Sitcom Saturday: David Schwartz’s Brilliant Music for Arrested Development

Okay I’m almost done watching Arrested Development and one thing that really makes the show is the music behind it- which was composed by David Schwartz.

I feel like without the music and without Ron Howard’s narration- the show would be a little less funny… and I actually think that’s why the show is kind of set apart from the other Mockumentary type shows of the time… and since this came out too.

There are so many little sound bites and so many songs for the show that all really create the atmosphere of the scenes and add a little extra joke.

One sound bite that I really like is whenever Oscar says something that reveals he’s Buster’s real father. It’s this kind of “reveal” sound but it’s also kind of sweet and sad… it’s just the perfect little sound bite… and they even use a version of it for I’m Oscar Dot Com when Oscar is in Prison trying to prove that he really is Oscar and George escaped.

The songs are featured pretty prominently in the episode Making a Stand when they show the slide show with all the different songs from the show. Hot Cops, Freedom, Big Yellow Joint… there are a lot. I just watched that episode and I liked how they had all the songs together in one of the last episodes.

One song I’ve always really liked is when they showed the Michael and Marta storyline and the song “you here with me” plays in the background… it’s a really sweet romantic song that seems like it could be a song played in a wedding.

One song I couldn’t actually find was the rock song that they play a lot in the show. They play it during Ann’s Christian Music Bonfire and I think when they show Motherboy is the first time they play it. The lyrics say something like “if you return” and those lyrics are actually also in the song “Feeling Blue” which is often shown for Tobias. It’s just really interesting that they use the same lyrics for 2 very different versions of the song… and that just kind of adds to the uniqueness of the show and the soundtrack.

I also have to say- I love that even the sound that plays for The Hurwitz Company is from David Schwartz. It all makes sense and it’s really really good.

The only show I can really compare to is Twin Peaks. Angelo Badalamenti did some really brilliant music that made the show so so memorable and added to all the scenes. It felt like that was what was missing from The Return…. But they did play it and it was pretty good when they did.

Okay that is everything I have to say about the music from this show. Sometime soon I will likely watch The Good Place- which David Schwartz also does the music for but it’s not as memorable to me as the music of Arrested Development… so I will pay more attention to it and I’ll do a post on it if it’s interesting enough to do so.

Bye!

-Shan