Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (soundtrack)
Encyclopedia
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles is the first soundtrack
album release
from the science fiction
television series of the same name based on the Terminator
franchise. The score is licensed for release by Warner Bros. Entertainment to La-La Land Records
who issued the soundtrack album on December 23, 2008.
Composed by Bear McCreary
, it features the series opening title and closing themes as well as stand-out themes and musical cues from various episodes of the show's first season and from the first two episodes of the second season. The soundtrack also includes a cover
of the Rev. Gary Davis gospel song "Samson and Delilah
", arranged by McCreary and performed by Shirley Manson
, who joined the series cast at the start of the second season.
Series producer Josh Friedman
, actors Thomas Dekker
and Shirley Manson
, as well as McCreary each contribute personal notes within the release sleeve-notes.
(Sarah Connor, Derek Reese and Catherine Weaver's themes feature, as do variations on James Ellison and Andy Goode's themes) and also collects some other stand out pieces featured across the series first eleven episodes. Although Terminator Cameron is a central character in the show, no theme was written for her.
Terminator
Cromartie
decimates an HRT led by series regular James Ellison to the musical accompaniment of Johnny Cash
's "When The Man Comes Around
". Friedman became aware of a video of gospel song "Samson and Delilah" performed live by Bruce Springsteen
, which had been uploaded to YouTube
. The audio from the video would be unusable for a television broadcast, and as Springsteen never recorded a studio version of the song, Friedman asked McCreary if he could arrange a version of it to open the second season of the show.
After spending some time concentrating on other projects, McCreary decided the track would work best with a gospel arrangement incorporated with elements from the Terminator... score. While discussing the concept with Friedman, McCreary discovered that Garbage
vocalist Shirley Manson
had been recently cast as a recurring T-1001 Terminator for the series' second season. McCreary asked for Manson to be the vocalist on "Samson and Delilah", leaving it up to Friedman to ask Manson to do it. After Manson agreed, McCreary presented a rough demo
of the track to both Friedman and Manson. Friedman gave creative control over the track to McCreary and Manson, who wanted the track to "have a somewhat authentic quality to it, rather than be traditionally orchestrated like most cinematic scores".
McCreary recorded the rhythm sections of the song with Ira Ingber and Steve Bartek
on guitars, John Avila
on bass and Nate Wood on drums, while Steve Kaplan co-produced and engineered the music. After McCreary recorded the orchestration and rock instrument elements to the track, Manson recorded the vocals with her engineer
Billy Bush.
during a bar scene involving Cameron playing pool undercover. Rather than write a brand new composition, McCreary chose a song titled "Ain't We Famous", written by his brother, giving his band the chance to record a studio version of the track.
featuring an animated character named "Atomic Al". McCreary composed an orchestral animation score for the 45-second expository
sequence, inspired by composers Carl Stalling
's Looney Tunes
themes, Scott Bradley
's Tom and Jerry
themes and Bruce Broughton
's Tiny Toon Adventures
theme.
"Atomic Al's Merry Melody" is also used in the background of the second episode of Caprica
, when Lacy has lunch at the home of Sister Clarice Willow.
Publishing
All tracks published by Warner-Olive Music, LLC (ASCAP) except:
Track 2 includes "The Terminator Theme" published by Universal - Polygram Int. Publ, Inc. (ASCAP) o/b/o Euphonius Music (ASCAP)
Production
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
album release
Album
An album is a collection of recordings, released as a single package on gramophone record, cassette, compact disc, or via digital distribution. The word derives from the Latin word for list .Vinyl LP records have two sides, each comprising one half of the album...
from the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series of the same name based on the Terminator
Terminator (franchise)
The Terminator series is a science fiction franchise encompassing a series of films and other media concerning battles between Skynet's artificially intelligent machine network, and John Connor's Resistance forces and the rest of the human race....
franchise. The score is licensed for release by Warner Bros. Entertainment to La-La Land Records
La-La Land Records
La-La Land Records is an American record company based in Burbank, California . The company specializes in film and television soundtracks. The label is run by Michael V...
who issued the soundtrack album on December 23, 2008.
Composed by Bear McCreary
Bear McCreary
Bear McCreary is an American composer and musician living in Los Angeles, California. He is known for his work on the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica television series.-Biography:...
, it features the series opening title and closing themes as well as stand-out themes and musical cues from various episodes of the show's first season and from the first two episodes of the second season. The soundtrack also includes a cover
Cover version
In popular music, a cover version or cover song, or simply cover, is a new performance or recording of a contemporary or previously recorded, commercially released song or popular song...
of the Rev. Gary Davis gospel song "Samson and Delilah
Samson and Delilah (song)
"Samson and Delilah" is a traditional song based on the Biblical tale of Samson and his betrayal by Delilah. Its best known performer is perhaps the Grateful Dead, who first performed the song live in 1976, with guitarist Bob Weir singing lead vocals. It was frequently played live by the Dead. The...
