Video Essay: Replacement Music (Part 2)

In a previous video essay, we compared the original and the replacement music used for Rick’s funeral scene in the episode “Slow Dance” (2.7). We couldn’t leave this scene alone, watching it with several public domain songs to see what free replacement music options were available when the official DVD was released. Then, we found ourselves scoring the scene with other songs, just to see what the effect would have been. This video highlights a few of the songs that we thought were most interesting. All of these songs felt right for some reason. For example, “I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles” was in the public domain when the DVDs were released, so it would have been easy to include; it would also have foreshadowed the character of Mike Monroe, who was introduced in an episode called “Blowing Bubbles.” We hope you like this little experiment.

Northern Exposure: Replacement Music (Part 2) from Alaskan Riviera on Vimeo.

There were several other songs that worked well that we didn’t include here in the interest of time. Even six songs feels like a lot. A few other songs that we felt worked well with this scene include “Blue Bayou” by Roy Orbison, “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” by Meatloaf, and “Time to Change” by the Brady Bunch. They all had the right mixture of sadness and humour that we associate with this moment. We hoped this scene would work with a song from REM’s Green, which was said to be Rick’s favourite album (in the episode “Animals R Us”, 3.4). The one that worked best from that album was “Pop Song 89”, but it didn’t work well enough to include it here.