Film Music Moment of the Day: Bill Compton Approaches the Vampire Queen

Well, Gary Calamar and Alan Ball have done it again. The "New World in My View" episode of True Blood contains a moment that has everyone talking, and it comes at the very end. By that point the town of Bon Temps is in real peril with Maryann's minions plunging ever deeper into violent Bacchanalian trance, and Bill has set out to seek help from unseen vampire queen. As he strides toward her villa, the irresistible and mysterious song "New World In My View" fades in (from which the episode gets its name). It's hugely portentous—a moment that not only makes way for a pivotal new character, but suggests an even larger turning of tides.

Like the vampires themselves, the song is both ancient and au courant. Warbly vocals are sung by an old time New Orleans preacher named Sister Gertrude Morgan (who recorded in the early 1970's) and in her swampy, bony voice you can hear the very origins of rock and roll. Behind it is an electronic arrangement by King Britt, a DJ from Philadelphia who in 2005 remixed Morgan's recordings and turned them into an album he called King Britt Presents: Sister Gertrude Morgan. His own contribution on this particular track is some sleek, aquatic sounding music--unlikely sonic couture for a restless bride of Christ.

I got the new world in my view
On my journey I pursue
I said I'm running, running for the city
I got the new world in my view

Morgan's utterances are more like sermons or incantations than songs, so they don't really follow a strict rhythm. They are not sampled, but allowed simply to co-exist with King Britt's gleaming swells of sound, and they're less integrated into the overall texture of the music than say Vera Hall's voice was on Moby's "Natural Blues." It shouldn't work at all really—this old Delta priestess wandering into a Tangerine Dream track to preach the gospel—but it does. Oh, it does. It builds and builds, revealing the larger architecture of Morgan's music—the method in her madness—adding urgency and power to her words. She is absolutely brimming with mission.

I read recently that Alan Ball lets Gary Calamar do whatever he wants with the music on True Blood—absolute carte blanche—and if that's true, I'd love to know more about what their process is like...how they work together to come up with moments like this one because it's loaded. Well done fellas.

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