BLONDE REDHEAD FOR THE DAMAGED CODA TV

BLONDE REDHEAD FOR THE DAMAGED CODA TV

Over the course of their career, the music of Blonde Redhead has been used in movies, commercials, and TV shows, even getting a coveted placement on Grey’s Anatomy back in 2007, but none of these syncs had a cultural impact anywhere near what happened with Rick and Morty. 15 on Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart, 17 years after it was first released. In the following weeks, “For the Damaged Coda” was streamed and downloaded so many times that it reached No. Then during last year’s third season, after Rick and Morty had amassed a now fanatical fan base, “For the Damaged Coda” played once again as it became clear that Evil Morty had engineered a conspiracy to get himself elected as the leader of the Citadel of Ricks and murder anyone who might challenge his power. The song soundtracked the revelation that (okay, bear with me) an Evil Morty was the mastermind behind a plot to travel across alternate dimensions, killing Ricks and kidnapping other Mortys to get the attention of the show’s central Rick, and now that Evil Morty was roaming undetected in the Citadel of Ricks, an intergalactic society governed by the Council of Ricks. Makino says she only vaguely remembers being approached to approve it. Once that’s done, you realize, ‘Wow, this is actually going to go out there.’ And beyond that, basically it’s out of your hands.”įourteen years later, “For the Damaged Coda” was used in the final moments of an episode of Adult Swim’s Rick and Morty during the cartoon’s first season. Just over two-and-a-half minutes long, it was named “For the Damaged Coda.” Thinking back to that late night in the studio, Makino says, “Because you’re in such a cocoon, you have this very strong sensation that no one is going to listen to this music. This new song would become the album’s eleventh track, so it went unlisted on the back of the packaging. Makino figured they’d probably end up with ten songs, so she wrote out a convoluted run-on sentence and chopped it into ten parts for the track titles. The project had been behind schedule, and earlier in the recording process, their label Touch & Go told them they needed to get the album art done. Instead they layered about 20 takes of Makino doing it herself, becoming, as she says, “an army of my voice.” Makino originally envisioned it being done by a choir with lots of children, but they couldn’t afford that. Then either Makino or her bandmate Amedeo Pace - they can’t remember which - had the idea to add wordless vocals of the song’s melody: aaaaah-aah-aah-aah-aaah-aah-aah. They’d also recorded a more dramatic, extended piano vamp for the song, but weren’t sure what to do with it. They had already finished a melancholy song called “For the Damaged” where co-lead vocalist Kazu Makino sang resignedly over delicate piano and a sparse acoustic guitar. The New York–based indie rock trio were almost done making their fifth album, Melody of Certain Damaged Lemons. Late one night in early 2000, the members of Blonde Redhead were in a barn outside of Seattle that had been converted into a recording studio.

Blonde Redhead For the Damaged Coda