I was watching A Remarkable Place to Die recently, and the opening scene stuck with me.
The imagery.
The Dead South’s “In Hell I’ll Be in Good Company”
It hung in my head for a while ~ twangy, eerie, toe-tapping tension that floats like smoke.

It doesn’t just set the tone ~ it becomes it.

That got me thinking…

There are certain music cues in TV that don’t just play in the background.
They brand the moment.
They stick in your head.
They drag emotion out of a scene and the feels hang around long after you’ve forgotten the plot.

Here are 8 tracks that made the scene ~
just a quick list of the ones that surfaced first in my mind.

📺 Stranger Things

This one might have some recency bias for me, but it was more than a sync ~ it was a resurrection.

Max is floating.
Trapped. Eyes wide. Terrified.
And then that synth line kicks in.

Angsty, experimental, completely singular.
And now? Kate Bush‘s “Running Up That Hill” (1985) is powering the most emotionally intense scene in the entire series.

“Running Up That Hill” didn’t just underscore a great moment ~ it became a lifeline.
A literal anchor back to safety.
An emotional and sonic escape hatch.

It was eerie and cathartic and pulsing with tension.
And suddenly, kids who weren’t alive when this song dropped are blasting it on TikTok.
(Kate Bush hit #1 on the charts… 40 years later)

🎛️ Credit to music supervisor Nora Felder, who said she nearly lost the placement because the scene was so intense. But Bush watched the scene and gave it her blessing. Because of course she did.

Scene:

Track:

📺 ER

This is THE scene I think of whenever ER comes up, and I doubt I am alone.
You could feel it building — the weight, the goodbye — but I don’t think anyone expected it to land so beautifully.
Sadness, wisdom, emotions on a string…

Then comes Braddah IZ.
That gentle ukulele.
That soft, wavering vocal.
It cuts straight through the clinical setting, floats above the noise, and gently lets it all go.

The story is IZ recorded it in one take, at 3AM, completely unplanned.
Just showed up to the studio, laid it down, and left.

One take.
One moment.
One of the most emotional TV music cues ever.

Scene:

Track:

📺 Breaking Bad

An original narcocorrido that presents the legend of Heisenberg.

Breaking Bad was already operating on a different level.
Creator Vince Gilligan and music supervisor Thomas Golubić consistently elevated every scene ~ but this one?
This was next-level storytelling.

The episode opens with a full-blown music video ~ bright, stylized, and authentic ~ detailing the rise of a mysterious gringo druglord:
“That guy is already dead… They just haven’t told him.”

For a moment, you thought your TV was broken or on the wrong channel ~
then you realized: you’re not lost, you’re in!

It’s brilliant.
It’s world-building through rhythm, myth, and menace.

Scene:

📺 Six Feet Under

The final montage.
The time jumps.
The deaths.
It all lands.

It doesn’t try to shock you. It breaks you slowly, quietly ~
especially when you realize the future deaths start with Ruth in 2025.

The track creeps in with a soft piano line and builds with every goodbye.
No dialogue. Just faces aging, fading, disappearing.

Music supervisors Gary Calamar and Thomas Golubić (again) made an incredible choice here ~
a Sia track from that post-“Destiny”, pre-“Chandelier” era.
Raw. Devastating.

You know it’s a legendary scene ~ and one of the greatest final sequences in TV history ~ when The Simpsons spoof it.

Scene:

Track:

📺 The O.C.

There’s sad.
Then there’s The O.C.~sad.

Seth sails away.
Marissa spirals.
Ryan walks out into the rain.
No one says much ~ they don’t have to.
Jeff Buckley’s voice does the heavy lifting.*

For me, this is the version of “Hallelujah”
And I say that as someone who loves Leonard Cohen and John Cale.
But this moment sealed it.

Alexandra Patsavas (music supervisor) did incredible work on this show.

* Note: This was also before clearing the song became, as Josh Tyrangiel once put it, “a tacit admission that neither the writers nor the actors could convey their characters’ emotions as well as Buckley.” 💀

Scene:

Track:

📺 One Tree Hill

This one snuck up on me.

You’re deep in One Tree Hill ~ the drama’s already high, emotions turned all the way up ~ and then Led Zeppelin kicks in.

Not just a knockoff.
Not a cover.
The actual track.

And it fits. Like, scary well.
(Which makes sense since the producers and editors cut the scene to the track.)

I still can’t believe they cleared it.
Getting Zeppelin in a network TV show in the 2000s was basically a unicorn carrying a pot of gold sliding down a rainbow.
One Tree Hill was the first.
(The Sopranos used a Zeppelin track too, but that’s HBO — not network.)

🎛️ Music supervisor Lindsay Wolfington gives the full backstory ~ the timing, the context, and how it somehow worked.
This interview (skip to 52:42) is a goldmine.

Scene:

Track:

📺 Peaky Blinders

I was already a big fan of Idles and this track ~
all teeth, noise, swagger, and spit.

Then I’m watching Peaky F’n Blinders, and there it is.
Tommy Shelby in the middle of another storm, barely holding it together.
And this track erupts behind him.

The guitars cut like a knife. The drums stalk. The vocals snarl.
Potential energy and chaos ~ and it fits the scene perfectly.

It’s not background music.
It’s a soundtrack for impending violence and bad decisions.

🎛️ Music supervisor Amelia Hartley definitely understood the assignment.

Scene:

Track:

📺 Skins

This one shouldn’t work.

The cast randomly breaks into a singalong during the final montage of Season 1.

It’s 1970 Cat Stevens ~ folky, gentle, a little fragile.
It’s 2007 Skins ~ full-frontal chaos, beautiful rebellion, and the over~glorification of broken youth.
But somehow, this combination lands like a gut punch in soft focus.

There’s chaos.
Heartbreak.
Unresolved everything.
And somehow, “Wild World” holds it all together.

The sweetness of the melody contrasts beautifully with the raw mess of these characters and their lives.
It’s defiant and broken at the same time.
Skins energy, distilled into one scene.

Bittersweet. Defiant. Brilliant.

🎛️ No idea where this idea came from or how it got the green light,
but it turned into one of the boldest, most unexpectedly effective choices in the series.
Alex Hancock (music supervisor) did a great job on the music for Skins.

Scene:

Track: