The Music of ‘Turn’ Season 1: Sarah Blasko Sings ‘Spanish Ladies’
Original Link: http://radio.com/2014/04/07/turn-season-1-music-jake-bugg-joy-williams-the-national-matt-berninger/
April 22, 2014 11:22 AM
By Brian Ives
AMC’s Turn is a new drama set during the Revolutionary War that tells the story of America’s first spy ring. An exciting premise, but not one that seems to call for a whole lot of music. Particularly not from modern indie rock artists. But the show, which sticks with the music of the era, will be using some of today’s most blog-worthy artists to reinterpret songs from the 1700s. We’ll be speaking with the show’s music supervisor, Thomas Golubic from SuperMusicVision, who also works on the Walking Dead, all season long about the modern twist he’s putting on centuries-old music.
“Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies/ farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!”
Towards the end of this week’s episode, Patriot Caleb Brewster slickly steals a tiny boat from underneath a pair of British sailors. While still in plain sight of the redcoats on shore, he forced the sailors off the boat and into water. Nevertheless, he made a clean getaway, mocking the soldiers who fired at him. While sailing away, he’s singing a British naval song, “Spanish Ladies.”
The song’s lyrics include this line: “We’ve received orders for to sail for old England/ But we hope very soon we shall see you again.” Of course, the Patriots wanted nothing more than for the British to sail back to “old England”; however, they would not have wanted to see them again, soon or otherwise.
Music Supervisor Thomas Golubic kept the playfulness of the scene in mind when he reached out to a modern-day singer to do a new recording of the song. The obvious choice would have been to reach out to a male American singer. Or even a male British singer. Instead, he reached out to Australian folkie Sarah Blasko.
“To be honest, there’s wasn’t that much [for me] to relate to in the song!” she told Radio.com. “Well, the ‘Let’s drink and be jolly and drown melancholy’ and ‘Here’s to the health of each true-hearted lass’ bits resonated as you might expect, but overall, it’s a pretty masculine tune!” She says that she cut a version with seven verses, but only an excerpt of her version is heard in the show. However, her full take on the song will be released on an upcoming TURN soundtrack. (Joy Williams and Matt Berninger’s “Hush,” the show’s theme song, is available now on iTunes, as is Jake Bugg’s “Turpin Hero,” which was used in episode 1.)
Related: The Music of ‘TURN’ Season 1: Jake Bugg, Joy Williams & The National’s Matt Berninger
The song also underscores a scene where protagonist Abe Woodhull and his co-conspirator and childhood love Anna Strong (it almost doesn’t even need to be said: they’ve clearly never gotten over each other, a fact not lost on Abe’s wife) share a knowing glance.
“We knew that Sarah Blasko would bring an emotional poignancy to an otherwise rollicking tune,” Golubic told Radio.com. “Her brilliant interpretation effectively supports that wistful look between Abe and Anna. In addition to Sarah’s very talented band, producer Tony Berg brought on hurry gurdy player Curtis Berak for an elegant touch of Revolutionary War period instrumentation.”
It turns out that this isn’t the first time Blasko has taken a swing at the song. “I performed in a concert version of Rogues Gallery directed by Hal Willner at Sydney Opera House a few years ago, and I believe that song was featured. I was just in the chorus for that one.” Rogues Gallery was an album of sea shanties and pirate songs conceived by Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski while shooting the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Blasko has her own take on British colonialism: “I’m from Australia. We learnt lots of songs with similar language to ‘Spanish Ladies’ at school when I was growing up, which felt kind of strange. You know, living over the other side of the world from England, never having lived there, but feeling tied to it and nostalgic for it. I was singing songs about missing England when I hadn’t even been there! And I was singing drinking songs when I was ten years old!”
More seriously, she says, “These songs about England attempted to mask the actual brutal colonisation of Australia and to teach me a rather warped view of the history of the country in which I was born into.”
Turn airs every Sunday at 9:00/8:00 CST on AMC.
April 22, 2014 11:22 AM
By Brian Ives
AMC’s Turn is a new drama set during the Revolutionary War that tells the story of America’s first spy ring. An exciting premise, but not one that seems to call for a whole lot of music. Particularly not from modern indie rock artists. But the show, which sticks with the music of the era, will be using some of today’s most blog-worthy artists to reinterpret songs from the 1700s. We’ll be speaking with the show’s music supervisor, Thomas Golubic from SuperMusicVision, who also works on the Walking Dead, all season long about the modern twist he’s putting on centuries-old music.
“Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies/ farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain!”
Towards the end of this week’s episode, Patriot Caleb Brewster slickly steals a tiny boat from underneath a pair of British sailors. While still in plain sight of the redcoats on shore, he forced the sailors off the boat and into water. Nevertheless, he made a clean getaway, mocking the soldiers who fired at him. While sailing away, he’s singing a British naval song, “Spanish Ladies.”
The song’s lyrics include this line: “We’ve received orders for to sail for old England/ But we hope very soon we shall see you again.” Of course, the Patriots wanted nothing more than for the British to sail back to “old England”; however, they would not have wanted to see them again, soon or otherwise.
Music Supervisor Thomas Golubic kept the playfulness of the scene in mind when he reached out to a modern-day singer to do a new recording of the song. The obvious choice would have been to reach out to a male American singer. Or even a male British singer. Instead, he reached out to Australian folkie Sarah Blasko.
“To be honest, there’s wasn’t that much [for me] to relate to in the song!” she told Radio.com. “Well, the ‘Let’s drink and be jolly and drown melancholy’ and ‘Here’s to the health of each true-hearted lass’ bits resonated as you might expect, but overall, it’s a pretty masculine tune!” She says that she cut a version with seven verses, but only an excerpt of her version is heard in the show. However, her full take on the song will be released on an upcoming TURN soundtrack. (Joy Williams and Matt Berninger’s “Hush,” the show’s theme song, is available now on iTunes, as is Jake Bugg’s “Turpin Hero,” which was used in episode 1.)
Related: The Music of ‘TURN’ Season 1: Jake Bugg, Joy Williams & The National’s Matt Berninger
The song also underscores a scene where protagonist Abe Woodhull and his co-conspirator and childhood love Anna Strong (it almost doesn’t even need to be said: they’ve clearly never gotten over each other, a fact not lost on Abe’s wife) share a knowing glance.
“We knew that Sarah Blasko would bring an emotional poignancy to an otherwise rollicking tune,” Golubic told Radio.com. “Her brilliant interpretation effectively supports that wistful look between Abe and Anna. In addition to Sarah’s very talented band, producer Tony Berg brought on hurry gurdy player Curtis Berak for an elegant touch of Revolutionary War period instrumentation.”
It turns out that this isn’t the first time Blasko has taken a swing at the song. “I performed in a concert version of Rogues Gallery directed by Hal Willner at Sydney Opera House a few years ago, and I believe that song was featured. I was just in the chorus for that one.” Rogues Gallery was an album of sea shanties and pirate songs conceived by Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski while shooting the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Blasko has her own take on British colonialism: “I’m from Australia. We learnt lots of songs with similar language to ‘Spanish Ladies’ at school when I was growing up, which felt kind of strange. You know, living over the other side of the world from England, never having lived there, but feeling tied to it and nostalgic for it. I was singing songs about missing England when I hadn’t even been there! And I was singing drinking songs when I was ten years old!”
More seriously, she says, “These songs about England attempted to mask the actual brutal colonisation of Australia and to teach me a rather warped view of the history of the country in which I was born into.”
Turn airs every Sunday at 9:00/8:00 CST on AMC.