SPOILER alert:This interview contains spoilers for the first episode of “Yellowjackets” on Showtime.
Showtime’s “Yellowjackets” is back, and viewers who hoped to hear a song from ’90s icon Tori Amos finally get their wish, as music supervisor Nora Felder delivers a tasty treat in the form of the 1994 song “Cornflake Girl.”
Felder replaces former music supervisor Jen Malone, having helped Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” soar up the streaming charts with “Stranger Things” Season 4.
“Cornflake Girl” closes out the first episode. Teen Shauna (Sophie Nélisse) has a hard time saying goodbye to Jackie (Ella Purnell), who froze to death in the Season 1 finale, after the two best friends had a fight, and Jackie spent the night outside in a snit. Shauna, guilt-ridden, spends much of the Season 2 premiere with Jackie’s corpse in the meat shed, talking to her (guest star Purnell talks back).
After Shauna hits Jackie’s dead body, her ear, frozen, falls off. Shauna puts it in her pocket, and, later on, contemplates it for a moment before eating it.
“Yellowjackets” co-creator Ashley Lyle told PvNew that she’s been a fan of Amos’ “since middle school,” and had wanted to feature her music on the show. “Cornflake Girl” especially “felt so thematically perfect,” Lyle said, because “that song is about how fraught female friendships are.”
Felder spoke with PvNew about finding the ideal moment to place Amos’ music and breaks down how she placed other musical synchs in the show’s first episode.
What was your overall conversation about Season 2 and the music for the show?
In my initial conversations with the showrunners, we talked about music being a main character for the series, and helping stamp the characters and their situations.
For the flashback scenes in particular, we also discussed the possibility of opening the door to songs that did not take place specifically in the 1990s. We agreed that moments that weren’t coming from within the world of the characters could be stamped musically with music from any era, just as a song from yesterday can accent a current moment. We also agreed that it could be the reverse case with a current song resonating with past events, and that’s what audiences hear this season.
What songs in Episode 1 were scripted versus you working with the creators to find the right songs to fit scenes?
Two moments were scripted and pre-cleared before shooting the episode. One was in the scene where Jeff [Warren Kole] sits behind the wheel in his garage alone and rocks out to Papa Roach’s “Last Resort”.
The second scene is with the Yellowjacket character Crystal [Nuha Jes Izman] who sings the 1936 classic “Glory of Love” to herself while trudging back to the cabin.
What’s the story behind acquiring Tori Amos’ “Cornflake Girl” synch? How early did you know Episode 1 would be the right fit for it?
When I read the initial early stages of a script, I try to keep the stories alive in my head as I do my deep dive into exploring musical ideas for any given project. Tori Amos definitely felt like an artist that could be in the wheelhouse of this show and had not been used in Season 1 of the series.
When I dive into any artist catalog, I generally just listen to see if any songs resonate, no matter if they were hits or album tracks.
I’ve always felt that the meanings behind Tori Amos’ lyrics tend to be multi-layered, which adds to their fascination. When I first heard “Cornflake Girl,” my take on its core meaning was that it deals primarily with betrayals between women. The lyrics in connection with the ending of the first episode felt like a befitting underlying message. “Cornflake Girl” adds to the anticipation of things to come with these rich multilayered and downright compelling female characters, our Yellowjackets.
I also work extremely closely with the picture editors on their cuts. So, I sent this song to picture editor Kevin Ross, who I’ve worked with on quite a few projects. I gave Kevin a few ideas to play with, but we agreed this was the one that seemed perfect and he put it in. Thankfully, the showrunners felt the same, so it stayed in and never left.
Was it easy to get Tori to say yes to this?
I always make sure the scene descriptions give some context to the use, especially when I know it is an artist that carefully decides which project they intend to align their music with. Happily, the clearance went through, and the song stayed in the show.
In the episode, Jeff has a moment in the car when he sits in his car in the garage. What made Papa Roach’s “Last Resort” the right song for him?
Jeff seems to have been internalizing a lot of the events that happened last season, many of which are out of his control. In the garage scene, it’s a moment where he’s feeling very alone. For the first time, we see him express this helpless almost primal inner rage that has clearly been brewing for a while.
As “Last Resort” emphasizes one’s emotions of coming to the end of one’s rope, and it seems pretty perfect as a physical outlet to what Jeff would listen to and turn to during moments of despair. There’s no one that Jeff can really talk to confide in or explain his mixed emotions. With “Last Resort” he really got to feel a bit connected in a way that others out there have gone through similar emotions of feeling trapped.
Sharon Van Etten’s “Seventeen” features prominently in the first episode. It’s a fitting tune to where the girls and these characters are. What was the idea behind this song?
This goes back to the earlier conversations I had with the executive producers regarding the possibilities of inducing non-’90s songs into the fold.
The episode finds our downtrodden Yellowjackets barely surviving amid a very cold harsh winter. Several selections were tested, and the producers really felt strongly that “Seventeen” enhanced the opening scenes quite well. It is a perfect example of taking an original interpretation of a lyric and placing it with a compelling story to add a unique context to the songs meaning.
Sharon Van Etten has said that the song’s core lyrics come from the perspective of a younger version of herself, as an older version of herself stands by. In the context of this opening use in “Yellowjackets,” these teenagers are experiencing a far crueler existence than that of their former average high school life back in Wiskayok New Jersey. I think it is really a brilliant and thoughtful use.
“Yellowjackets” streams on March 24 on the Showtime app, and premieres on Showtime’s linear channel on March 26. Kate Aurthur contributed to this report.
