While I'm reminiscing about Tin Cans fun (amazing vinyl now in the yard sale at jonahmatranga.com while they last!), can't forget the surreal use of Job's Eyes in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, s1e6, right after the hyena-kids eat the school mascot piglet. They really let it play for almost 2 minutes, with no dialogue?!?
Also, the fact that my forever friend Steven Smith is somehow in the SAME EPISODE really does my head in, in the best way.
Enjoy the clips (presuming the machines don't censor them somehow) 🤓
Also this, from Alone Rewinding (a book I wrote about all this amazingness):
"I was working at home when I got a call from someone, asking if I’d heard of a movie called Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I made a joke about Luke from 90210. The voice said they were calling from the WB network, and that they were working on a TV show based on the movie, and would Far want to have a song in it. I laughed. Doane’s dad worked in the industry a lot, and I figured it was one of his buddies making fun. I played along for a while. The guy’s sincerity and enthusiasm never waned. At some point, I started getting tired of the back-and-forth, and I asked him straight out if he was for real. He sounded hurt by the question, and I started to think he might be, but I still wasn’t sure. I told him to send any paperwork to Gail, and that they could use any song they wanted to…
The Buffy thing turned out to be real after all. We got a call letting us know that our music would be somewhere in the 6th episode. I wrote it down on the calendar. We all took a break from practicing, and gathered around a black-and-white TV in the Rocket Shells lobby, to see what would happen. The show was as corny as I’d imagined. Buffy’s high school took a field trip to the zoo, and the troublemaking bullies snuck into a new hyena exhibit that was off-limits. They were messing with a nerd, and Xander went to help. The hyenas’ eyes glowed red, and possessed everyone. Xander turned into an asshole, and hurt Willow’s feelings. The bullies ganged up on the nerd in dodgeball. Then they got hungry, and ate the new school mascot. It was a piglet. The show went to commercial, and when it came back on, we heard ourselves.
It was Job’s Eyes, a song I’d written for a childhood friend who had committed suicide. Mark had been working in a high-pressure finance job, and was trying to learn to meditate to help with the stress. His father knocked on his door, and when Mark didn’t answer, his father came into the room. Mark was sitting still, not responding. He didn’t come out of whatever state he was in until his dad touched his shoulder. He started thinking he was hearing G-d’s voice. The voice told him to walk. The police would find him trudging along the side of the freeway, miles from home. His parents sent him somewhere to get help, but Mark snuck out one night, went into the woods, and hung himself. I thought of The Book of Job, where the guy gets tortured to test his faith. The story had always struck me as sadistic. I wish I’d been able to convince Mark that any voice telling him to hurt himself couldn’t be any god worth believing in.
All of this stuff was drifting through my mind while I watched the TV scene unfold. There was no dialogue, just actors that looked way too old to be playing teenagers, walking in slow motion, trying to look menacing, with this sad, angry song I’d written for my dead friend serving as the soundtrack. I thought
You never know where your ideas are going to go.
The show, of course, went on to be massive, and people still write to me, saying they found out about Far from that episode. When Buffy gets syndicated in places I’ve never been, I still see a little spike on my publishing statements."