", arranged by McCreary and performed by Shirley Manson
Shirley Manson
Shirley Anne Manson is a Scottish recording artist and actress, best known internationally as the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. For much of her international career Manson commuted between her home city of Edinburgh to the United States to record with Garbage but now lives and...
, who joined the series cast at the start of the second season.
Series producer Josh Friedman
Josh Friedman
Josh Friedman is an American screenwriter best known as screenwriter of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and as the writer of the 2005 film adaptation of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds....
, actors Thomas Dekker
Thomas Dekker (actor)
Thomas Alexander Dekker is an American film and television actor and a musician. He is also a singer and has written and produced two albums. He is best known for his roles as John Connor in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Nick Szalinski on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids: The TV Show, and Zach...
and Shirley Manson
Shirley Manson
Shirley Anne Manson is a Scottish recording artist and actress, best known internationally as the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. For much of her international career Manson commuted between her home city of Edinburgh to the United States to record with Garbage but now lives and...
, as well as McCreary each contribute personal notes within the release sleeve-notes.
Track listing
Compiling the album
The Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles soundtrack collects several character themesTheme music
Theme music is a piece that is often written specifically for a radio program, television program, video game or movie, and usually played during the title sequence and/or end credits...
(Sarah Connor, Derek Reese and Catherine Weaver's themes feature, as do variations on James Ellison and Andy Goode's themes) and also collects some other stand out pieces featured across the series first eleven episodes. Although Terminator Cameron is a central character in the show, no theme was written for her.
"Samson and Delilah"
In April 2008, before production on the second season of Terminator... was announced, Josh Friedman wanted the season to begin with a companion piece to the final episode of the first, in which antagonistAntagonist
An antagonist is a character, group of characters, or institution, that represents the opposition against which the protagonist must contend...
Terminator
Terminator
-Science:*Terminator , the line between the day and night sides of a planetary body*Terminator , the end of a gene for transcription-Technology:*Terminator , a resistor at the end of a transmission line to prevent signal reflection...
Cromartie
Cromartie
Cromartie is a Scottish surname based on the place-name Cromarty. Notable people with the name include:*Warren Cromartie, American baseball player*Antonio Cromartie, American football player*Ann Cromartie or Ann Yearsley, English poet and writer...
decimates an HRT led by series regular James Ellison to the musical accompaniment of Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
's "When The Man Comes Around
The Man Comes Around (song)
"The Man Comes Around" is the title track from Johnny Cash's American IV: The Man Comes Around, released in 2002. It is one of the last songs Cash wrote in his life....
". Friedman became aware of a video of gospel song "Samson and Delilah" performed live by Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, which had been uploaded to YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
. The audio from the video would be unusable for a television broadcast, and as Springsteen never recorded a studio version of the song, Friedman asked McCreary if he could arrange a version of it to open the second season of the show.
After spending some time concentrating on other projects, McCreary decided the track would work best with a gospel arrangement incorporated with elements from the Terminator... score. While discussing the concept with Friedman, McCreary discovered that Garbage
Garbage (band)
Garbage are an alternative rock band formed in Madison, Wisconsin in 1994. The group consists of Scottish singer Shirley Manson and American musicians Duke Erikson , Steve Marker and Butch Vig . All four members are involved in songwriting and production...
vocalist Shirley Manson
Shirley Manson
Shirley Anne Manson is a Scottish recording artist and actress, best known internationally as the lead singer of the alternative rock band Garbage. For much of her international career Manson commuted between her home city of Edinburgh to the United States to record with Garbage but now lives and...
had been recently cast as a recurring T-1001 Terminator for the series' second season. McCreary asked for Manson to be the vocalist on "Samson and Delilah", leaving it up to Friedman to ask Manson to do it. After Manson agreed, McCreary presented a rough demo
Demo (music)
A demo version or demo of a song is one recorded for reference rather than for release. A demo is a way for a musician to approximate their ideas on tape or disc, and provide an example of those ideas to record labels, producers or other artists...
of the track to both Friedman and Manson. Friedman gave creative control over the track to McCreary and Manson, who wanted the track to "have a somewhat authentic quality to it, rather than be traditionally orchestrated like most cinematic scores".
McCreary recorded the rhythm sections of the song with Ira Ingber and Steve Bartek
Steve Bartek
Steve Bartek, born in Garfield Heights, Ohio on January 30, 1952, is an American guitarist, film composer, conductor and orchestrator.-Early career:...
on guitars, John Avila
John Avila
John Avila is a Mexican-American bassist and music producer, best known for being in the new wave band Oingo Boingo from 1984 to 1995.-Career:Avila co-founded the music group Food for Feet in 1981, and played with them until 1991....
on bass and Nate Wood on drums, while Steve Kaplan co-produced and engineered the music. After McCreary recorded the orchestration and rock instrument elements to the track, Manson recorded the vocals with her engineer
Audio engineering
An audio engineer, also called audio technician, audio technologist or sound technician, is a specialist in a skilled trade that deals with the use of machinery and equipment for the recording, mixing and reproduction of sounds. The field draws on many artistic and vocational areas, including...
