The right muso for the job - Catfish - When You Dance

Victory Gin

TechnoMarch

"What was needed was a piece of pure fantasy. Suddenly there sprang into his mind, ready made as it were, the image of a certain Comrade Ogilvy, who had recently died in battle, in heroic circumstances. There were occasions when Big Brother devoted his Order for the Day to commemorating some humble, rank-and-file Party member whose life and death he held up as an example worthy to be followed. Today he should commemorate Comrade Ogilvy. It was true that there was no such person as Comrade Ogilvy, but a few lines of print and a couple of faked photographs would soon bring him into existence." - George Orwell, 1984

Ogilvy

Originally intended to be a one-off track used in a cafeteria scene, this eventually became the official "back to the office" music used multiple times throughout the show. This repetition also made it the unofficial ear-worm whistling tune as the cast and crew packed up after rehearsal.

Lunch Queue

Love Song

Lifeboat

Hopeless Waltz

Okay, hear me out.

This track was not meant to be heard by anyone other than the cast and crew, hence my confidence in making something so clunky and ridiculous. In George Orwell's novel, this song was written entirely by machine:

“The tune had been haunting London for weeks past. It was one of countless similar songs published for the benefit of the proles by a sub-section of the Music Department. The words of these songs were composed without any human intervention whatever on an instrument known as a versificator. But the woman sang so tunefully as to turn the dreadful rubbish into an almost pleasant sound.”

This is what I imagined the Versificator spat out. I wanted to create the song the washer would hear in their head as they pegged up their laundry and sang to themselves.

But it was so clunky and ridiculous that the cast and crew decided it would add to the overall unease and what-the-heck-is-happening vibe they were aiming for at the start of the second act. So it made it in.

Fun fact: all the voices are my own. Apologies to the neighbours for that particular day of recording.

Hopeless Fancy (Versificator Version)

Fever Dream

Two Minutes Hate. Now with 50 seconds more hate.

I wrote this using an early rehearsal video sketch the Movement Coordinator, Tess Parker, had put together with the cast, and her ideas inspired the general feel for each section. But I was also aware that whatever I created would ultimately determine the actors' movements. I make a section 20 seconds long, they have to fit their lines to it. I throw a random accent on an off-beat, they have to throw themselves into a pose. This must be what God feels like.
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“The horrible thing about the Two Minutes Hate was not that one was obliged to act a part, but, on the contrary, that it was impossible to avoid joining in.” - George Orwell, 1984

The right muso for the job - Catfish - When You Dance

The Lost 45s