Michael Giacchino Scores a Hit With LOST's Season One Soundrack

I don't usually pay great deal of attention to music on television shows. Aside from a catchy theme song (increasingly rare these days) or a well-placed pop song that captures the mood of an especially powerful scene, the score tends not to be a big focus for me. But from the beginning, it was clear that LOST's approach to music was every bit as carefully crafted as every aspect of the show. I soon began making comparisons with Lord of the Rings, another epic adventure whose score was so richly evocative; I find the soundtracks quite complementary in many ways, exploring much of the same thematic territory with compositions that cut right to the heart of certain characters and situations.

We've had the soundtracks for the first two seasons of LOST floating around the house for quite a while, but I never really sat myself down and listened to them straight through, partly because some of the tracks are just plain creepy. But I figured it was high time I did that instead of just running to YouTube whenever I need my Michael Giacchino fix. Any fan as moved by his score as I have been ought to consider laying hands on these albums as well. While you won't find any of the previously written songs incorporated into the show with such intentionality - my favorite season-one example is probably Willy Nelson's contemplative "Are You Sure?", as heard by Hurley on his walkman, which poses a question that has only grown more relevant to LOST as the show goes on - you will get some of the most haunting music ever to have been written to support a story.

Season one has 27 tracks, and if you're only going to buy one of the albums, this is probably the one to get since it sets the stage for the rest, introducing themes that will resurface again and again. (Alas, the bouncy DriveShaft hit You All Everybody doesn't turn up, but that would have been rather out of place...) The liner notes helpfully indicate which episode each track belongs to, though there is no description beyond that; to help you get your bearings if you can't put your finger on which scene goes with each composition, I highly recommend the Lostpedia.com entry on the soundtracks. The article about the show's musical themes is also illuminating, albeit slightly more geared toward those with some background in musical theory.

LOST is an intense series, so it's no great surprise that much of the soundtrack focuses on feelings of urgency and distress. The monster, or at least the threat of the monster, seems to turn up a lot, most impressively in Run Like, Um... H***?, which has low pounding percussion to signify Smokey and a swift, panicky melody representing Kate, Jack and Charlie's frantic escape, and Run Away! Run Away!, a similar but considerably shorter track in which the monster pursues Boone and Shannon. Lostpedia identifies five tracks as "action"-oriented and another four as "suspense," but I would say notes of peril creep their way into at least half of the tracks, sometimes blasting in out of the blue at the conclusion of an especially stirring reverie. Percussion (often incorporating unusual objects) and bass trombones are the instruments most frequently used in association with the direst moments, though shrieking strings also come into play quite a bit as well.

I don't know what went into the naming of the tracks, but I get a chuckle out of perusing the list, which is full of punny titles such as The Eyeland (Jack waking up disoriented in the jungle - the first track aside from the whooshing 16-second main title); Crocodile Locke (establishing John's wilder side); Thinking Clairely (a refreshing piano-driven melody that reflects the character's innocent tenderness, and one of only two unabashedly cheerful tunes on this album); Locke'd Out Again (capturing John's anguish at his lack of success with the hatch, followed by euphoria as he seems to receive divine affirmation); and Booneral and Shannonigans (which flow neatly into each other as Shannon comes to terms with the consequences of Boone's alliance with Locke).

I love the action-packed tracks, which so wonderfully illustrate the idea of pursuit, mystery and danger, but I'm rather inclined to copy the emotionally-heavy tracks onto a separate CD so I can listen to them as I fall asleep without running a high risk of nightmares. The most lullaby-like tracks include the gorgeous Credit Where Credit Is Due, in which post-hero-mode Jack wanders among his fellow passengers after the most immediate danger is over; Just Die Already, which elegiacally accompanies the slow decline of Jack's first on-Island hopeless case; Departing Sun, which has Sun, in a flashback, torn between desire for a new life and the love that first drew her to her husband; We're Friends, which gently conveys a confused Claire's blossoming trust of Charlie, the newfound friend she doesn't remember; and Parting Words, the second-to-last and second-longest track, in which violin and piano alternate as the castaways give the voyagers on the raft a heartfelt send-off rather reminiscent of Lord of the Rings' The Grey Havens.

Speaking of Howard Shore's score, though, the top reason this is a must-own album is because it contains what I would consider the show's main theme, the one melody that invariably provokes a strong emotional reaction and that is all but guaranteed to resurface dramatically in the series finale. Lord of the Rings had many evocative motifs, but the one that seemed to me the strongest was In Dreams, given end-credits lyrics in Fellowship of the Ring but generally expressing itself instrumentally in moments of deepest grief or most heartfelt friendship. Life and Death is Giacchino's crowning LOST achievement, so deceptively simple but so incredibly powerful. Achingly tender and wistful, it has a tendency to turn up in the show's most emotionally gripping moments.

The theme appears twice on this soundtrack before its most famous incarnation in track twenty, the one that gives it its name, as it accompanies the long-awaited birth of Claire's baby and the simultaneous first death of a major character on the show. It's a very slow, basic melody with great potential for subtle variations. Piano and violin, complementing one another and alternating in prominence, are the piece's main instruments, but there's a hint of guitar in Win One for the Reaper, which introduces the theme as Jack stumbles upon the caves, wherein lie the remains of the Island's "Adam and Eve," who seem more and more likely to be characters we've met. I was pleasantly startled by the presence of the harp in Charlie Hangs Around, in which the young rocker's apparent death gives way to celestial euphoria as tenacious Jack yanks him back from the brink, and was impressed by the way the violins in the final and longest track, Oceanic 815 (in which the passengers board the plane and glance around them, not realizing they will soon know these people intimately), take the melody in a different direction while the piano underpinnings keep us grounded in the now-familiar theme.

Giacchino certainly knows both how to tug at our heartstrings and get our adrenaline pumping. With just about every track on this album inspiring grief or fear, then, I've Got a Plane to Catch is a giddy surprise. I laughed aloud when it started playing because it's just so different from everything else, so unexpected. It's a groovy guitar jam that's billed on Lostpedia as an "adventure" track; there's a sense of urgency, but it's peppy and light as Hurley goes to Herculean efforts to overcome all obstacles and ensure he's on Flight 815 so he can get back to Los Angeles in time for his mom's birthday. This is not a life-or-death situation, and it's an awfully nice change to have someone running to something he thinks is good instead of running from something he's sure is bad. There's a tropical flavor to this track reminding me that LOST is filmed in Hawaii, while the prominence of guitar seems to foreshadow Hurley's deep friendship with Charlie. And when the accordion gleefully kicked in, perhaps in homage to Hurley's association with Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack (Chicken Dance, anybody?), I dissolved into giggles.

So I'll leave it on that happy note, even though it's atypical. If you can't get enough of this show, invest in the first soundtrack and go from there. Thanks to Giacchino's genius, it's very easy to get LOST in this music.