When Rian Johnson comes to television, he does so with a “big swing,” as music supervisor Thomas Golubić puts it. The multiple Emmy and Grammy nominee (“Better Call Saul,” “Six Feet Under”) is on board for Johnson’s “Poker Face” starring Natasha Lyonne, who also executive produces the hour-long dark comedy (and co-wrote and directs the eighth episode, “The Orpheus Syndrome”).
A former Guild of Music Supervisors president, and three-time GMS Award winner, most notably for “Breaking Bad,” Golubic brings his more than 20 years of music supervision experience to “Poker Face.”
The first season put Golubić’s cross-section of skills to the test with hurdles like difficult clearances to on-camera musical performances and creation of original songs. Golubić met these challenges head-on with support from his team at SuperMusicVision, which includes Olivia Schlichting and clearance services by Jill Meyers Music.
Golubić picks his favorite needle drops from the first eight episodes below. And while he can’t share what songs are coming up, he teases episode 9 had a Kendrick Lamar temp song. “It was just too expensive, so we found a way to be Kendrick Lamar, but not be Kendrick Lamar. The episode is a mix of dark and dreamy with a Magic Mountain sequence featuring a very cool song,” he says.
And the finale, airing March 9, will “have a couple of surprising songs and some deep cuts in between. We have a wonderful Bob Dylan cover in the mix.”
Episode 1: “Dead Man’s Hand”
“Junior’s Farm” by Paul McCartney and Wings
“Part of being a music supervisor is knowing when it’s your job to come up with an amazing, original creative idea, and when it’s your job to get someone else’s idea to work. We were trying to figure out how to close the first episode and Rian wanted ‘Junior’s Farm.’ It’s not an obvious Paul McCartney hit. It has a great reference to Junior, whom we have in the casino. It stitches everything together. It’s also a big swing. The show is Rian swinging the way he does in films with a TV show. There’s a lot of swagger, and the most swagger is in the first episode to set that tone.”
Episode 2: “The Night Shift”
“Yesterday Is Here” by Tom Waits
“In the previous episode, Charlie talks about how she was perfectly happy with her life. She was in a good place. The fact that it got taken away because of dastardly deeds really sets up the premise of the show. She meets Marge (Hong Chau) who trains her on how to stay invisible. It’s a lot about independence, but Charlie also engages with people and connects with them. That song is a drifter song, a song about regret, about the different deferred dreams of everyone in this town. It really captures the sensibility and sets the tone over the opening credits.”
Episode 3: “The Stall”
“Just You and Me” by Bobby Chandler
“I love the premise of Charlie casually handing one of the two brothers an Okja and he completely changes his life. The struggle was these characters we really care about, including the local radio station DJ who is Black, and a racist dog, but we decided the closing would not be about these characters, it would be about the dog. It’s a great way to put a footnote. This was something I learned from Rian. He thinks in curveballs. We don’t need the song to summarize the episode. Instead, it’s a way of letting the audience know we’re ending this adventure and on to the next one.”
Episode 4: “Rest in metal”
“Staplehead” by Doxxxology
“We had to build a song that’s believable as a hit, ‘Staplehead.’ We had to build other songs that have to be noticeably not as good. The song that is the whole premise of the episode is a rip-off of the ‘Benson’ theme. We had complexities in visual vocal performances, songwriting and structuring, and then the clearance. How many hoops can we possibly jump through? We got John Darnielle who is a friend of Rian’s and a fan of metal to write the songs and play the guitar player in the band. He teamed up with Hatebreed’s Jamey Jasta who lives in that world. Between the two of them, they were able to create catchy, fun and exciting songs.”
Episode 5: “Time of the Monkey”
“Hold On” by Ngozi Family
“The episode’s editor, Shaheed Qaasim and Rian filled ‘Time of the Monkey’ with Rian’s favorite obscure songs. The trickiest one, that I have a personal soft spot for, is Ngozi Family’s ‘Hold On,’ which shows up twice in the episode and closes it out. They are a band from Zambia. They’re so charming and so fun, and it feels random, but it feels great. It’s another example of why Rian is such a joy to work with. Who would have thought that would be the song to put in there? There’s a beautiful raw genius to it.”
Episode 6: “Exit Stage Death”
“The Frankly Franklin Medley” by Angela Parrish
“We had an interesting and unique situation where we had a montage that was going to be all these famous musical numbers from ‘The Wiz’ and ‘Cats.’ Clearing those songs is obscenely expensive and we would need a grant of rights from the writers of those musicals. My suggestion was to bring in a songwriter. Angela Parrish is an incredibly funny writer. She put together a whole series of plays and Rian loved them. The one that grabbed him was ‘Frankly Franklin,’ which was a rip-off of ‘Hamilton, about Benjamin Franklin. It’s a short montage of three songs and it’s incredibly funny.”
Episode 7: “The Future of the Sport”
“Drivin’ on 9” by The Breeders
“We were playing around with a lot of rockabilly music and Americana for a working-class racing story. Rian pulled The Breeders’ ‘Drivin’ on 9’ to close it out. It’s not a song I would have thought of. It’s totally different from everything else we had in the episode but it’s so warm and lovely. I love Kim and Kelly Deal’s voices. It’s a cover and a beautiful deep-cut Breeders song. I get as excited about ideas that were not mine as I do with my own. It’s the magic of Rian and it’s a great song that feels wonderful.”
Episode 8: “The Orpheus Syndrome”
Francis Lai’s “Fille du Soleil”
“We had to connect the pieces of this ‘Vertigo’ Hitchcock-y type of story with monster score ideas, some of which were from libraries and some were from an existing score. It was almost impossible to capture the sensibility and timelessness of those scores, but the composers, Nathan Johnson, who is Rian’s cousin, and Judson Crane were absolutely fantastic. They also integrated Charlie’s banjo-based theme into a thriller score. It was an interesting tapestry. We found this absolutely wonderful song from Francis Lai, “Fille du Soleil,” closing the episode that captures the different tones and feelings of the episode in a unique way.”
