Every aspect of film and television is important but nothing shapes a mood as well as incisive placement of songs that can really elevate the material to another level. Baby Reindeer certainly resonates harder given its challenging subject matter from the consistent deep cuts that play throughout the seven episode series. Catherine Grieves is an expert Music Supervisor who has worked on Slow Horses, and Killing Eve, and her upcoming projects include The Crow and Paddington in Peru.
Music Supervision is such an integral job that not enough people know about. There are sides to it. Not only selecting memorable music that fits the material… then to go and clear the music for the publishing and the master. It is a very time-consuming process and a credit to Grieves that she not only selected so many amazing tunes but got them cleared as well.
[Note: This interview was edited for clarity and length.]
What is your philosophy of working with music on a project?
One of the first things that I do on any show is just identify any uses of music at the beginning. And there were kind of two very key music pieces in this show where Martha sings “Somethin’ Stupid” (written by C. Carson Parks), and there’s a whole kind of sequence that’s based around the lyrics of that. In that scene, Donnie changes the lyrics and then says something like, “And then they go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like Hitler was misunderstood.”
I have to go and clear, get the permission to change that lyric, and have that reference. So that was kind of job number one. Luckily the publisher was happy for us to make that reference. And then there’s another scene in the comedy club where Martha also starts singing a duet. I think that was scripted as just Sonny and Cher, which was completely out of our budget at the time. So I suggested some options, and we ended it with Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan’s “Especially For You.” So that was kind of my first involvement. And then, most of it was in post-production.
Since this was Richard’s real life story, did he have any specific requests or anything like, oh, do you have to have this song?
Richard Gadd was incredible across the music. We worked quite closely throughout post-production or certainly in the second half, but Weronica Tofilska as well, who was our block one director, was also very into music and had lots of opinions. Music was really important on this show and it was really important to everybody.
It is always a collaborative thing, especially when you have something that is so personal to one person. I don’t think it could be any more personal to one person. It was making sure that Richard’s thoughts were taken on board and his taste, and then working with Weronica and the editors and making sure that every single decision was considered by everybody. I think every single song in this was thought through at length.
Richard has amazing taste. Dusty Springfield, “You Don’t Have To Say You Love Me,” was scripted and “Angel of the Morning” was scripted as well. So, that kind of gave us a bit of a jumping-off point of using more ’60s classics. We used that at the beginning to give our show a kind of sound. We use a lot of ’60s, a lot of ’70s music. I think there’s something in those songs, in particular, that there’s a real innocence and sweetness that work well against what is going on in Baby Reindeer. So that was our kind of jumping-off point, and then we kind of developed from there.
What was the music budget like?
The music budget was really small. My job is always trying to manage the expectations, the ambitions, and figure out a way of how do we get what we want for the money. And so, that’s what we were kind of trying to do at the beginning and trying to make those decisions of swapping out and sharing. It’s like, how can we make sure we making the best out of this? The thing is you have to make those decisions or try. You have to get the people who are going to make those decisions to make those decisions that work.
I think what was amazing, which I don’t think has happened very often, is that there were a couple of songs that we wanted to use, one of which was “I Started A Joke” by The Bee Gees and the other “Happy Together” by The Turtles. Matthew Mulot, the brilliant producer on the show, called me and was like, “If we spend every penny on these, then we won’t have any other commercial music.” So I was like, “Okay, but please can we get this, The Bee Gees are really hard to clear.”
We went through the process and luckily we managed to clear them, but I think those two songs were over half of our budget at the time. But what was brilliant, and why it’s brilliant working with Netflix, is that they really understand and saw what we were trying to do. And so, they gave us some more money.
Songs shoot up the charts after they’re on Netflix shows. Look at Kate Bush, right?
Exactly. It is so helpful to just to be able to consider bigger artists and bigger songs, especially on something like this where the music has been considered lyrically. The songs were really important on this show, giving it… there are some dark and difficult scenes in Baby Reindeer, and the music helps slightly lighten that.
What’s quite interesting is a lot of the music that we use, tonally, is quite upbeat, but lyrically, is quite melancholy and quite dark. The balance is something that we found a lot of the music we were using helped. It’s telling Donnie’s inner story, but also giving the show some lightness and keeping it moving.
Do you just start writing song names down or do you start making playlists? What’s your process?
Normally start making kind of general playlists. I think it depends on how each project is different in terms of how we’re going to approach things. Yeah, normally I will make playlists at the beginning and share those with the editors. When a budget is particularly tight, obviously we have to be careful not to be like, “Here’s loads of music, go crazy.” And then, have to unpick that and that.
The process on this was we sent music, and then whenever it all kind of started coming together with certain ideas, we regrouped. We were like, “Actually, this is what we can achieve now and let’s see what we can find that elevates the show without so many boundaries as we have before.”
What is your favorite kind of music? Are there songs that you try and get in every show?
I was really pleased to get Jethro Tull in…
Oh, nice. Well done.
This is one of those ones where “The Teacher” plays over the scene where Darrien is kind of showing Donny, giving him really good tips and breakthrough. The lyrics of that song are all quite dark really because it is about a teacher, but it’s slightly on a grooming level, lyrically. So you sometimes just come across the things and go, “Wow, this would work really well here.” Mainly I think my dad would be like, “Wow, you’ve got Jethro Tull into something.”
What has the reaction been like for you?
I don’t think I’ve ever thought that this show would do well. I think the topics that are dealt with and just how brilliant the show is. I thought it would be one of those shows that would come out and then word of mouth and gradually people would watch it. Maybe it would be one of those kinds of things that eventually people would see.
I certainly didn’t think it would be number one in every country from week one. I’m so pleased for Richard because to tell his story, it is brave. It’s courageous. He’s done it in such an incredible way and told really important stories about such important issues that don’t get talked about in the way that this show handles them. I’m delighted for him, just delighted the show’s been so well received and he’s been recognized. I’m delighted.
Baby Reindeer is available to stream on Netflix.
