#jukebox omens

[thatskindarough]

Detective Aziraphale

[clumsycapitolunicorn]

"I like the song." "Song?" "The music that's playing now." "What music?" "The noise." "That's music?" "I like it."

GABRIEL & BEELZEBUB | GOOD OMENS: EVERY DAY 2.06

[lordroma]

12. Clue Everyday, it's a gettin' closer...

[rainbowpopeworld]

I bet the jukebox just plays Queen’s Greatest hits, Everyday by Buddy Holly, and two songs by Tom Jones

[brenna]

When I dance like I don't care You call me Fred Astaire When I lose myself, there is no one else Who ever sees through me quite like you

[u2fangirlie-blog]

Good Omens Crowley's Sad Bastard Breakup Playlist

After the breakup, every time Crowley goes to drink at the Dirty Donkey pub, across the way from A.Z. Fell's bookshop, the jukebox mysteriously starts playing bitter breakup and sad bastard songs. Songs that aren't on the jukebox play when other songs are selected. It's like some demonic miracle. This also happens on the radio in Crowley's Bentley.

See note after list on song the selection process.

Songs include:

"Pale Blue Eyes" - The Velvet Underground

"I'd Rather Go Blind" - Etta James

"Cry Me a River" - Ella Fitzgerald

"Till the Heart Caves In" - Roy Orbison, K.D. Lang version

"Wicked Game" - Chris Isaak

"Crying in the Rain" - Everly Brothers, a-ha version

"Ain't No Sunshine" - Bill Withers

"It's Too Late" - Carole King

"Nothing Compares 2 U" - Prince, Sinead O'Connor or Chris Cornell versions

"Running Up That Hill" - Kate Bush

"One" - U2

"Crucify" - Tori Amos

"Hallelujah" - Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley version

"Lovesong" - The Cure

"I Don't Believe in the Sun" - The Magnetic Fields

"Love Will Tear Us Apart" - Joy Division

"Blue Monday" - New Order, Orkestra Obsolete version

"Never Let Me Down Again" - Depeche Mode

"Tainted Love" - Soft Cell

"Careless Whisper" - Wham!

"I Thought You Were My Boyfriend" - The Magnetic Fields

"Somebody to Love" - Queen

"Love Hurts" - Nazareth

"Love Stinks" - The J. Geils Band

"One More Minute" - Weird Al Yankovic

Despite himself, Crowley is compelled to visit Maggie's record shop to purchase copies of these songs.

Crowley has been sleazing around the backroom of the bookshop, crying and drinking, under the guise of helping Muriel run the place, but actually he's selling Aziraphale's books out of revenge.

P.S.: “Pale Blue Eyes” reminds Crowley of Aziraphale’s eyes. Every time he plays The Velvet Underground in his car, he remembers the time Aziraphale made a stinky poopoo face and called their music bebop.

P.P.S.: “Till the Heart Caves In.” Aziraphale stole Crowley’s dreams and sold them for dust. He always knew that angel was a bit of a bastard. Crowley remembers meeting young Roy Orbison and suggesting he wear sunglasses. A rock icon was born.

P.P.P.S.: “Wicked Game” reminds Crowley of the time when the bookstore burned down, Crowley rushed in to rescue his best friend Aziraphale but was too late. Later the same day, the M25 motorway was on fire. Then his beloved Bentley was destroyed by fire. To this day, Crowley can’t tell what hurt him more, losing Aziraphale or losing his Bentley, until they were both returned to him by Adam Young. He’s a good lad.

P.P.P.P.S.: “Crying in the Rain.” No one should see a demon cry. Crowley does his crying the shower. Earth rain showers, even thunderstorms, are also cathartic for crying in, unlike the swampy, wet bits of the fifth circle of Hell.

P.P.P.P.P.S.: “Nothing Compares 2 U” reminds Crowley of the times he and Aziraphale dined at the Ritz. Well, now he can eat at any fancy restaurant he wants without Aziraphale. Only now the food tastes bland and the drinks taste flat.

P.P.P.P.P.P.S.: “One.” This achingly beautiful song about relationships feels like a knife in the heart and punch in the gut. “We get to carry each other.” It’s too true. It hurts. F*** that angel for leaving him. The song reminds Crowley of his time hanging out with Brian Eno in Berlin in the early 1990s. He had fun running around with the band from Ireland. Crowley and Bono discussed corrupt religious leaders and the writings of C.S. Lewis. He suggested sunglasses to Bono. Then Bono took it further. The Fly, the Mirrorball Man, and MacPhisto were born. The rest is rock ‘n roll history. Crowley is especially pleased with himself for influencing Bono.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.: “Hallelujah.” Crowley remembers helping manifest nebulae and stars with Aziraphale. Crowley was the one who gave the secret chord to David, yet David got the credit for pleasing the Lord. In a rare occurrence for deceased rock stars, Heaven got Jeff Buckley.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.: “Never Let Me Down Again.” Crowley thinks of all the times he and Aziraphale went for a drive in the Bentley. Aziraphale let him down. Curse the wretched, brightly shining stars. Nothing is alright.

P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.P.S.: “One More Minute.” This Weird Al song suggested something, an act of revenge to get closure. Crowley thought about the malt shop Aziraphale liked to go, but then reconsidered arson because innocent people might get hurt.

