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Pop music has been a valuable part of film for years, but television, as a result of smaller budgets and the repetitious nature of a series mentality, tended to make its own music-theme songs, composed scores. “Baby Blue” was a nearly perfect thematic fit, but it’s also the latest in the growing trend of letting classic pop and rock songs do some of the heavy lifting for high-quality dramatic television. The only surviving member, Joey Molland, spoke to the press, and was predictably surprised and gracious. The “Baby Blue” moment on “Breaking Bad” should have been triumphant-the song has rocketed up the iTunes charts and seen a nine-thousand-per-cent increase in Spotify plays-but there was almost no one left to interview. Two members committed suicide: Ham and Tom Evans. Though they started as promising Beatles protégés, recording Paul McCartney’s “Come and Get It” for Apple Records, and followed it up with a half-dozen hits, a nightmare soon settled on Badfinger. “Baby Blue” carried an extra payload of sadness, both because the song is melancholy and because Badfinger, the band that recorded it, is one of the most star-crossed groups in rock history. The show had used blue songs before, most notably “Crystal Blue Persuasion,” by Tommy James and the Shondells, which hit the trifecta of meth-dealing keywords (crystal, blue, and persuasion). On “Breaking Bad,” it was a forlorn love song, too, matched to the moment when Walter White gave a last caress to the meth cooker that had served him so well: his blue meth, his baby. According to digital music service Spotify, global streams of Baby Blue are up 9,000% since the finale.This past Sunday, to mark the end of Walter White’s career as a meth kingpin and, not incidentally, his life, “Breaking Bad” went for a twisting crane shot set to Badfinger’s “Baby Blue.” The song was originally on the band’s 1971 album “Straight Up,” where it was a forlorn love song written by Pete Ham for his girlfriend, Dixie Armstrong.
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The woeful tune has already gotten a jolt of new life since the much-debated finale: It sold nearly 5,000 downloads Sunday night, Billboard reports - five times its digital sales in any previous week. The band's legacy is marked by tragedy, after Ham hanged himself in 1975, followed by Tom Evans' suicide in 1983. It was thought to have been written about singer Dixie Armstrong, who dated Badfinger vocalist Pete Ham.īadfinger, signed to The Beatles' Apple Records label in the late '60s, scored hits with songs such as No Matter What, Day After Day and Come and Get It (penned by Paul McCartney). 14 on Billboard's Hot 100 in 1972, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The song comes from the British rock group's Straight Up album, went No. "Guess I got what I deserved," the song goes, later saying, "Didn't know you'd think that I'd forget or I'd regret, the special love I had for you, my baby blue."īaby Blue, of course, references Walt's beloved strain of blue methamphetamine - yet another azure song choice from the Emmy Award-winning drama, which used Tommy James and the Shondells' Crystal Blue Persuasion last year. It was a fitting conclusion for our favorite teacher-turned-kingpin, made all the more appropriate by the song's eerily resonant lyrics.
#Baby blue song in breaking bad tv#
WARNING: Contains spoilers from Breaking Bad's series finale, "Felina."Įvery good TV series deserves an electrifying parting shot, whether it's The Sopranos' use of Journey's Don't Stop Believin' in its final scene, or Six Feet Under, which scored its last six minutes with Sia's Breathe Me.īreaking Bad, which aired its series finale Sunday night, was true (or rather, "blue") to form in its final moments, with Badfinger's Baby Blue kicking in as we watch Walt back in his natural habitat (a meth lab), dying, as police close in on him.
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