Instrumentals

This subsection of the "Music" section of Rawley Revisited covers only wholly instrumental (non-vocal) music played in the soundtrack of Steven Antin's Young Americans (2000).  Songs played in the soundtrack of Young Americans are described in a separate "Songs" subsection of the "Music" section.  Music mentioned or verbally alluded to but not necessarily played in Young Americans is described in a separate "Allusions" subsection.  A tracklist of all songs and of attributed instrumentals and one unattributed instrumental is given on the main page of the "Music" section.

Unlike the “Songs” subsection, this “Instrumentals” subsection is not comprehensive, due to the greater difficulty of identifying instrumental pieces. Few of the many instrumental pieces played in Young Americans are known ever to have been included in any form of its musical credits. This subsection attempts to cover only pieces known to have been (a) included in musical credits of Young Americans, or (b) played repeatedly during Young Americans.

Problems of attribution or of accessing recordings are highlighted by dark red typeface.  

This subsection contains only this one page that covers all eight aired episodes of Young Americans . The unaired pilot episode filmed in Georgia in 1999 is not covered.

The compilation of this subsection has benefitted from the opening post and subsequent posts on the “Music of YA” thread on the Young Americans board of FanForum.  


Ichabod Grubb

Created:  April 2014. 

Last updated:  April 2014.


“Stroll in the Park,” by Art Phillips (on his album, Accoustic Anthology, 1998).  Available from FristCom Library.

This is the acoustic guitar piece played in episode 1 during the scene in which Will Krudski’s parents first drop him off at Rawley, and his beautician-mother tells him:  "Just think about the good stuff."

"Stroll in the Park" is the first instrumental piece played in Young Americans.  It is not known to have been played again elsewhere in the soundtrack of Young Americans.

This 2:49 minute piece , written for use in TV or film soundtracks, was “published” in Phillips’ “Accoustic Anthology,” album number FC-U84 in the FirstCom Library.  It can be heard in its entirety either by searching that website either for “Stroll in the Park” or for “FC-U84,”  or by clicking this link and then clicking on the title of the tune, “Stroll in the Park.”

“Stroll in the Park” is also distributed by Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), being BMI Work #4712526 in the BMI repertoire.

The widely-copied credits in the official website of Young Americans described this piece simply as “Stroll in the Park:  FirstCom Library (Instrumental),” without mentioning the composer, Art Phillips.  FirstCom is merely the distributor from which Young Americans bought rights to use this piece.

 

True Romance theme (a.k.a. “You’re So Cool”), by Hans Zimmer (for the soundtrack of Quentin Tarantino’s 1993 film, True Romance), as performed by an unknown artist (probably synthesized by the musical staff of Young Americans).

In the soundtrack of Young Americans, this xylophone and steel drums piece plays for more air time than any other piece of music, including “Six Packs,” the ostensible “theme song” of Young Americans.  It is played in every episode, during:

It is first played during the scene in episode 1 in which Hamilton first sees Jake, a scene rich in visual symbolism and apparently crafted to evoke the last line of Bob Dylan's "Love Minus Zero/No Limit" - "my love she's like a raven at my window with a broken wing." 

Zimmer’s True Romance theme is played in Young Americans more slowly and at a lower pitch than in recordings of it as the theme music of Tarentinto’s 1993 film.  Its speed also sometimes varies within a single playing, slowing near the close. 

Zimmer’s True Romance theme is adapted from "Gassenhauer nach Hans Neusiedler," a xylophone ensemble piece composed by Carl Orff and Gunild Keetman in the 1920s, which in turn is based on a Neusiedler's “Gassenhauer,” a rendition for lute, dating from around 1536, of a Renaissance German folk melody.  “Gassenhauer” means “street tune,” a tune heard on the street.

"Gassenhauer nach Hans Neusiedler" is part of the "Orff-Schulwerk," also known as Orff's Kindermusik, a set of chiefly xylophone and percussion works designed to introduce children to music.  The music swells and becomes polyphonic as additional xylophones and drums join an originally solitary xylophonist.   Each part is so simple that an astonishingly sophisticated polyphony can be performed by grade school children after less than an hour of practice, and without any prior acquaintance with either the piece or even the instruments.  It is a piece written to help kids love music.

Zimmer’s True Romance theme differs from Orff’s “Gassenhauer nach Hans Neusiedler” chiefly in in that the last third of it is a much softer and differently tempo’d variation that has the musical form of a minuet.  It is this variation that makes Zimmer’s adaptation “love music.”  In Young Americans, this concluding variation plays often during the tenderer moments of Jake-Hamilton scenes, while the more stridently paced first two-thirds of the piece, hardly different from Orff’s work, plays during the rowing scenes and the recapitulations of previous episodes.

