Jammin’ With Josh: Game of Thrones Edition

This is Jammin’ With Josh. Each week I take a look at one of the bands that I love. Or perhaps it will be a band that I just discovered and think you should check out. Or maybe it will just be a way for me to post music videos. Honestly, no one will ever know.

Game of Thrones comes back this Sunday and naturally that has everyone in the world excited. I figured it would be a good idea to look at some of the fantastic music from the show.

First off we have the theme and opening credits. After the first season, I was watching a college football game and heard the marching band of some random school perform the theme. Hell, I may have even blogged about it back then (I am entirely too lazy to look that one up). That was one of those moments where I knew the show had truly been huge (and not just something that us fantasy nerds might love).

One of the other cool things about the opening sequence is watching it each week to see if a new city will pop up. Can you think of another show where the opening seems like must watch television?

Everyone knows the “The Rains of Castamere”, especially after the Red Wedding. In the book, Cat is hearing the song and keeps thinking something like “that song, why is it familiar?” She also keeps thinking “why is Roose wearing his armor?” And then she starts to put it all together, but way too late. The show did such a great job of tying those bunch of pages into a few seconds on screen.

I wish I could say that I was hip enough to be a huge fan of The National before the show, but I am not. I did download a bunch of their stuff after though and definitely enjoy them. Also, fun fact: the drummer that plays it at the actual Red Wedding is from Coldplay. And one lost fun fact about the song, the band that plays it at Joffrey’s wedding (the band that he throws money at to be finished) was Sigur Ros. Pretty cool.

Next we have “The Bear and the Maiden Fair” by The Hold Steady.

What a perfect way to capture this song as a fun, tavern sing-along. Another fun fact, the scene where the Boltons capture Jaime and Brienne, and one of Locke’s men starts the group in singing this song…well that guy is the lead singer of Snow Patrol. Neat.

And finally, one of the things I have loved about the music of this show is how they constantly tie it back. For example, they use bits of “The Rains of Castamere” whenever there is some big Lannister moment, maybe just a little snippet, but enough that you know what it was. I think the one that gets me the most pumped though is “Dracarys”, which is from composer Ramin Djawadi.

For those of you that cannot place where you first heard it…

This was one of my all-time favorite episodes. There were so many great things happening during this scene. First we have all the insults that the master was hurling at Daenerys earlier and in this part and she never lets on that she speaks Old Valyrian. Then, when she does reveal it, the look on every face is fantastic. But, as she gives the orders to the Unsullied (at the 3:08 mark) to kill the masters, and then turns and says “Dracarys!” As the song builds and then hits those heavy drums…it gets me so pumped up every single time I hear it.

Author: Ngewo