Note on song selection:

I selected songs that thematically fit with the relationship between Crowley and Aziraphale. This is what I call sad bastard music. What songs would match Crowley’s angry, bitter brooding? What songs would make him laugh? What songs would break him and make him cry? These are all songs that I like. You may not like my choices, so your mileage may vary. You can make your own playlist.

NOTE: Revised 3 April 2024 to include P.S. notes about the songs and the obligatory U2 reference. (I'm not sorry.)

NOTE: Revised 9 April 2024 to include songs by The Magnetic Fields, one of Neil Gaiman’s favorite bands. I must make this playlist pleasing to the co-creator of Good Omens.

You can listen to it on YouTube.

[pasiphile]

>.> Can you say more words about GO2

Oh, I can, but they're not very nice words.

While I had my issues with the first season, the second season is just so... bafflingly bad? Like, so strangely bad. Plotwise it feels like something written by a beginner. Like for some reason they've given a huge budget to some mediocre fanfic. There are just so many instances where they obviously had to get from point A to point B and just made up a quick shortcut without thinking too much about the implications or it, you know, making sense. Some of it is because of the honestly strange decision to let other writers take care of the flashbacks, with the worst contender the WWII flashback (zombies exist now? with no repercussions? so much gratuitous gore? Also the whole sequence with the gun would be so dramatic if, you know, demons actually died instead of being discorporated being nothing but a minor administrative setback). But it's also there in the main plot. Fire extinguishers work against demons for some reason? Aziraphale goes all the way to Scotland and back to learn basically nothing? The whole contrived romantic subplot with Nina and Maggie? The fucking Gabriel/Beelzebub thing? It's all either so heavy handed or just plain lazy. And I'm all for suspension of disbelief but if it's just one thing after another...

To me it feels like the basic plot of the whole second season could've over and done with in half an episode, and they just put in filler after filler to fluff it out into a full season where, in fact, barely anything happens.

And it's so odd! I know John Finnemore's work, he's good at intricate little plot connections! And Neil Gaiman can hardly be called an inexperienced writer either! It just feels like they were too lazy to actually bother writing a plot that works.

Meanwhile characterisation-wise, they've gone further on the path they'd already started in season one and wandered even farther away from what made the book characterisation interesting. In the book, Crowley is the nice one, who's generally polite and friendly and very fond of humans, while Aziraphale is, honestly, a bit of a dick and a recluse who prefers not interacting with humans and is 100% down to kill a child if it means he can keep his comfy lifestyle going. Aziraphale accidentally kills a dove and doesn't care about it. Crowley is the one that revives it. It's that kind of contradiction that makes it so fun, and to see that reversed into Aziraphale being a bleeding heart saving-the-poor-humans and Crowley acting all tough and sarcastic really erases a lot of what makes the pairing so charming.

But the thing that bothers me the most is how much they included the Big Conflict between Heaven and Hell. In the books, both Crowley and Aziraphale are low in the hierarchy. You only catch a glimpse of the big players and only at the end. Plus, they're lazy. It's a plot point that they both have human agents to take care of the work for them and that they don't get involved. They're not remotely interested by the overarching conflict or wanting either side to win. The whole point of the Agreement is that they take over a bit of each other's work for ease and convenience. And they're not particularly involved in humanity's welbeing either, and they definitely don't go around saving individual humans. They're disturbed by it, sure, but they don't think about interfering in any way. They only start taking an active role when their comfy lifestyle is threatened. And that's what I like about the whole thing. It's small, in a way. It's contained. Meanwhile the TV series went full out with Hell and Heaven fighting against each other and Crowley and Aziraphale suddenly becoming major agents in that conflict, catching the interest of demons and angels all the way up. It feels very at odds with the central theme and message of the book.

I did enjoy watching it. About 50% for the little things that did work, and about 50% to point and laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

And to spot the Pratchett references, of course. Those were nice.

[macbethheadband]

Stop its so hilarious that taylor swift midnight rain is on that playlist. He wanted it comfortable i wanted that PAIN ,’ndjdjejsjjdjzm x!.!!;’sksjndn

[wilyserpentofeden]

So if you take the pub jukebox from the newspaper Aziraphale was reading that only plays Everyday by Buddy Holly and nothing else, and put it into the Bentley, which turns all songs into Best of Queen after more than a fortnight, which song will it play?

[goosewizard]

if good omens 2 has confirmed anything for me, it’s that gabriel and beelzebub were fucking sloppy and madly in love this whole time

[shadow-manor]

The jukebox selection in the final S2 episode is an interesting mix.

[sassasafreeaction]

Tempted to teach myself how to draw purely because I need a Blue Clue's style Aziraphale with a Handy-Dandy notebook immediately.

[gilmores-glorious-blog]

gabriel and beelzebub are so me-coded when my neurodivergent ass discovers a new song to rotate in my brain for the entire foreseeable future

[cowboycarters]

do you listen to black sabbath?

one of my favorite bands of all time!

[clairedaring]

This record was found on the jukebox. So what? So first it wasn't on the jukebox. It doesn't seem to matter what people in the pub want to listen to, sooner or later every record turns into this. It is, as you might say… a miracle. Ooh. So, I thought I might pop up there myself and investigate!

GOOD OMENS (2023) | 2.02

+ bonus