I’m new to BtVS–I started watching on Netflix Streaming less than a year ago, and I’ve now watched every episode and read all of the Season 8 comics. I’m also still in the process of re-watching the episodes I remembered liking, and I just completed “Once More With Feeling.” I’m apparently the only person on the planet who didn’t actually like the episode much when I first saw it. After reading reviews, hearing other fans talk about it, and attending a “Buffy Horror Picture Show” screening of OMWF at DragonCon last weekend, I felt like I was ready to give it another shot on my own. I do appreciate it more now, but I think part of the problem for me is that I’ve been conditioned to expect good songwriting/performances from musical episodes of TV shows (and I’m a “Glee” fan). I understand that musical eps were far less common when BtVS did it, but the (at best) mediocre singing/songwriting really grates on me (to be clear, it’s the music itself that I mostly don’t like; the lyrics are great). Also, Spike’s song alone is enough to make my eardrums bleed, and I think I could appreciate the ep as a whole much more without his number.
Fortunately, I’ve come up with a potential source of entertainment related to OMWF, and hopefully this thread hasn’t been done before (I skimmed the last several months). While listening to some of my own music after watching OMWF last night, it occurred to me that two songs in my collection would have been appropriate numbers for Willow and Riley to sing, respectively (assuming Riley had been on the show at that point). They are “Worry About You” by 2AM Club for Willow (with a few changes to the references to a new bf and if Willow had actually sung it right after Tara left) and “If I Had Eyes” by Jack Johnson for Riley. So my question is, if you were going to pick songs for characters to sing, what would they be? These could be replacement numbers for characters who did perform or new additions. Please discuss (and yes, you’re allowed to make fun of me for my taste in music; I have no shame).
"Worry About You"
For as long, long as I can remember
Its been December
No sun, no summertime to treasure
We weren’t grown
And every time that they told us surrender
“It will be better”
We’d just go holding on till forever
To what we know
[[SHORTENED QUOTE]]
"If I Had Eyes"
If I had eyes in the back of my head
I would have told you that
You looked good
As I walked away
Huh. I enjoyed the songs, thought they were just fine. As for the performances, I prefer the way Buffy did it (untrained people doing the best they could do, their flaws showing) as opposed to, say, Footloose where a bunch of teens who never danced in their lives show up at a barn, ready to audition for Juilliard.
MidnightFrost1701, you’re welcome to brainstorm new song ideas here, but if you’re quoting from an existing song that is under copyright, please don’t quote more than one verse. You can link to the rest or trust everybody’s web searching ability.
I suppose it’s just a matter of taste. BtVS certainly has the more realistic approach, but I still find it hard to have fun with the songs when I’m cringing through them. It’s sort of how I feel about S6, actually. Buffy’s moping and depression made perfect sense in context, but it was a real drag for me to watch. I can appreciate what they were doing on an intellectual level, but the season is nonetheless one of my least favorites.
I personally much prefer the “realistic” approach, especially when played with on such a meta level as on OMWF. I appreciated that they let the cast do their own singing - after all, the whole point is that Sweet’s spell causes people who aren’t trained vocalists to burst into song. If they had overdubbed the cast, it would’ve killed a lot of the story’s verisimilitude for me.
I also don’t care for musicals that use pop songs rather than songs written for the show/ episode, because I like the songs to actually, y’know, comment on what’s going on. It’s a big part of why I’ve never been able to watch “Glee” (the horrendous over-autotuning being the other reason). For me, the pleasure of a musical is in the lyrics and songwriting on display as much as the actual performance. I feel that if the lyrics are taken from another source, they are almost always, by necessity, so vague that the words could apply to just about anything, in which case, why bother having that musical number at all?
Tanbarkie brings up an excellent point - OMWF lyrics were specifically tailored for the show, which would be nearly impossible to do with pre-existing songs.
The whole reason OMWF is a masterpiece is that Joss wrote a musical episode that actually advanced his plot and fit the story arc. Songs from any other source wouldn’t be able to do that.
The one thing that bothers me about the episode, in fact, is that it is so much a part of the season that you can’t just show it to non-fans and have them fully appreciate it.
I agree with the OP. I know they are supposed to be untrained, but even untrained people can sound better than that. And even then, they could have at least been mixed it properly, Instead, they sound like they recorded it live on set instead of in studio.
Heck, the mixing was bad enough that I went to a wiki afterwards and found I’d missed a good third of the plot due to not being able to actually understand the lyrics. (I missed another third for not having watched more than a couple episodes before.)
Unfortunately, I can’t help the OP with their actual question. I really know any songs that would fit–at least, not off the top of my head. I have a lousy memory for music, oddly enough.
Agreed. I thought the songs were a lot of fun. My favorite was probably Xander and Anya’s duet, “I’ll Never Tell” - it just looked like the actors were having a hoot with that material. Not brilliant singers, but fun ones.
Maybe your content provider muffed up the broadcast and or your equipment had something adjusted wrong, because I’ve never had this issue, either with the episode as it originally aired full length on UPN, how it aired edited down to a regular TV hour for reruns on UPN, how it aired cut down even more in reruns on FX, how it sounded on the CD soundtrack, or how it sounded on the season 6 DVD. And I generally do tend to have at least a little problem making out exactly what lyrics are supposed to be saying, but not here.
I hadn’t watched more than a few episodes before it aired either, basically the earlier episodes of that season and whatever FX had rerun for the first time up to that point (I think they were still in season 1 at that point) so while it still wasn’t super easy to follow for me on that account, it still stood out to me as a really special hour of TV.
Heck, OMWF was the first episode of “Buffy” I saw, and I had no trouble following the plot. Some of the character bits and big plot revelations went over my head, sure, but the broad strokes worked great. And I had no trouble making out the words - impressive, considering that I’m normally pretty bad at understanding song lyrics. I’m usually that guy who ends up learning “wrong” words that just sound kind of like the real lyrics. Didn’t have any such issues with OMWF.
I was kinda hoping someone would say that. I really want to like it more than I did, as I’m a big fan of musicals.
My sister is talking about buying me a Netflix subscription, so I’ll finally get to watch the show from the beginning soon. So I’ll be looking forward to a better experience.
