical focus). I'm not sure what the reason for the change is, and whether it's the same in other territories. I can only assume this is because of a rights issue.

You can follow Carl on Twitter @csweeney758.