Because Zimmer’s True Romance theme is an adaptation of Orff’s adaptation of a piece of music that has been in the public domain for centuries, enforcement of any copyright claim on it is problematic.  In practice, one need not pay royalties to use either Orff’s “Gassenhauer nach Hans Neusiedler” or Zimmers’ True Romance theme in the soundtrack of a film or television show.  Consequently, both have been often and widely used in soundtracks; for example, Orff’s “Gassenhauer” served as the theme music for the 1973 film, Badlands. 


Comment:  Consequently, it seems likely that the makers of Young Americans used Zimmer’s True Romance piece extensively in large part because it is as costless as it is beautiful.

Nevertheless, it seems significant that:

(A) and (C) underscore that the Jake-Hamilton storyline, the “true love” story, is the heart of Young Americans, even though they get less air time than Bella and Scout.   It’s consistent with the fact that the last thing Will says in his Dawson Creek appearance to promote Young Americans is:  “Don’t give up on true love – it always wins in the end.”  (B) reminds us that Jake and Hamilton, as cox and stroke, lead the rowing crew, setting the pace for the other rowers, whose job it is to keep pace with Hamilton’s response to Jake’s wishes.  It also reminds us that the rowing, and the assignment of rowing positions, are fraught with symbolism and metaphor.  The drama’s obsession with rowing implies a demand that we follow Hamilton’s example, and learn to love truly.


UNKNOWN INSTRUMENTAL, by unknown artist

The same hauntingly beautiful synthesized-sounding instrumental is played at least three times in the soundtrack of Young Americans:

-- in episode 1, when Scout and Bella first kiss;

-- in episode 7, during Will's opening narrative voice-over about regretting loss of childhood and innocence; and

-- In episode 7, after Will reads the Pablo Naruda love sonnet to Caroline.

The scenes during which this instrumental plays are among the most moving scenes in Young Americans outside the Jake-Hamilton storyline.  The instrumental piece played during them is perhaps the most beautiful unidentified piece of music in Young Americans – no less beautiful for probably having been written expressly for use in soundtracks.


“Coming Up Roses,” composed by Jerry Hubbard, performed by by The Mustard Seeds (On their album, Red, Radio Mafia Records, 1998).

Both the lyrics and a partial recording of this song about rebirth through religious conversion are available on the website of The Mustard Seeds, a Christian group.  The lyrics are not played in the soundtrack of Young Americans.  However, an instrumental sequence of this song is played in episode 2 of YA during the crew rowing scene and the subsequent lakeside scene in which Sean asks Will why Will hasn't told him that he's going to Rawley.

Except for the final heat of the regatta in episode 4, during which David Gray's "Sail Away" in played, the rowing scene in episode 2 is the only extended rowing scene in Young Americans during which Hans Zimmer's True Romance theme is not played.

The lyrics of "Coming Up Roses," although not played in Young Americans, are given below:

Every move ever clue brings me back home to you

I'm wanting to know you

Can't believe yesterday didn't know your name

I'm wanting to know you

(refrain:)

I'm learning to fly

Touching the sky

Everything's coming up roses


Turn on the light I am alive

Everything's coming up roses

Lots of fun while we wait on the sun

I'm dying to know you 

Mercy me on a tree take the pain away from me

I'm dying to know you

I'm learning to fly up to the sky

(refrain)


Today a man is born who leaves the child behind

And there is nothing in this world that takes me higher, 'cause

(refrain)


Comment: That a song about spiritual rebirth is played while Will finally admits to Sean that he is going to Rawley may be deliberate, even though the lyrics are not played.  Will is rejuvenated, reborn, by "going to Rawley," dreaming of a perfect youth at a school that teaches "true love," as the baptism imagery in episode 1, repeated at the start of episode 2, suggests.


There are dozens of other unidentified instrumental pieces in the soundtrack of Young Americans.  Typically slow and tender, many are memorably beautiful.  The judicious selection of those pieces by YA’s music staff contributes greatly to the emotional impact of the drama.  Sadly, the task of identifying them is both hopeless and pointless:  they sit anonymously in places like the BMI Repertoire and the FirstCom Library, and only when purchased for some film or TV soundtrack does anyone ever hear them.


Ichabod Grubb

Created: April 2014

Last updated: May 2014