By now I trust you’ve seen the Game of Thrones season 7 teaser trailer, “The Long Walk” (and if you haven’t where have you been?) featuring a remix of the song, “Sit Down” by the British band, James. The group’s frontman, Tim Booth, spoke to Billboard about the decision to let HBO use their song in the teaser and his thoughts on the show.
According to Booth, HBO approached his band four months ago about the possibility of using “Sit Down” for season seven promotional material.
“We had protected that song for years from advertising, because we knew it was dear to a lot of people’s hearts, so we only allowed it to be used in a couple of things,” Booth said. “But Game of Thrones… Jimmy [Jim Glennie] – our bass player, who I wrote this with, along with two other guys – Jimmy’s read all the books, I’ve read all the books, I’ve seen the show a couple of times with my wife, with my kids, and I love it.
Booth said that he and his fellow band members had expected a highly stylized version of their song to appear in the promo. “We totally assumed they would medieval the song – they would take it and do something radical with it that fit their style more. We were looking forward to it.”
In fact, that’s nearly what happened. “They did do a weird version, that was probably more in keeping with their style,” Booth recalled. “We got sent that probably a month ago, sung by a female singer, and you couldn’t tell it was “Sit Down” until you heard the chorus lyric. It was so different, the chords were different, everything was different about it. It was pure Game of Thrones. We thought, ‘Great! Bonkers! Fantastically mad!’ We were OK with that.”
Ultimately, though, the show’s producers decided to stick with a rendition of “Sit Down” that was closer to the original. They called James a week ago to inform them that they were going to try another remix, one that “stripped” and “slowed down” the original version but left it otherwise intact. “There’s no additions to it, no changes,” Booth said. “They’ve just taken a few things out, distorted the guitar a bit, put the vocal back a bit.”
When asked why he thought HBO was interested in “Sit Down” for the teaser, Booth admitted he doesn’t know but later pointed out some of the thematic parallels between the song and the show.
“I mean, you can see what they’re connecting the song to. It’s the throne, basically, and who’s going to get the throne. So yeah, they’ve used those lyrics, and they clearly loved the lyric ‘Those who find they’re touched by madness.’ Cersei certainly seems to be heading in that direction.”
If I hadn’t seen such riches, I could live with being poor – a very apt comparison of the show to the source material.
Now I want to hear the “weird” version!
I really want to hear the other version now, lol.
Andrew May,
Oh definitely agree,the Winds of Winter book adaptation whenever it comes out can’t possibly top the show .
Great to see ALT shift X making an appearance so early before S7 airs. Video here:
For me hearing modern music with GOT was kind of awkward. Just didn’t seem right. It felt like it was Sons of Anarchy or something of that ilk with people getting ready to stand off to dark music.
Greywind,
All the promos since the beginning of the show have had modern music.
Digression: For any of you who are fond of James, if you’ve never heard Tim Booth’s now 20 year old side project (ouch, that hurts me) Booth and the Bad Angel, I highly recommend it. The Bad Angel refers to Angelo Badalamenti, who is best known for doing the score for “Twin Peaks” and other David Lynch projects. It’s a great album.
Me too!
A little OT but speaking of music the final GoT concert in Portland, OR was amazing!! I have some pictures I can post later. 🙂
Aryamad,
Lonely Cat and I were there too!!! (She brought Mr. Cat, and I brought Wolf Pup #2 and one of Wolf Pup’s best friends.)
I have a video of “Needle” that I need to figure out how to add a link to. I still have an iPhone 4s, so the quality isn’t great, but the music is so awesome. 🙂
Maybe this will work. Because I have no memory left on my phone, I did Facebook Live (until my battery ran out when I tried a second video!).
https://www.facebook.com/cristina.bauss/videos/vb.1418133402/10209184344711875/?type=3&theater
Wolfish,
Oh nice!! It was such a great show. Ramin and the musicians put a lot of love into the performance I thought. 🙂
Wolfish,
Oh man, you were so close to where my boyfriend and I were sitting! I’m not sure this will go through either but I snapped a decent one from the Red Wedding bit:
http://imgur.com/a/MFWDN
Aryamad,
I can’t look at it at work, so I’ll check it out at home tonight.
That’s so funny about the seating! We were in Section 102, Row T. I’d never been to the Moda and looked at the map for a long time before getting our tickets. We were stoked about our placement—right at eye level with the screens, but still able to see the musicians pretty clearly. 🙂
Thrones is a very modern show, and it has always had a “grunge” feel to it. This sort of music captures the atmosphere around the stories pretty well.
Wolfish,
We were 103 R 11 & 12. I’ve never been either. Leaving was interesting as I think we did a full circle trying to find where we came in. lol
I don’t think it fit very well. And yeah they’ve used modern songs before.
Yeah I was thrown by the song, it felt forced and kinda silly…#fail
Aryamad, Wolfish
Thanks a lot for posting! It means a lot to me – I would have loved to attend the show, but it was too far&expensive for me.