Noah Hawley’s Emmy-nominated masterpiece Fargo excels across the board. Yet, on a recent rewatch revealed how its carefully selected songs subtly accentuated not only the overall narrative of the piece but also helped defined individual characters. You may not directly pick up on these choices, but they register within your brain, prepping you for the story that’s to come.
Credit Emmy-nominated music supervisor Maggie Phillips for partnering with director Noah Hawley to create a masterful soundscape for this deeply affecting look at good, evil, mothers, and the redeeming power of love.
In this interview with Awards Daily, Phillips describes each of the key songs selected for her Emmy-nominated episode “The Tragedy of the Commons.”
Awards Daily: Congratulations on your first Emmy nomination! The category of Outstanding Music Supervision is relatively new as it started in 2017. Most people think of Stranger Things using Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill as THE example of incorporating pre-recorded music in television. What in your mind is the hallmark for “best” usage of music in a series? How do you judge something like that?
Maggie Phillips: Thank you so much!! I’m thrilled to be honored by my peers. I love discovering new music through film and TV. That’s what drew me to this career in the first place – the thrill of discovery and then the joy of sharing my discovery with a larger audience. But I think the best way to judge music in a series is when the combined moment alters both art forms, meaning you feel and hear a song differently in its new context and the scene is lifted and transformed because of the song selection. It sounds simple but when it’s done well, the moment can be magical. I love music so much – it’s such a powerful form of art. I absolutely love using it to help make the audience feel something – when I am listening for a scene, if I cry or feel gutted or get goosebumps or smile or laugh, I know I’ve got something.
Awards Daily: How did you work with Noah Hawley on identifying appropriate songs for this season?
Maggie Phillips: Noah and I have a shorthand at this point. We’ve been working together non-stop for almost a decade. It’s very streamlined. We have one playlist for each project, and we work closely with the editors when selecting the right song for each spot.
Awards Daily: You’re Emmy nominated for the pilot episode, “The Tragedy of the Commons.” What was it about that episode that you felt best represented your work in the season?
Maggie Phillips: It’s a strong sampling of what we did in Year 5. We’ve already established a strong musical character. At this point, there is a Fargo sound. It’s a world we get to play around in. We can be bold. We have no rules or limitations. It’s stylized and heightened. We’re not trying to be naturalistic; we’re mostly trying to have fun. At times, it’s challenging to do when dealing with some heavy themes, but that’s what we get to do with the songs. The songs bring the levity, the chuckle, the fist pump – the humor! And for me, with Year 5, I feel as though we have three running themes in the soundtrack – toxic masculinity, Dot’s revenge plot plus sort of irony and nostalgia intertwined together when approaching the good ol’ U.S. of A. This first episode tackles all three.
Awards Daily: You’re using three main songs within the episode. I’d like to dive into their selection. “I’ve Seen All Good People” seems to play into that whole “kill them with kindness” mantra of Minnesota. It’s ironic, though, because there are good people doing very bad things here. Was that the intent for selecting the song?
Maggie Phillips: Yes, exactly. But also as Noah says: no one is pretending to be nice anymore. Not in our world. So this is an ironic/nostalgic choice that calls attention to itself at the very beginning, playing against the all out brawl at a PTA meeting. It’s also simply a way to start this year out with a bang, a way to grab the attention of our audience, a way of introducing that WE ARE BACK and we’re going to have fun this season, while we tell this story – you’re in for ride.
Awards Daily: Similarly, “Gloryland” plays into the irony of celebrating America in a show that wallows in the worst aspects of it. Aside from that ironic turn, what else inspired the selection of the song?
Maggie Phillips: That’s it, just a simple ironic choice to underscore that moment. But it’s effective. It’s such a loaded scene, pun intended. And it feels so ridiculous yet these photos actually exist. American families pose for holiday cards with guns in a country where there is a mass shooting almost daily. So yes we selected a song celebrating America.
Awards Daily: Finally, “Hey Joe” foreshadows Roy Tillman’s relationship with Dot / Nadine because the song explores a man planning to kill a woman who cheated on him. That’s a great example of music selection subtly informing the audience of relationships without explicitly calling it out. Did you have any other songs in mind for the scene where Dot dreams of Roy?
Maggie Phillips: No – this was one of the first songs Noah and I spoke about for Year 5, if not the first. It’s a song about domestic violence. A song about a man killing “his” woman. It’s foreshadowing yes but also Charlotte Gainsbourg’s cover is haunting. We wanted this song to stick with the audience.
Awards Daily: Finally, I have to ask about Toxic. Tell me about working with Jeff Russo on recreating that pop song for this narrative.
Maggie Phillips: Oh my god, wasn’t that amazing? I’m a huge Britney Spears fan! Getting Jeff Russo and Lisa Hannigan back together again to create what Noah called a “funeral dirge” was a highlight for sure. He wanted to turn one of my favorite Britney Spears songs into a funeral dirge, and we did it. I’ll never hear that song in the same way.
Fargo streams exclusively on FX on Hulu.
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