Billy Bush.
"Ain't We Famous"
For the second episode of season two, McCreary was required to choose music to play on a jukeboxJukebox
A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media...
during a bar scene involving Cameron playing pool undercover. Rather than write a brand new composition, McCreary chose a song titled "Ain't We Famous", written by his brother, giving his band the chance to record a studio version of the track.
"Atomic Al's Merry Melody"
During the same episode, both Sarah Connor and Cameron view a safety training videoCorporate video
Corporate video production refers to audio-visual corporate communications material commissioned primarily for a use by a company, corporation or organisation. A corporate video is often intended for a specific purpose in a corporate or B2B environment and viewed only by a limited or targeted...
featuring an animated character named "Atomic Al". McCreary composed an orchestral animation score for the 45-second expository
Exposition (literary technique)
At the beginning of a narrative, the exposition is the author's providing of some background information to the audience about the plot, characters' histories, setting, and theme. Exposition is considered one of four rhetorical modes of discourse, along with argumentation, description, and narration...
sequence, inspired by composers Carl Stalling
Carl Stalling
Carl W. Stalling was an American composer and arranger for music in animated films. He is most closely associated with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts produced by Warner Bros., where he averaged one complete score each week, for 22 years.-Biography:Stalling was born to Ernest and...
's Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes
Looney Tunes is a Warner Bros. animated cartoon series. It preceded the Merrie Melodies series and was Warner Bros.'s first animated theatrical series. Since its first official release, 1930's Sinkin' in the Bathtub, the series has become a worldwide media franchise, spawning several television...
themes, Scott Bradley
Scott Bradley
Scott Bradley was an American composer, pianist and conductor.Bradley is best remembered for scoring the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer theatrical cartoons, including those starring Tom and Jerry , Droopy , Barney Bear , and the many one-shot cartoons.Bradley was a...
's Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry
Tom and Jerry are the cat and mouse cartoon characters that were evolved starting in 1939.Tom and Jerry also may refer to:Cartoon works featuring the cat and mouse so named:* The Tom and Jerry Show...
themes and Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton
Bruce Broughton is a film, video game, and television soundtrack composer who has composed several highly acclaimed soundtracks over his extensive career, including American music classics such as "Homeward Bound," "Silverado", "Tombstone," and wonderfully lyric music for "Miracle on 34th...
's Tiny Toon Adventures
Tiny Toon Adventures
Steven Spielberg Presents Tiny Toon Adventures, usually referred to as Tiny Toon Adventures or simply Tiny Toons, is an American animated television series created by Tom Ruegger and produced by Amblin Entertainment and Warner Bros. Animation. It began production as a result of Warner Bros....
theme.
"Atomic Al's Merry Melody" is also used in the background of the second episode of Caprica
Caprica (TV series)
Caprica is a science fiction drama television series. It is a spin-off prequel of the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica, taking place about 58 years prior to the events of Battlestar Galactica. Caprica shows how humanity first created the robotic Cylons who would later plot to destroy humans in...
, when Lacy has lunch at the home of Sister Clarice Willow.
Credits & personnel
Performers- Violin: Benedikt Brydern, Paul Cartwright, Anna Stafford, Martin St. Pierre, Erica Walzak
- Baritone violin: Robert Anderson
- Violincello: Jacob Szekely
- Woodwinds: Chris Bleth
- Additional woodwinds: John Yoaklim
- Acoustic & electric guitars: Steve Bartek, Ira Ingber
- Electric bass: John Avila
- Drum kit: Nate Wood
- Metallic drums & other percussion: M.B. Gordy
- Additional sequencing: Jonathan Snipes
- MIDI programming: Bear McCreary
Publishing
All tracks published by Warner-Olive Music, LLC (ASCAP) except:
- Track 1: Published by Chandos Music Co. (ASCAP)
- Track 9: Published by Remixnoise (ASCAP)
- Track 14: Published by Conan the Furky Music (ASCAP)
Track 2 includes "The Terminator Theme" published by Universal - Polygram Int. Publ, Inc. (ASCAP) o/b/o Euphonius Music (ASCAP)
Production
- Executive album producers: Josh Friedman, John Wirth and James Middleton
- Soundtrack album producers: MV Gerhard, Matt Verboys and Ford A. Thaxton
- Music produced by: Bear McCreary and Steve Kaplan
- Score orchestrated by: Brendan Roberts and Bear McCreary
- Score recorded and mixed by: Steve Kaplan
- Assistant engineers: Laurence Schwarz and Paul E. Sobosky
- Music editor: Michael Beber
- Digitally edited and mastered by: James Nelson at Digital Outland
- Contractor: Aaron A. Roathe
- Scoring assistants: Michael Beach, Brendan McCreary and Jonathan Ortega
- CD art direction: Mark Banning
- Executive for Warner Bros. Television: Bronwyn Savasta
- Business affairs for Warner Bros. Television: Keith Zajic and Dick Herbert
External links
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles at BearMccreary.com
- Soundtrack listing at La-La Land Records