MUSIC SEEN – remembering some of our favorite confluences of music in movies, television, video games, anything. Pairing the moving image with musical notes is a time honored craft – about which, we will clumsily say is pretty awesome and pretty cool.
“This Modern Love” (Bloc Party) in How I Met Your Mother
I love her! I told her that the first night we went out, and here it is, eight months later, and nothing’s changed. So yes, I know this isn’t gonna work. But it HAS to work. You hear me, universe? This is Ted Mosby talking! Give me some rain! Come on! Come on! COME ON!!!!
What are you holding out for? / What’s always in the way?
Why so damn absent minded? / Why so scared of romance?
This modern love breaks me / This modern love wastes me
Season One of How I Met Your Mother ended with the episode “Come On” on May 15, 2006. The first season of this quirky romantic comedy ends with an extended sequence underscored with the song “This Modern Love” from Bloc Party’s debut album Silent Alarm, which came out a year earlier. However, mere facts are worthless when both of these are about FEELINGS, MAN. Let’s set the scene.
Romantic Ted tells pragmatic Robin he loves her on the first date. Sweet Marshall and dear Lily are the married roommates of Ted. Ted spends twenty-one episodes trying to get Robin to return the feeling, with his unfailing belief in capital letters LOVE and FATE guiding his way. Marshall and Lily are best friends and are married and are in love.
Ted doubles down in the season finale, saying he’s not embarrassed of his premature proclamation and puts Robin to an ultimatum – Robin puts this decision off by going to an outdoor work retreat. Marshall and Lily have some different interests but are super charming and super married, also super in love.
Ted’s belief in the power of the universe as a love diviner leads him to performing a white man rain dance to get Robin to answer his ultimatum, and… guys… it works: it starts raining. Marshal and Lily are always smiling, always married, and always in love. Ted takes a cab in the rain to Robin’s apartment and calls out to her window, Romeo and Juliet-style. Then “This Modern Love” starts.
To me, this song and this show, particularly the Season One finale, are on the perfect, same wavelength. The song seems to get more excited as it goes along – insistent and repetitive guitars get louder and faster as the singer talks back and forth (as the vocals pan from left to right speakers) about long distance love as both a creative and destructive force.
Ted finally gets a Yes from Robin and goes home to tell his dear married friends about it. He’s got a gollyshucks look on this face in the taxi, and marvels at the universe, as the drums, bass, keyboards, guitars and vocals (in full stereo now) are all in sync. But the lyrics are not just rosy, but melancholy too: “to be lost in a forest / to be cut adrift.” Here is where idealistic romanticism meets sobering reality. But from where? Everything is okay with Marshall and Lily, right?
See, there’s a part of this finale I didn’t tell you about yet. I was protecting you. You know the super cool / super married / super in love couple, Marshall and Lily? They drift apart in this episode. Ted comes back to find Marshall on the stoop in the rain: Lily left and love is dead. The rain that brought Ted joy is pouring on Marshall’s utterly broken heart – not literally, but FIGURATIVELY.
So in one musical sequence you have the entire show’s thesis. The promise of love with the challenges of life (oh, it’s really funny too). Unwavering emotions get swatted down by life. And those same emotions dust themselves off only to get hit back down. But they never quit, and fight right back – then they lose and never come back. But then they do… and that’s love.
Fittingly, the song ends with “Do you want to come over and kill some time? / Throw your arms around me.” Sadness and hope. I love this show and I love love. I’m an optimistic.
Finally, a post-script apology to “5000 Miles” by The Proclaimers, the sonic Sideshow Bob Rake for the life and death of Marshall’s Fiero. Great comedic use of music in this show, but doesn’t tickle the emotion center of the brain. Just felt that “This Modern Love” is closer to the essence of the show: idealistically romantic and sobering reality.
