There’s plenty of semiotic research on how much impact sound has on our memories vs. visuals. It’s fairly easy to draw on specific memories by using music for recall (for me, and many in my generation, the Star Wars score does this).
Occasionally, however, the rhetorical choice to use a piece of music is so strong that it forever changes the song on your mind. This can happen even with a song you’ve known for years and years.
Let me offer a quick example. “Take me Home” by Phil Collins was released in 1985 on the “Dark” album (so claims Patton Oswalt) No Jacket Required. My mother liked Phil Collins, but because we share a relatively rare first name, I was into him, too. I was eight years old in 1985, and I bopped around to NJR on many nights. I knew all the words to all the songs. One of my favorites was “Take me Home.” I can draw on memories of me dancing in the open area of the tiny basement we lived in, trying to hit notes and failing.
But a little over a year ago, this happened:
Mr. Robot unm4sk-pt2 – Take Me Home from Ron Burgendy on Vimeo.
I am quick to call Sam Esmail a genius, and knowing my luck, I just cursed him to fall from grace, but this scene is such an incredible use of the song that now any time I hear even a note or two I am instantly drawn back to this sequence.
I used to sing the song, I knew all the lyrics, but I never felt it quite this viscerally. In this scene, the song takes a toll on you as a viewer. It makes it unmistakable that you’re there, confused, anxious, paranoid of everyone and everything.
It’s a beautiful master class in how music can transform a scene. Watching Knowles light the ransom money ablaze, his eyes wide as “I’ve been a prisoner all my life” hits, then removing the mask to stare at what he’d been forced to do.
I’ll remember that television scene for the rest of my life… any time I hear a song I’ve known for 30 years.