Withdrawal symptoms
One side effect of the show Breaking Bad ending (after its five-season run on AMC) is that you start missing the show’s music.
Every fan’s got their favorite Breaking Bad moment: whether it’s the slide steel guitar opening theme by Dave Porter, or the final episode’s use of power pop hit Baby Blue by Badfinger, sound choice was always crucial to the show’s addictive appeal.
Humor played a big part, too. Show creator Vince Gilligan honed his dark humor writing some of The X-Files’ funnier episodes; on Breaking Bad, he may not have personally picked the songs that allude directly to Walter White’s chemical creation — songs like Baby Blue, Tommy James & The Shondells’ Crystal Blue Persuasion or Good Morning Freedom by British bubblegum outfit Blue Mink — but his sense of humor guides those pop choices. (Who else would have selected Blinded Me With Science by Thomas Dolby as a ringtone for Lydia-obsessed meth cook Todd to have on his cell phone?)
For beginners, the iTunes “Breaking Bad OST†is a good place to start. Opening with Porter’s main title theme, it quickly sprawls all over the musical map — which is how Breaking Bad liked to do things.
Generally, the music of the show went along with the setting. Since it’s mostly set in New Mexico, Mexican- and Spanish-flavored tunes like Negro Y Azul: Ballad of Heisenberg by Los Cuates de Sinaloa (a kind of music video in-joke), Calexico’s Banderilla, Ana Tijoux’s Latin freestyle rap1977, or thumping acoustic duet Tamacun by Rodrigo Y Gabriela dominate. But there’s also a southern rock streak to the show — usually the stuff played at redneck bars in various episodes, like ZZ Top’s Tush, Marshall Tucker Band’s Heard It In A Love Song and The Outlaws’ Green Grass and High Tides.
You could say the show pits the music of outcasts and outlaws in general — the reggae of Yellowman (Zungguzzungguzzeng) or Mango Walk (The In Crowd), or the hip-hop of Jessie Pinkman and his fellow tweakers — against the MOR rock and soft pop of DEA Agent Hank Schrader (Survivor’s Eye of the Tiger) and wife Marie (soft boss nova like Sasha Dobson’s Without You, soft fusion like Bob James’ Feel Like Making Love).
Country music plays a close second to southern rock in the show’s sonic universe — not surprising, considering the locale. Stuff like Stonewall Jackson’s Come On Home (And Have Your Next Affair with Me) sits alongside Nancy Sinatra; The Be Good Tanyas’ read of Townes Van Zandt’s Waiting Around To Die coexists with Marty Robbins’ epic Feleena.
But there’s another world outside the hillbilly bars — the tweaker world, represented by wacked-out selections like Jim White’s Wordmule, Dead Fingers Talking by Working For A Nuclear Free City, Teddybears’ Rocket Scientist, or Molotov’s Apocalypshit.
Black humor and irony play a heavy role as well, such as pairing The Association’s airy ‘60s pop confection Windy against a sequence (in Season 2) showing the daily grind of a meth-head hooker character of the same name. The iTunes OST also offers a song by Pinkman’s erstwhile fictional band Twaughthammer (a song called Fallacies; the video features Badger on vocal duties). That’s standard practice now with postmodern audiences: fictional bands become real musical entities, with fake videos made to order for the “DVD extras†disc.
And then there is that whole other magical genre: music to cook meth by. Since cooking methamphetamine is such a visual and thematic part of the show, what better to pair with sequences showing Walt and Jessie loading chemicals into vats and breaking up sheets of crystal blue meth than some cool music? Some of the more joyful pieces heard on the show emanate from Mr. White’s lab. Tommy James’ Crystal Blue Persuasion is one of the great “cooking†tunes of the show, but other favorites are jazz-flavored. When Walt White (Bryan Cranston) seeks to get rid of an eccentric lab partner named Gale, he compares his style to jazz — too much improvisation — while saying his own is more classical; but in truth, classical music is rarely heard on the show (I count only Haydn’s String Quartet No. 5 in D Major). More often, jazz is the soundtrack for cooking sequences — whether it’s the effervescent Vince Guaraldi and Bola Sete on Ginza Samba, Scrambled Eggs by Nat Adderley, or the ultra-cool, oft-sampled drum ‘n’ bass grooves of The Peddlers’ On A Clear Day (You Can See Forever), recorded back in 1968, the lab is revealed as a haven of pure creation for Walter White, and the music matches that spirit.
Viewers have also lauded the depth of the hip-hop choices on the show’s soundtrack. Crucially, the soul and R&B selections veer away from overused Marvin Gaye and Al Green staples (always a mark of the musical dunce), opting instead for fresher picks like Darando’s soulful Didn’t I or Gnarls Barkley’s Who’s Gonna Save My Soul? Lyrically, the music of Breaking Bad offers a kind of Greek chorus reflection on the action, when it’s not providing disturbing atmosphere.
In short, Breaking Bad is a melting pot (excuse the pun) of musical tastes, covering a lot of sonic ground. The last TV series that inspired such musical hosannas and “aha†moments for viewers was The Sopranos (which had E-Street Band member Steven Van Zandt helping out with the research). Beyond the “official†OST, fans going through withdrawal might consider the more wide-ranging BB playlists provided by various YouTube users, some of which have stitched together exhaustive video playlists with up to 120 songs culled from the series. That should put you right back in the mood of the show.
And what about that motormouth defense lawyer for hire, Saul Goodman? What music accompanies his scenes? None, because Saul has enough nonstop riffs of his own to provide a self-sustaining soundtrack.
