It’s common knowledge that the Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds song “Red Right Hand” is the hit most associated with the Scream franchise. Still, there was another single that almost made its way into scary movie canon with the release of Scream 2 (1997).
Rather than an unnerving anthem for the villain, this song would have represented the complicated triumph of the hero. As it stands, Scream 2 concludes with Sidney standing tall and walking away from the terrors that had been deployed to exploit and destroy her. She’s accompanied by the song “She Said” by Collective Soul, a beautifully reflective rumination on a life filled with loneliness and regret, one in which truth, purpose and forgiveness is emotively sought.
But, as well as the song fits, it was not the first creative choice for the sequel’s concluding sequence. When Bloody Disgusting recently spoke with Grammy and Peabody Award winning Music Supervisor Ed Gerrard, he recalled how “Bittersweet Symphony” by The Verve almost became a key component of one of horror’s most popular franchises.
Ed explained, “It was the start of filming for Scream 2 and I was in England… one of the things I was going to do is hit all the record companies to see [which artists] they had that would work for the film.”
One company Ed partnered with was multinational record label EMI, an organization keen to become involved in the phenomenon that was the burgeoning Scream franchise.
“[EMI] told me that they had this band coming out but that they didn’t plan on releasing [their single] in America until the fall,” Ed continued. “Well, we were not planning on putting out Scream 2 until then, so we thought maybe there was a way to time it.”
“They played me the song,” Ed recalled, “and it was ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ by The Verve. I’m like, ‘Oh my God, that’s a hit.’”
In partnership with EMI, Ed brokered a deal to obtain the song for the film which would make “Bittersweet Symphony” the first single featured on the soundtrack. The album would constitute the song’s initial release in America as well, all but ensuring wide exposure for the emerging band and robust record sales – this was a few years before the song was featured in Cruel Intentions.
“I rushed back to Los Angeles with a copy of the song and [editor] Patrick [Lussier] was putting the very first scenes of Scream 2 together,” Ed told Bloody Disgusting in our exclusive chat. “He was looking at the final crane shot of Neve [Campbell] walking away from the dorm triumphantly… and I’m like, ‘dude, you gotta hear this.’ [Patrick’s] like, ‘Oh my God, it’s perfect!’ We both felt like [the song] was the perfect way to end the movie.
“The next couple of months unfold and the movie’s put together. ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ is there the whole time. Wes, [the producers], Patrick and I sat with it and… it just blew people’s minds.”
When the song was released in the UK during the summer of 1997, it was a hit and Ed was once again reassured that he had made the right selection. It wasn’t until Ed spoke with a friend in publishing that he first heard the rumor that there may be concerns with the song’s licensing.
He recalled, “[My friend] asked me if I had tried to clear the song. I told her I was doing a deal with [EMI] and that they’re doing the soundtrack as part of the deal. [EMI] gives me The Verve, I give them the soundtrack. She tells me there’s a problem. She says, ‘The Rolling Stones own that song.’”
“I started to investigate it,” Ed continued. “Turns out, The Verve took a sample of a string section, didn’t get it properly cleared and were being sued by The Rolling Stones’ manager [Allen Klein] for the rights to it… and he was notorious, he would not license anything. And I’m going, ‘Oh my God, how am I gonna pull this off?’”
Ed partnered with the studio and reviewed his budget, leveraging his connections and finances in an attempt to secure “Bittersweet Symphony” for the film. “So I got a meeting with Allen Klein in New York. [Allen] tells me he’d heard the first [Scream] was big and I tell him I want to put ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ in the sequel and on the soundtrack.”
After some discussion, Ed received the news he was hoping to hear. Since the song wasn’t a Stones recording, Klein was willing to license it for a hefty sum. They shook hands on the deal and Ed returned to EMI to nail down the final licensing, something he assumed would be a simple transaction as the rights were promised to him months before.
“[EMI] told me they can’t license the song. The band was unhappy about the rights issue and they didn’t want us to license the song with Allen Klein,” Ed revealed. “I’m like, ‘are you kidding me? I did this [soundtrack] deal based on this… it’s one of the biggest movies coming out this year!’
“But they didn’t want to do it. So, we had to take ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ out at the last minute.”
While the creative crew was disappointed that their long chosen song to accompany the closing moments of Scream 2 had to be altered, Ed managed to secure an alternate solution.
“I had to scramble,” Ed recalled. “The song was replaced with ‘She Said’ by Collective Soul… I had it finished two weeks before the movie was in theaters. While it may not have had the same impact as ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, it worked really well all things considered.”
Like “Bittersweet Symphony” itself reflects, our time is interwoven with moments both beautiful and tragic, the two becoming indiscernible through the lens of a constantly churning life. It’s no wonder that everyone involved in Scream 2 might have gravitated toward The Verve’s touching tapestry of life’s harmonic dissonance for Sidney’s finishing ballad.
Still, “Bittersweet Symphony” will never evoke the world of Scream as “Red Right Hand” or even “She Said” does. But it is interesting to consider the song’s merits in a story marred by pain, bloodshed and fear and just how it might represent a journey that amounts to far more than loneliness and regret. The Verve’s now-classic song is an anthem that acknowledges all of those things which comprise the complex emotional puzzle of a life’s experience: the acidic, the honeyed and everything in between.
One imagines that Sidney Prescott, of all people, could relate to that.
The post Bittersweet Symphony: ‘Scream 2’ Music Supervisor Reveals the Song That Almost Ended the Film [Interview] appeared first on Bloody Disgusting!.